Video Game / Lost Ruins

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Lost Ruins is an Action/Adventure Survival game and Metroidvania developed by Altari Games, an indie development team based in South Korea. Following a successful campaign on Kickstarter, the publishing rights went to Dangen Entertainment, and the game was released in May 2021 for PC through Steam and GOG, with PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One versions announced for later in the year.

A young girl, known only as the Heroine, wakes up in a dimly lit dungeon without any of her memories. Surrounded by horrible, bloodthirsty monsters, she is rescued by a mysterious magician, Beatrice, who is the guardian of the ruined castle. She explains that the castle has been overrun by forces of the Dark Lady, who is sealed within the castle, and that her followers are the ones who summoned the Heroine forth; to escape, she will have to defeat all of the followers. With Beatrice's help, the girl goes on a perilous journey to find answers and unlock the secrets of the Lost Ruins.

This game summons the following tropes:

• Action Bomb:
  • Walking Mushroom enemies explode in a cloud of spores a few seconds after they're killed.
  • In the catacombs, a Skeleton Bomber can be found that carries around a huge bomb and will explode if the player gets close, something the two zombie girls were unfortunate enough to learn the hard way.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Sadora the Ascetic's first conversation involves one with P in Hardcore Mode:
  "Veritably. The passage you have pursued is the preeminence of perilousness. Pursuing such perturbation is precisely why you'll prevail.
  Take possession of these items. It will render your passage less perilous."
• A.I. Breaker: Sometimes, bosses will just stand in place:
  • Main mode, first phase Rosie, until attacked, even when she's not tired out.
  • Another Side, Another Story mode, first phase Lami, for some reason.
• Another Side, Another Story: Beating the game unlocks a mode in which you play as Kana, Yuri, and Jun, three of the more humanoid bosses, sharing one body after the remainders of their souls were linked together.
• Anti-Wastage Features: The Another Side, Another Story mode's HP restoration pickups won't be used up if you're at full health and touch them.
• Apocalyptic Log: The Heroine can come across various discarded journals during her adventure, such as Lami's Journal, which tells how its writer was abandoned by her friend and left to fend for herself before she turned into a slime monster.
• Arbitrary Weapon Range:
  • Missiles, whether the magic or robotic kind, don't travel the whole room.
• Artificial Human: In addition to a Robot Maid that has to be hunted for Lusty's sidequest, there's also the Heroine, who is a magical construct created by Beatrice to hunt down the uncooperative summoned humans. You also find and fight Beatrice's failed creations on the way to the final battle, who all have the same face as the Heroine, albeit spliced with magic and monster parts.
• Astral Projection: In their first meeting, Yuri tells the Heroine that her frosted glass appearance is due to astral projecting:
  "Foolish fledgling! My evanescent appearance is merely a consequence of astral projection from another realm."
• Big Bad: The Dark Lady sealed within the titular castle ruins, who is directing her followers to free her so she may wreak havoc, until the endgame reveals she is the goddess of the world and a brainwashed pawn of Beatrice, who has been manipulating the Heroine into unsealing her and gaining her power.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the regular ending, Boris the Goblin Merchant helps the Heroine escape from the pit Beatrice leaves her in, and encourages her to leave the ruined castle to live her own life.
• Big Red Devil: All the demonesses in the game are based on the classic interpretation of red skinned devils.
• Blood Knight: Kana, another human the Heroine can meet and assist, loves her katana and can tell the Heroine a story of how she enjoyed torturing a goblin by cutting off its fingers before killing it. Her bloodlust eventually transforms her into a demon.
• Boob-Based Gag: The Chest Monster Mimic boss has the largest bust in the game, as a joke of her being a literal "Chest" monster. She even uses her massive breasts to attack the player, slamming them on the floor to create earthquakes or making her breasts jiggle so that gems fall out of her cleavage. And the player has to damage her by jumping up and attacking her chest.
• Bookends: The first boss fight, against Slime Lami, takes place in a pit and ends with the Heroine realizing she can't climb out, so Beatrice summons a Temporary Platform for her. The final boss fight takes place in a deep ravine, and Beatrice plans to abandon her there.
• Bring My Brown Pants: An item dropped by the first boss, the slime girl Lami, is yellow-stained Striped Panties, which somehow allow the Heroine to use one more piece of wearable equipment.
• Choose Your Own Reward: Finishing Astarte's quest means she offers the Heroine a "just name it" reward. The Heroine asks for information about the Dark Lady's followers that Astarte was clearly hiding before. However, she's not willing to provide what are only guesses and instead gives the Heroine the best bow she has.
• Critical Hit: The Heroine can critically hit enemies (usually by hitting them with their backs facing away from her), and enemies can critically hit them when her back is turned to them. Critical hits do significantly more damage than regular hits and can additionally occur through the use of powerful spells.
• Cursed Item: Elanor the princess ghost's Best Friend and Cursed Scythe, the latter of which is the best weapon in the game (assuming you don't miss your swings) and the former provides you with a virtually infinite source of MP if used right.
• Cute Monster Girl: The game is filled with an incredibly wide variety of monster girls. From slimes, harpies and Spiders to Banshees, bee girls, goblin girls and red skinned demonesses—there's even a cute Cat Girl mixed with a Chest Monster!
• Deliberately Different Description: Two of the Keys are note to "be sure to" of something, but not all:
  Castle Lower Latrine Key: Be sure to return this key to its rightful place after using it.
  Sadora's Secret Alcove Key: Be sure to handle this key with the greatest of care.
  Canal Alcove Key: An ordinary looking key.
• Destructible Projectiles:
  • The Katana can destroy projectiles, as implied by its Flavor Text:
    Its blade can even cleave flying arrows.
  • Shock Wave and the Throwing Ham can knock arrows out of the air.
  • Yuri's skulls can only be destroyed by the Heroine if she uses magic.
• Devil's Pitchfork: The standard demoness enemy, found in the hallway after Kana, uses a trident as her weapon to summon waves of hellfire.
• Discount Card: The Hair Band reduces prices by 20%. Its description claims it's apparently "A charming accessory."
• Doppelgänger: Jun's first Apocalyptic Log is an account of a girl who's been encountering enemies that have been mimicking her specifically, and the boss of the area you find them in is one of these beings while the original's corpse is nearby. In the Another Side, Another Story mode, the "Jun" part of the trio is also a Doppelgänger native to the ruined castle, which is why Kana and Yuri's souls are still trapped instead of returning to their original bodies.
• Double-Edged Buff: Hitting an enemy with the Cursed Scythe gives the Heroine a status that increases her damage with said Scythe given by 60% and attack speed by 1, but also increases the damage taken by 40%, and it stacks up to 4 times, along with all the buff stacks being removed if she misses with the scythe. But, taking off the scythe preserves the buff stacks, not that it has use with other weapons.
• Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: The game loses quite a bit of challenge once you realize that the majority of enemy encounters can simply be run past; since you don't gain levels, most of the time there's really no reason to fight them. But of course that's not an option with the bosses.
• Easy Level Trick: While the first boss is as hard as all the others if fought normally, it's the only boss fought in the water; players who paid close attention game's mechanics up until then will realize that they can just toss a cheap poison consumable into the pool to permanently poison the whole thing, equip something that renders them immune to poison themselves, and wait for the boss to die.
• Elemental Powers: The Heroine can gain and utilize a variety of elemental magic, such as Fireball and Lightning. A major element of combat is how these elements can mix; for example, burning away dangerous acid, or electrifying an entire water basin.
• Enemy Summoner: Goblin Shamans can summon more goblins to fight.
• Everybody Lives: At the end of the Another Side, Another Story mode, we see all of the people that died in the ruined castle had their souls returned to their real-world selves, including Sora & Minji.
• Field of Blades: After the Castle, the Heroine comes across a place with one of almost every weapon stuck in the ground.
• Fiery Redhead: The Treasure Hunter Jenny, a goblin girl with a pickaxe who rivals the Heroine in an optional area.
• Giant Mook: Orcs are giant versions of goblins.
• Hard Mode Perks: In addition to obtaining the Holy Sword without having to clear "Way of the Ascetic" on Hardcore mode, there is an additional scene in the Golden Ending that is only available while playing on Veteran or Hardcore difficulty.
• Harping on About Harpies: Harpies are some of the earliest appearing aerial enemies on the game. They are also the favorite prey of Astarte.
• Heal It with Water: The Purifier equipment regenerates +1 HP while the Heroine has the Wet status, like when standing in water.
• Heart Container:
  • Max HP +5 foods:
    • Mysterious Meat:
      Has a remarkably unpleasant appearance.
    • Guardian's Sausage:
      An appetizingly juicy sausage.
  • The Striped Bra is very defensive, increasing the Heroine's Hit Points to 150% of their initial value:
    A robust and defensive brassiere.
• Hidden Mechanic: Before the battle, if you freeing a goblin hanging in Rosie's room then leave and return the room, the freed goblin is removed from the room, and therefore Rosie can't use them, at least until the room resets.
• Homing Projectile: Some magical attacks from both the Heroine and the enemies, mainly bosses, will home in on the enemy.
• Horse of a Different Color: The Turtle Rider is a spear-throwing goblin girl riding a giant turtle.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Astarte, a demonic huntress that sells supplies to the Heroine, claims that the human-like qualities of the harpies she hunts makes them more delicious.
• Inconsistent Spelling: The game's description on Steam refers to Sora & Minji as "Sora & Mingi".
• Isekai Bonus: As Beatrice points out after checking out the camp, the Heroine is granted power that lets her easily take down a goblin despite being an amnesiac highschooler who shouldn't have such ability. This is represented by the Goddess' Blessing in the Artifacts tab which confers a host of benefits^note gives one item slot, lowers enemy attack power and HP, regenerates 1 HP, recovers HP and MP upon saving, and prevents fire, ice, poison and bleed damage from stacking.
• Lethal Joke Item: The Throwing Ham. It's one of the few ranged weapons you can get with (effectively) unlimited ammunition and no real costs or restrictions beyond the need to retrieve it after throwing it, which is partially negated if you wait long enough. Getting it immediately trivializes most normal enemies, since they tend to be balanced around the danger of approaching them.
• Life Drain: The HP Absorption Orb:
  Summons an orb which absorbs an enemy's vitality and transfers it to the summoner.
• Magic Wand: In the Another Side, Another Story mode, Yuri's Wand reduces ray duration by 30%. What it actually means is that it takes 70% the amount of time it used to, to complete, a.k.a it has sped up, to be 142% the original speed.
• Multiple Endings: The Steam version of the game lists two achievements tied to endings: "The End: Arrive at the end" and "Reincarnation: Discover another ending". The Another Side, Another Story mode also has its own ending.
  • The End: After tracking down Beatrice to the pit where the "Dark Lady" resides and defeating it, Beatrice shows up again to mock Heroine. Due to Heroine's status as an Artificial Human created by her, Beatrice is completely invulnerable, and leaves with the Dark Lady's powers. Boris the Goblin Merchant then helps the Heroine escape from the pit Beatrice leaves her in, and encourages the Heroine to leave the untouchable Beatrice to her machinations and just escape the ruined castle to live her own life.
  • Reincarnation: Same as before, but obtain the Holy Sword. After using the Holy Sword to kill Beatrice, the Dark Lady is revealed to in fact be a benevolent goddess that allows the Heroine to return back to home, but warns that she may die if her other body is dead. The Heroine takes the offer anyways, tired of the ruined castle. Thankfully, The Stinger shown on Veteran or Hardcore mode reveals that she returned safely to her original human body.
  • Another Side, Another Story Ending: After defeating Sadora the Ascetic, the Goddess gives Kana and Yuri the spell to separate from "Jun" and go home, which frees not only them, but the others who were trapped in the ruined castle by Beatrice.
• Mundane Fantastic: The game is set in a ruined castle filled with a variety of monsters, and the Heroine can wield various magical spells to help her fight back. However, there are also vending machines, computers that act as save points, and equipment such as a toilet plunger and a high school swimsuit.
• Neural Implanting: A divine force teaching a spell has a sparkly effect, and its speed implies that the information was magically planted into the recipient's brain.
• No Name Given: The player character, nicknamed and referred to in the game as the Heroine, is never given an actual name, nor can the player choose a name for her.
• Ocular Gushers: The third phase of the Rosie fight is simply her running around the stage wildy swinging her weapons around, tears streaming all around her.
• One-Winged Angel: All of the bosses start out in human-like forms that use rather limited attacks, but once they're beaten the first time, each transform into more monstrous forms that bring whole heaps of new attacks.
• Otaku: Two of the NPCs the Heroine encounters are Sora & Minji, a pair of zombie girls who are absolutely enamored by a K-pop group, referring to its members as "oppa" (a flirtatious term for an older male) and requesting help retrieving a stolen Dakimakura (body pillow).
• Our Banshees Are Louder: Banshees are an enemy seen after Lami's defeat that can literally freeze the Heroine with their piercing screams. In addition to freezing the Heroine for several seconds, banshee screams also inflict a freezing effect.
• The Paladin: Soon after defeating the first boss, the Heroine can encounter Sadora the Ascetic, a large but agile holy warrior. She's also the final boss of the Another Side, Another Story mode.
• Permadeath: The game describes Hardcore Mode as "A truly punishing experience. Once you die, it's all over." True to its name, dying in Hardcore Mode offers only one option: to quit.
• Permanently Missable Content: If the first goblin is in the middle of the room its fought in, instead of at the far end from the Heroine, there won't be a cutscene where she tries to say "Hello" to it.
• Post-Final Boss: Beatrice. She is fought after the Dark Lady. Without the Holy Sword, she doesn't attack you nor does she have to, as she is invincible. Strike her with the Holy Sword, and she will retaliate with magic, but she goes down in two hits.
• Prehensile Hair: The first boss, Lami, has two large pigtails that are also hands, that turn into fists when she attacks.
• Psychic Link: Happens to Kana, Yuri, and Jun in the Another Side, Another Story mode.
• Random Drop: Enemies and furnishings may drop items such as food, or dynamite, respectively.
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl: On her final phase, Lami transforms into a slime giantess and bashfully covers her large breasts whenever she dives into the sewers.
• School Swimsuit: One shows up as an item you can equip that prevents water slowing you down. And yes, it does show on your sprite.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the regular ending, Boris the Goblin Merchant encourages the Heroine to leave the untouchable Beatrice to her machinations and just escape the ruined castle to find ways to enjoy her life.
• Self-Deprecation: When the Another Side, Another Story mode encounters a vending machine, why they still exist is questioned:
  "The creator must have been too lazy to design a merchant NPC."
• Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: Another Side, Another Story shows that somehow, Lusty can speak to the apparently silent Jun.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Yuri says this near verbatim in Boss Mode when Kana and Rosie are arguing about who gets to kill a particular goblin.
  "I’m surrounded by imbeciles. Glorious."
• Summon Everyman Hero: As Beatrice explains it, people (all of them high school girls) are being summoned from our world to be offered as sacrifices to the Dark Lady to unseal her, with the Heroine being the only one to escape the brainwashing part of the summoning. In order to recover her memories, she has to defeat the Dark Lady's followers, them being the summoned girls. This is in reality a lie Beatrice concocted, who was behind the summonings in the first place, corrupted the Dark Lady to siphon her power, there was no brainwashing to begin with and she created the Heroine, who wasn't an actual summon. The point of the summonings was to sacrifice the summoned ones and use their power to call forth the Dark Lady, but since they wouldn't comply and had ample power to resist, Beatrice tricked the Heroine into killing them.
• Shadow of Impending Doom: Sakura petals are relevant as a sign of where the boss drop will happen, in the fight with a sakura tree.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the NPCs the Heroine encounters is an Argonian maid named Lusty who's looking for her master's sausage.
  • The Ninja enemy's appearance and attacks are based on Sub-Zero, and is even internally designated as "SnowZero".
  • One equipment is called the Hockey Mask, its description stating it has blood speckled on it, inflicts a speed debuff on enemies with bleed and has buffs that activate when the wearer is bleeding, and looks identical to Jason Vorhees' own mask.
• Similar Objects, Similar Description: Two of the Keys are note to "be sure to" of something:
  Castle Lower Latrine Key: Be sure to return this key to its rightful place after using it.
  Sadora's Secret Alcove Key: Be sure to handle this key with the greatest of care.
• Slime Girl: In the sewers are red, green, and blue slime girls. The first boss, Lami, is a green one that is utterly huge.
• Snowlems: The Ninja and Samurai enemies are depicted as living snowmen.
• Soul-Powered Engine: In the good ending, although the Heroine's body is a construct, the Goddess reveals that Beatrice had stolen a real human's soul to give her life.
• Spider People: Drider-like Spider girls are some of the tougher enemies one can encounter in the early parts of the game and Heroine eventually fights Jun as a boss.
• Split Mind, Split Powers: The unlockable Another Side, Another Story mode has a Many Spirits Inside of One protagonist, instead of just personalities, transforming between each spirit gives access to the powers of their original body, but can't use all of them at once, meaning that the ability to roll and fit into small gaps, for instance, is locked to one of the three forms, although all three bodies have movement abilities, but only rolling can fit into small gaps.
• Supernormal Bindings: The Final Boss is the Dark Lady with four shackles, which break away when defeated. In the good ending, she reveals herself as the goddess Sadora serves, who Beatrice had imprisoned in the ruined castle to siphon power from.
• Take That!: Some interpret Sadora as a parody of Western female characters; as she is decidedly not drawn in an anime style, is ugly and obese, has a goofy "punk" haircut, and has an abrasive self-righteous attitude.
• Tempting Fate: At the end of the game, Beatrice's taunt that they can't be harmed even if the Heroine "were to possess some kind of enchanted, divine weapon" becomes this if the player obtained the Holy Sword; else, it's just gloating and a hint on how to obtain the Golden Ending.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Boris, an eye-patched Goblin Merchant, keeps getting blasted by Beatrice for his keys only to inexplicably appear again later on. He eventually reveals in the regular ending that Beatrice cursed him to never truly die, as he was her former minion.
• Tomato in the Mirror: In the climax, the Heroine learns that she's a magical creation that just looks human, and never had any memories to lose. Another twist is added in the Golden Ending, as while her body isn't real, she's powered by the soul of a real person.
• Trapped in Another World: The Heroine is an ordinary schoolgirl who was warped to the ruined castle for her potential power. It's stated that this is a common occurrence, and while many of the previously summoned people have already perished trying to defeat the Dark Lady, there are some survivors that the Heroine can cross paths with. In the Another Side, Another Story mode, it's revealed that only their souls were summoned and trapped within humanoid vessels, and they returned to their original bodies after Beatrice's defeat.
• Vague Hit Points: Precise hit point values of enemies and destructible objects can only be figured by guessing and checking.
• Vague Stat Values: Attack speeds have numerical values, but that's only for increase and decreases. Guessing and checking by comparing weapons may reveal what values and what tiers Slow, Slower, Normal, Fast, Faster, Fastest fall.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Mimic's treasure chest, of course. One of her attacks is to bounce gems out of her cleavage at you.
• Villainous Glutton: Rosie, the one who bullies and commands the goblins while also gorging herself on raw meat. As a result, she has a noticeable potbelly. During her battle, she will also eat nearby goblins to restore her health.
• Was Once a Man: After fighting Lami, the Heroine notices that many of the enemies she fights somewhat resemble girls like herself. Although Beatrice claims they're monsters that stole the identities of those they've killed, there are hints that it's actually this trope. The truth is somewhere in the middle; their souls were once human, but were forced into possessing monsters when Beatrice summoned them into the world and their vessels failed.
• Weaponized Offspring: The Spider moms give birth to Spiderlings to attack the Heroine.
• Weapon of X-Slaying: Some weapons are better against certain enemies than they would be otherwise, like how the Club is stronger against goblins.
• Would Hurt a Child: Hostile enemies in the game, Cute Monster Girls or otherwise, have absolutely no problem attacking the player character on sight and until they are killed or the player character runs away, although the player character herself looks like a young schoolgirl.
• You Are Who You Eat: In her second phase, Rosie Hulks Out in the form of a goblin.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the climax, once the Heroine has collected the energy to summon the Dark Lady, Beatrice decides she's no longer of use, and a boss fight ensues against the Dark Lady. After beating it, Beatrice then shows up to mockingly congratulate her before letting the Heroine take a swing at her. Depending on whether you have the Holy Sword or not, she'll either leave after several useless attempts on her life, taking the Dark Lady's powers and leaving the Heroine to follow Boris and live outside the ruined castle...or pride will lead to her downfall as the sword pierces her protections and slays her.
• You No Take Candle: The goblins tend to have a fairly simple speech pattern when compared to most other sapient monsters, even the more humanoid ones, with one notable exception being the intelligent yet brash Jenny.
• Yuki-onna: The boss of the snow-themed second stage is a yuki-onna, which uses a lot of ice-and-snow themed attacks along with spawning the snowlem Ninja and Samurai enemies as flunkies.
• Zero-Effort Boss: If you opened any chest and failed the "Way of the Ascetic" quest, Sadora the Ascetic fights you near the final dungeon. A single swing defeats her instantly. However, by the end of the Another Side, Another Story mode, her goddess has been freed and you're playing as monsters instead of a human, increasing her power and making her a worthy final boss.
• Zombie Puke Attack: Zombie Pukers do this.