May you find your book in this place.
I am writing this review exactly an hour after beating Library of Ruina, having been stuck in the end game of it for the past 4 days. I’ve struggled, lord have I struggled. But despite being incredibly overwhelmed and frankly a bit exhausted from the whole thing, I think it’s only fair that I write my review with all those feelings in mind. So here we go
First of all let me talk about the gameplay without touching yet, on plot or how I feel about it. For those wanting to skip spoilers, this is the part that you can read.
Contrary to Lobotomy Corporation I felt like the gameplay of Library of Ruina was properly explained (up to a point) and easy to follow the first few hours of the game. You are able to get used to collecting books, burning them, building your decks and trying them out pretty easily. That is until the difficulty scale goes up. And Boy, does it go up. Remember this is a Project Moon game? Yes the difficulty scale IS vertical as everyone says.
I was having NO issues with the game up until a certain EGO battle came in. And from that point and onwards the game keeps introducing small but very important mechanics that you’ll just have to read about yourself. And you WILL fail and continue failing if you fail to consider every single small thing that the enemy can stack on you, and if you do not read those passives they will bite you in the ass. That is not to say that this is a horrible thing but it gets overwhelming Fast. Soon your books that have been carrying you the entire time will get wiped in seconds because you have not applied passives (you mean I can’t just mindlessly apply power passives and be done with it? I wondered after failing the same reception for the 5th time.)
Here is a tip for you, if you are reading this and plan on playing this game: do NOT get attached to your pages, your decks and your passives. You are going to be switching all of that around CONSTANTLY. You would think that is obvious but as someone who just sticks with what works until it doesn’t, it was hard for me to accept this. Using my strongest pages only for their passives instead of them being the main page was something that I did not consider most of the time and it fucked me up every time.
If you get stuck, do not worry. We all do. We all have.
Here’s another thing about this game to consider: time. You will spend so much time playing this game. I have spent 2 months and a half playing, and it wasn’t really on and off. I have played many hours of this game, and while I do not consider myself a very good gamer or anything like that, I’m still amazed at the amount of hours I’ve put in the last part of the game.
The game does feel a bit unfair, at times, but it’s also very rewarding when you finally get something done. Frankly if I didn’t give up , I should already be giving it points for that.
But the truth is, I wanted to give up many times. But even then I felt like I couldn’t. Because I was struggling for a reason and that is because I needed to see where these characters were heading and I needed to reach that with my own hands.
Library of ruina is a story about struggling.
The City is an unfair place. How anyone manages to even survive in it is truly a miracle. Everyone is tired, disillusioned, sad and angry. The City is merciless, there is no hope and there is no light and everyone is constantly struggling. In a world where it truly feels like there’s always circumstances to everyone’s actions, circumstances that are unavoidable that are unsolvable because that is simply how it is in the city, where you are only following orders of a higher power to simply survive, where does free will lay? Is it really that bad to care only about yourself when surviving is already a whole ordeal?
Every character that came to the library, those that already lived there and those I already knew their stories, those I didn’t, those I killed. Everyones struggling to break free from the system of the City, to find who they are what they stand for, to follow their will. Everyone has dreams, or things they want to achieve.
Isn’t only fair that I the player struggle with them too?
Many of the characters in the game were flawed, they were angry, they were filled with grief, they were tired. They were human. Are those in the library the villains? Are those who came to the library villains?
All of them were simply human. Simply people who struggled to continue living.
You could call Angela a villain, if you wanted to look at it that way. Surely she is painted like one, isn’t she? Selfish and carrying her revenge. But is she, really? She may not be human in the biological sense, but isn’t the way she’s acting making her one?
Is Roland a villain for wanting to take revenge after the one person he loved was taken away from him? Is he a villain for wanting to carry out this revenge despite empathising with Angela?
Despite my dislike of their methods, and with a new perspective on their story their actions and their consequences, were those at Lobotomy corporation villains? Were they wrong?
Library of ruina is a game about breaking the cycle of revenge, about empathy and compassion, but it’s also a game about people. Simply people. People with compassion and empathy and grief and sorrow.
The two main characters that are more alike than anyone else. Learning to let go not because it didn’t hurt, not because it should be forgiven. But for the sake of healing.
Face your fears, and build a future.
I have many other feelings on this game, but it’s hard to put into words, so I apologize if a lot of that didn’t make much sense.
I loved all of the games characters for their flaws. I talked already a bit about Angela and Roland, but it was amazing being able to see the sephira having grown as they did in Lobotomy Corporation, interacting with each other, and sharing their thoughts and feelings with Angela and Roland. I loved the conclusion, I loved the message and god do I Love the project moon world building, despite it being a bit confusing (I probably should check out their other non game media to get a better idea, maybe I will eventually). I had expectations after Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina did not disappoint at all in terms of story and character writing.
It’s a hard game to recommend, but it is a game I will be thinking about for a long while.
I am writing this review exactly an hour after beating Library of Ruina, having been stuck in the end game of it for the past 4 days. I’ve struggled, lord have I struggled. But despite being incredibly overwhelmed and frankly a bit exhausted from the whole thing, I think it’s only fair that I write my review with all those feelings in mind. So here we go
First of all let me talk about the gameplay without touching yet, on plot or how I feel about it. For those wanting to skip spoilers, this is the part that you can read.
Contrary to Lobotomy Corporation I felt like the gameplay of Library of Ruina was properly explained (up to a point) and easy to follow the first few hours of the game. You are able to get used to collecting books, burning them, building your decks and trying them out pretty easily. That is until the difficulty scale goes up. And Boy, does it go up. Remember this is a Project Moon game? Yes the difficulty scale IS vertical as everyone says.
I was having NO issues with the game up until a certain EGO battle came in. And from that point and onwards the game keeps introducing small but very important mechanics that you’ll just have to read about yourself. And you WILL fail and continue failing if you fail to consider every single small thing that the enemy can stack on you, and if you do not read those passives they will bite you in the ass. That is not to say that this is a horrible thing but it gets overwhelming Fast. Soon your books that have been carrying you the entire time will get wiped in seconds because you have not applied passives (you mean I can’t just mindlessly apply power passives and be done with it? I wondered after failing the same reception for the 5th time.)
Here is a tip for you, if you are reading this and plan on playing this game: do NOT get attached to your pages, your decks and your passives. You are going to be switching all of that around CONSTANTLY. You would think that is obvious but as someone who just sticks with what works until it doesn’t, it was hard for me to accept this. Using my strongest pages only for their passives instead of them being the main page was something that I did not consider most of the time and it fucked me up every time.
If you get stuck, do not worry. We all do. We all have.
Here’s another thing about this game to consider: time. You will spend so much time playing this game. I have spent 2 months and a half playing, and it wasn’t really on and off. I have played many hours of this game, and while I do not consider myself a very good gamer or anything like that, I’m still amazed at the amount of hours I’ve put in the last part of the game.
The game does feel a bit unfair, at times, but it’s also very rewarding when you finally get something done. Frankly if I didn’t give up , I should already be giving it points for that.
But the truth is, I wanted to give up many times. But even then I felt like I couldn’t. Because I was struggling for a reason and that is because I needed to see where these characters were heading and I needed to reach that with my own hands.
Library of ruina is a story about struggling.
The City is an unfair place. How anyone manages to even survive in it is truly a miracle. Everyone is tired, disillusioned, sad and angry. The City is merciless, there is no hope and there is no light and everyone is constantly struggling. In a world where it truly feels like there’s always circumstances to everyone’s actions, circumstances that are unavoidable that are unsolvable because that is simply how it is in the city, where you are only following orders of a higher power to simply survive, where does free will lay? Is it really that bad to care only about yourself when surviving is already a whole ordeal?
Every character that came to the library, those that already lived there and those I already knew their stories, those I didn’t, those I killed. Everyones struggling to break free from the system of the City, to find who they are what they stand for, to follow their will. Everyone has dreams, or things they want to achieve.
Isn’t only fair that I the player struggle with them too?
Many of the characters in the game were flawed, they were angry, they were filled with grief, they were tired. They were human. Are those in the library the villains? Are those who came to the library villains?
All of them were simply human. Simply people who struggled to continue living.
You could call Angela a villain, if you wanted to look at it that way. Surely she is painted like one, isn’t she? Selfish and carrying her revenge. But is she, really? She may not be human in the biological sense, but isn’t the way she’s acting making her one?
Is Roland a villain for wanting to take revenge after the one person he loved was taken away from him? Is he a villain for wanting to carry out this revenge despite empathising with Angela?
Despite my dislike of their methods, and with a new perspective on their story their actions and their consequences, were those at Lobotomy corporation villains? Were they wrong?
Library of ruina is a game about breaking the cycle of revenge, about empathy and compassion, but it’s also a game about people. Simply people. People with compassion and empathy and grief and sorrow.
The two main characters that are more alike than anyone else. Learning to let go not because it didn’t hurt, not because it should be forgiven. But for the sake of healing.
Face your fears, and build a future.
I have many other feelings on this game, but it’s hard to put into words, so I apologize if a lot of that didn’t make much sense.
I loved all of the games characters for their flaws. I talked already a bit about Angela and Roland, but it was amazing being able to see the sephira having grown as they did in Lobotomy Corporation, interacting with each other, and sharing their thoughts and feelings with Angela and Roland. I loved the conclusion, I loved the message and god do I Love the project moon world building, despite it being a bit confusing (I probably should check out their other non game media to get a better idea, maybe I will eventually). I had expectations after Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina did not disappoint at all in terms of story and character writing.
It’s a hard game to recommend, but it is a game I will be thinking about for a long while.