Ruffy and the Riverside Is the Most Frustrating Texture-Swapping Platformer You’ll Ever Love
Hello everyone. Let’s dive straight into the fever dream that is Ruffy and the Riverside, a game that takes one of the most novel mechanics I’ve seen in a while – the ability to literally copy and paste textures – and then crash-tests it into the wall of modern platforming expectations. Spoiler alert: sometimes it sticks, like a badly placed wallpaper, and sometimes it peels off like a discount Band-Aid.
The Premise: Copy, Paste, Panic
You play as Ruffy, a character whose defining trait is apparently having Photoshop powers in a Saturday morning cartoon body. You run, jump, and slap textures onto everything to alter your environment. Imagine Minecraft’s “paint bucket tool” smashed into a budget Mario clone, and congratulations – you now understand the core loop. It’s as chaotic as it sounds, and yes, it will induce the kind of dizziness normally reserved for doctors like me after being on call for 48 hours straight.
Playtime: Shorter Than a Caffeine Rush
Clocking in at about 6-8 hours for the main campaign, Ruffy and the Riverside clearly isn’t here to waste your time. That’s not inherently bad – some games drag on like a political debate where no one’s listening – but here, the brevity feels more like a missed opportunity. Just when you start to enjoy spamming your Swap ability like a kid hurling paint cans in Splatoon, the credits roll. It’s like being kicked out of the amusement park after two rides: fun, but leaves you stranded outside with cotton candy on your shirt.
Optional Content: Collectibles Galore
For those afflicted with the completionist disease – yes, the one I diagnose regularly in gamers on my imaginary medical chart – there’s hope. The game offers a buffet of collectibles, secrets, and achievements designed to pad out your time. Want to swap textures over a thousand times? Great, it’s practically that friend in an MMO raid who insists on looting every single trash mob corpse. You’ll double your time easily if you’re the type to chase shiny things. Personally, I think this speaks more to grind-padding than actual meaningful content, but hey, some people find joy in digital hoarding.
The Gameplay Loop: Frenetic or Fun?
“Frenetic” is the charitable word used to describe Ruffy and the Riverside. Less charitable players might just call it “chaotic nonsense with a side of eye strain.” The Swap mechanic does create clever puzzle-solving moments, though, when it isn’t devolving into texture-spamming for the sake of looking like a conspiracy theorist’s vision board. Sometimes it feels like solving actual puzzles; other times, it feels like fumbling with printer settings at work while everything explodes around you.
Platforms: Everything but Your Fridge
Available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and the new Switch 2 (because Nintendo apparently believes two is better than one), Ruffy and the Riverside is everywhere. Seriously, this thing is omnipresent. Give it another month and we’ll see it pre-installed on microwaves, toasters, and CIA surveillance vans. Conspiracy theory? Or just gaming industry reality? You decide.
“It’s like Photoshop had an affair with a kindergarten texture pack and accidentally birthed a speedrun target.”
Final Diagnosis
Ruffy and the Riverside is the kind of game that oozes creativity but stumbles on longevity. Its texture-swapping gimmick is fresh and clever, yet the short length of the campaign hammers home the sense that this is more “tech demo with whimsy” than fully fleshed-out odyssey. The completionist extras will keep trophy hunters happy, but for most players, this is a snack – not a full meal. Fun while it lasts, but leaves you hungry for more substance.
My verdict? Good idea, decent execution, terrible staying power. Worth playing if you’re curious or love quirky platformers, but don’t expect it to revolutionize the genre or keep you invested beyond a weekend binge.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.
