Video Game Reviews

Ruined King: A League Of Legends Story Review

What I expected: A group of six different champions fighting against a king in a very basic story with no actual stakes besides setting up the Light of Sentinel Event that happened years ago

What I got: Six champions all working together, with some pretty good writing, character redemptions, and a pretty good final boss against the King while also revealing more League Of Legends lore.

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Premise:

Ruined King: A League Of Legends Story was created by Airship Syndicate and published by Riot Forge as part of a several project plan with subsequent releases planned to arrive like Mageseeker, Convergence, and Song of Nunu. Ruined King takes place before The Rise Of Sentinels event that was received when it was completed. Before the game's story began, several events transpired. Miss Fortune dethroned Gangplank as the King of Bilgewater, Yasuo had killed his brother Yone and is trying to redeem himself, Ahri is searching for remnants of her ancestors, Pyke is hunting down Sea Captains, Braum is trying to find the Waters of Life on the Shadow Isles to save his people, Illaoi discovers the rise of the Ruined King, Gangplank's return, and the machinations of Thresh. The game also features an opening cutscene that shows us the Ruined King's origin with him trying to revive his dead wife and failing as she becomes a spectre that kills the Ruined King in the Waters of Life forcing the Ruined King through an endless cycle of life and death until it all releases in the world as the Ruination.

As the game begins, a new Ruination is beginning to be created, and this is first noticed by Miss Fortune when a smaller Ruination called Harrowings comes for her and her new rising empire as she tries to become the Queen of Bilgewater. Illaoi is searching for Pyke: the Blood Harbor Ripper (Badass title in my opinion), and when she confronts him and uses the Goddess: Nagakabourus's judgment on him Pyke is deemed worthy and vanishes. Ahri hired Yasuo back in their homeland of Ionia as Ahri is here in Bilgewater believing that someone has an artifact belonging to her people. Braum washed up on the shore after being ambushed by the specters of the Shadow Isles. After all these events the characters begin to meet each other either at Grey Harbor, on the Sea, or on the Shadow Isles. 

The game all begins to end as Gangplank, fooled by Thresh, releases the Ruined King who plans to unleash a Ruination upon Bilgewater, the six champions gather their strengths and fight against him in a very cool boss fight and afterward, they all go their separate ways. 

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Gameplay:

The gameplay of Ruined King follows a strategy game... kind of.

When in combat the game allows you to control three champions of a total of six, as they all play out on a long timetable of when they can attack each of them comes equipped with three different types of attacks. Normal, Ultimate, and Lane. Normal attacks feature a normal attack, defense, and a third ability that can either be a taunt, another normal attack, or an attack that raises stats for your party or brings down stats for your enemies. Lane attacks are the special abilities of the champions that can be commanded to be in Speed, Balance, or Power, with each of them being able to be used at a specific point. The thing is each of these costs mana which can be replenished if you have potions if you don't there is a stat called overcharge that happens if you use your normal attack to gain more overcharge, if you have enough overcharge the mana cost will not be used and the overcharge one will be used instead. Ultimate Attacks however can only be used via the Ultimate Meter that goes up as you attack or take damage. Each character has three ultimates that need to be unlocked and each consumes either one meter, two meters, or three meters of the ultimate.