At the Friv2Online Showcase, developer League of Legends, as promised, presented projects from different genres that expand the universe and tell interesting stories of beloved characters. But they did not get away with just announcements and, using the tactics of Respawn Entertainment, immediately released a couple of games - the role-playing adventure Ruined King and the rhythm runner Hextech Mayhem. The first will be discussed in this review.

Back in school , League of Legends shamelessly stole months of real time from me, and I still remember some of the champions and their abilities. I didn’t really go into the ENT, but I simply couldn’t get past Ruined King. And did not regret.

This creation is the responsibility of the people who put their hands on Battle Chasers and Darksiders, with graphics drawn by revered comic book artist Joe Madureira.

So, Ruined King is a story-driven role-playing adventure in the League of Legends universe, which invites us to go to Bilgewater and the Shadow Isles - port towns, typical pirate locations. These places are called home by 9 champions of the "League", but we are introduced to Miss Fortune, Illaoy and Gangplank.

The story begins with Miss Fortune's brave liberation of Bilgewater from the tyrant Gangplank - now she must win the trust of other captains and deal with a dangerous black fog that destroys everything in its path. The last phenomenon encourages the prophet Illaoi, whose faith was shaken due to a mysterious event, to go on a long journey.

Ruined King devotes a lot of time to champions - we get full-fledged or "quick" prologues for each, an impressive number of cut-scenes and dialogues voiced in high quality in Russian. Each character has his own motives, goals and character, and even those who are not familiar with LoL will clearly understand this, therefore, a big plus for the filing.

Ruined King is not limited to the listed set of champions - there are a couple more who are not associated with Bilgewater, but I prefer to tactfully keep silent about them. All the cards are revealed on the official website of the friv game, and if you want to endure a little intrigue for yourself, then it’s better not to look there.

In terms of gameplay, Ruined King is an adventure RPG with a tactical turn-based combat system. The scene, as you might guess, was the streets of Bilgewater and the Twilight Isles - the world is not open, but is divided into vast locations that can and should be explored. The friv game zones turned out to be quite rich in details, which fans of the universe will surely appreciate.

It's nice how developers encourage exploration by safely hiding secret quests, caches, keys to them, and other details that can easily slip away. In order not to lose them, you will have to, for example, sing with a random waitress, help an unremarkable bard and take other clues into account. By the way, going down to the pier, you can find that there is fishing here , which has already become the main occupation in MMORPG - it can captivate here too.

While traveling around the world, Ruined King takes on an isometric view , but when we encounter an enemy, we move to a side-view tactical turn-based combat screen. As a fan of this system, I was delighted, because it encourages thinking, combining characters, thoroughly studying their abilities and monitoring the behavior of the enemy.

Ruined King's combat is all right - each character has his own role, which those who have rolled dozens of hours in League of Legends already know about. For example, Illaoi is a support fighter who can heal and deal good damage. Her feature is tentacles that appear randomly and affect abilities. Or Miss Fortune - the famous "carry", relying only on damage. Attacks in battles are accompanied by spectacular special effects, and the animations turned out to be of high quality and smooth.

As befits an RPG, the heroes here gain experience after each brawl, their abilities can be upgraded, and colorful items will make the characteristics even stronger. Skills and items are expectedly taken from League of Legends. Pumping turned out to be diverse and depends on the gamer's style of play - he can make, for example, Illaoi only a healer, go into damage, or balance skills.

In general, this adventure will take you 10-20 hours on medium difficulty, depending on how you explore the world. The friv game does not force you to grind, like the same Battle Chaser, the plot moves quickly, and you never stop enjoying the beautifully drawn cut scenes.

The friv game also has a couple of minor drawbacks. The first is that the optimization is a little lame , which is why I had fps drops in the transitions between locations and battles. The second is a somewhat inconvenient map, which makes it difficult to find quest markers. The third is the illusion of choice in the dialogues (it sometimes occurs here). Conversations, despite several answers, lead to one outcome. But these are trifles.

As a result, Ruined King is a great role-playing adventure with a well-developed tactical combat system. Although the friv game is aimed at LoL players, it should also appeal to those who love thoughtful, leisurely hero battles that are revealed at a high level of difficulty. I hope that Riot will continue to move in this direction and will please us with the same pleasant surprises more than once.