Ruined King / YMMV

Awesome Art: The comic-style cutscenes are striking, simple and stylish, prominently utilizing vibrant colors and awash in gorgeous and evocative imagery.
Broken Base: While the game itself is widely well-regarded among League fans, there are some divisions over its writing.
- The number of elements Adapted Out and cut off due to Viego being defeated earlier is either a necessity due to the Release Date Change, or a shame considering how large-scale the potentially apocalyptic scenario of the main canon was. Whether the Adaptation Expansion of the story around Bilgewater makes up for it or not is also a division.
- The true nature of Viego and Isolde's relationship as Domestic Abuse, as presented by the game, is either a fitting outcome considering Viego is a Royal Brat and an Entitled Bastard already, or a Flanderization of his existing flaws that downplays the tragedy that defines him. Whether he maintains his status as a pitiable villain despite this Adaptational Jerkass treatment or it establishes a harsher direction for an otherwise wishy-washy character is also a debate, as is which direction would be better^note.
- The sequence at the game's end where Miss Fortune burns down a tavern of people just for flying Gangplank's flag is either a chilling and compelling direction to take the character, that expands on her pre-existing ruthless traits and makes sense considering her arc about fearing she'll become what she sought to destroy, or retreading old ground^note in a way that derails her characterization and makes her entire arc pointless. This is not helped by her eyes glowing blue, implying she's supposed to be influenced by Viego at this point— which is never expanded upon.
Game-Breaker: Out of the six party members, Pyke is the deadliest one. He's supposed to play as a Glass Cannon, but his passive doesn't cripple his health enough to compensate for his ridiculous attack damage, meaning he can have a surprising amount of health. This lets his truly obscene damage output shine through, to the point where he can kill Viego with little effort if set up correctly. His Plunder skill in particular is ridiculous, as if it kills a foe it grants you increased Gold and can be upgraded to do things like heal your party on kill, ensuring that you'll be perfectly healthy in between Rest Points if you let Pyke land the killing blow.
Improved Second Attempt: Between less time spent on controversial elements, a tighter story focus and cast of characters, and a firmer tone, it's widely agreed that Ruined King is a far better take on the tale of the Ruined King than Rise of the Sentinels and many wish that it, alongside the Salvaged Story preque Ruination, be treated by Riot as the canon version of events.
Spiritual Successor: To Airship Syndicate's previous RPG, Battle Chasers: Nightwar, with the two games using very similar mechanics.
Tear Jerker: The fact that, when Isolde runs him through in the opening, Viego is still smiling and that, even as she floats away and leaves him for dead, he's clearly not even mad— he may be a madman and a villain in the modern day, and a horrible and abusive husband in the past, but his visibly confused and wounded face is hard not to pity. For all his faults, all the Ruined King wanted was to see his wife one last time.
That One Boss: The early bosses aren't too bad, but Maokai is the first boss of the Shadow Isles and is an early indication that the game is done messing around. Maokai has a ton of health and regularly applies an 80% damage mitigation buff that can only be broken by both Speed Lane and Power Lane attacks, and coupled with his Sap Magic passive healing him every few turns, he takes a while to go through. If that wasn't enough, he hits pretty hard too; Bramble Smash deals a ton of damage and Sapling Toss spawns mobile bombs that deal even more damage. You can't target or kill Saplings, either. Both Bramble Smash and Sapling Toss inflict Entangled, which slows down your champions and is very crippling in the turn-based system the game uses. If that wasn't enough, he has a nasty surprise in Nature's Grasp, his own Ultimate, which stuns your whole party and does pretty sizable damage. Luckily, you do have Pyke for this fight, but that's the only saving grace.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- The idea of the heroes making Viego realize that he was a toxic husband and have a Heel Realization through his memories is an interesting one that arguably adds to the tragedy of the character, since it underlines how twisted his "love" is— unfortunately, despite teasing it, the game's resolution means that Viego never actually has this realization onscreen.
- The game's stingers both imply they're meant to tie in to the Sentinels of Light event which, thanks to a severe Schedule Slip, had already happened at the time and left the game in Canon Discontinuity. Unfortunately, the ending showing Fortune's eyes glowing blue implies she's being influenced with Viego— the way this plays out in the main game is unfortunately quite different.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The opening of the game is extremely vibrant and beautifully-animated, each character fully detailed and the settings absolutely gorgeous to look at.
Unexpected Character:
- The main champion roster of Ruined King drew lots of surprised reactions upon announcement. While Miss Fortune and Illaoi were expected to a degree based off the Bilgewater/Harrowing setting, no one had expected in great capacity Yasuo and Ahri (who were last seen traveling together in "Kin of the Stained Blade" for an unknown purpose), and no one was expecting the official reveal trailer to introduce Braum all the way from the Freljord (a region on almost the entire opposite of the continent, and a very insular one that has little to no other regional interactions), nor Pyke on the side of the heroes to fight the Ruined King.
- Come the game's actual release, nobody was expecting Maokai, a fairly overlooked champion by Riot (especially by Shadow Isles standards compared to Viego and Thresh), to appear as a boss and a decently prominent supporting character, especially since he was completely absent from the Ruination event.

YMMV / Ruined King

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