The story found in Ringlorn Saga is an interesting one. The story revolves around Prince Gerhard the Brave, as he embarks on a quest to investigate a mysterious barrier that’s suddenly appeared in the neighboring land. In addition to this mysterious barrier, he also must investigate the strange disappearance of his father.
This narrative strays a bit from the standard story of RPGs of this type, it’s not as cookie-cutter esque and I find that rather refreshing. I got into the story thinking that it would be very cut and dry and rather predictable. I am glad that the story greatly exceeded my expectations and it made the game rather enjoyable to play, but that’s about the only thing enjoyable about the game.
Ringlorn Saga is a rather interesting game that takes a lot of ideas and aspects from PC games of the late 80s and early 90s. Specifically Japanese games of this era which is a nice departure and a bit different from what a lot of us may come to expect in an RPG.
Once you take control of the Prince, you find yourself in a town and set off on your journey. Monsters will spawn once you leave town and both the player and monsters will move in real time, the later moving around in a somewhat random pattern. Once you encounter an enemy, they will come after you and you will have to defeat it and be strategic about it. You have two different attacks that you can swap between on the fly at any point. You also have to swap between offense and defense. It’s this combination of attacks and the position of offense and defense. that will be your strategy when it comes to every single battle you get into.
Aside from the world map that you traverse and dungeons you explore much in the same way as the world map, there are also towns to visit. The issue with the towns are that there isn’t much you can do in them. There will be the occasional vendor selling equipment, and some NPCs you can speak with that are wandering around the town and in some cases all are stationary within the town.
The lack of town exploration and the sparseness really makes the towns in this game feel empty and lifeless. Now I’ve never played Japanese PC games of which this game is based around, so this may be a product of the times, but it comes across as kind of lazy by today’s standards when it comes to role playing games.
Because Ringlorn Saga takes heavy inspiration from PC games of a bygone era, don’t expect the best graphics one could ask for because you won’t find that here with this game. What you will find however is a game that has some decent animation, all be it rather stiff looking at times. As contradictory as this may sound, let me explain.
The animation of the enemies you encounter are really fluid and nice to look at, even when you’re fighting for your life. The stiffness I am speaking of is entirely with the NPCs you find in the towns you visit. They either stand in place like living statues or they have very stiff and almost robotic movement when you find the few that do wander around the towns.
With this game being based on an old school PC game from the 80s, how does this perform? Well it performs as one would expect. I mean there isn’t anything here that is going to make you be in awe of the graphical capability of the Switch. I mean, it’s meant to resemble a PC game from the 80s. It looks pixel perfect for a game that is period accurate for what it’s trying to portray.
Ringlorn Saga has about as much charisma in the audio department as it does in the graphics. That’s not say that the music here isn’t good, because it most definitely is. I mean it’s rather pleasant to listen to and the attention to detail is appreciated. But much like the graphics, the music is period accurate. It’s not a grand modern sound track, but rather a period accurate one that sounds very crisp and clean. I am glad that they didn’t decide to go the extreme to make it sound rough and harsh like one would typically expect when games try to be period accurate.
The music and sound effects in this game are good and sound nice. It does a good job of representing what the game is trying to go for and that’s definitely appreciated.
Ringlorn Saga is a game that I really wanted to enthusiastically recommend and enjoy; but I didn’t and I can’t. Does it do a good job of trying to be a modern take on Japanese PC games from the late 80s? Yes, it does do this and does it extremely well. The biggest issue I have with this game is the combat, that’s really it. The constant switching of attacks and stance, combined with how brutally difficult the enemies are, is the really the biggest reason I can’t recommend this game.
If it had a better combat system, I would say definitely pick this game up. If you’re a fan of RPG games, stay away from this one; unless you want a slow and difficult experience.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.