Lost Ruins
But why schoolgirls?
Why
- Extremely varied approaches to combat, almost immersive sim-like
- Detailed, dynamically lit pixel art
- Clearly a lot of care and attention to detail
Why Not
- You will feel the need to google 'how to hide games from my Steam friends'
- Seriously, the devs are just too goddamn horny
Impressions
Lost Ruins has a lot of interesting ideas, from realistic interactions between the elements and various aspects of the environment to survival-horror like item scarcity and lack of healing at checkpoints. The combat is just solid gameplay-wise but really shines in terms of the different approaches you can take, with some trivializing certain enemy types while others make them near unbeatable if you fail to adapt.
Bosses take advantage of this freedom in combat, each having multiple phases which present different challenges and can be cheesed if you're creative with the tools at your disposal. For example you fight the first boss in water, and can equip a swimsuit which makes you immune to electricity while using the water to conduct your short-range electrical spell to always hit.
Visually I'm ambivalent about the game; in terms of fidelity it's great, the pixel art is detailed and there's some cool dynamic lighting you don't often see in 2D side-scrollers. Backgrounds are also great in outside sections, and each biome has its own vibe with plenty of location-specific details. However it's hard to ignore that every single enemy is 'what if enemy archetype x was a scantily clad woman', reducing the ability to play this game anywhere near your wife/girlfriend to near 0. And some of the boss reward items are... not ideal in the context of the protagonist/bosses being schoolgirls.
If you can look past the horniness of the devs though, Lost Ruins has a lot going for it gameplay wise and doesn't overstay its welcome. You an finish it in ~6 hours and there's interesting-looking postgame content, including the ability to play through again as 3 of the bosses you defeated with a Trine-style switching mechanic. Definitely worth a try if you like having multiple approaches to combat and quality pixel art.