Reclaiming a Kingdom with a Single Knife: Playing Rubinite to the True Ending on Hardcore Mode

The protagonist is Ruby, the sole surviving princess of the Scarlet Kingdom. The kingdom has been taken over by a witch. Rescued in the forest, Ruby learns how to survive at a base camp and, together with her mentor, the hunter Roy, and a lizardman well versed in magic, sets out to reclaim the kingdom.

According to the player, the game bills itself as a 2D boss-rush action game and is built so that tough boss fights come one after another. That is exactly why, the player says, the base-camp scenes between battles are so soothing. After the first boss is defeated, the video shows a scene in which Roy turns out to be a surprisingly good cook and everyone gathers around a pot to eat soup.

The basic combat system is explained during the fight against the first boss, the Beast. Ruby dodges enemy attacks while slipping in close. She uses her eyes to spot the enemy's weak point, builds up a gauge with perfect dodges, and once it is full, delivers a powerful thrust. Repeating this to whittle down the enemy's health is the basic flow.

The following fight against Guardian Fay shows more detailed tactics. Fay launches several swords floating in the air. Parry the incoming swords, dodge the big swings, and land a thrust with the gauge fully charged, and the enemy goes down. While it is down, follow up with normal attacks. The player cautions, however, that you cannot dodge immediately in the middle of an attack animation, so you need to read the gaps between enemy attacks and slip your hits in.

After the fight with Fay, it turns out that the castle entrance is sealed, and the seal can only be broken by defeating the bosses in each region. From here, the boss hunting continues for a while.

The player describes the Priest of the Heavenly Nest as troublesome from the midpoint of the fight onward. When the enemy glows purple, that signals a grab attack, and slashing at that moment lands a counter. A while into the battle, the enemy starts to swell, and a new crow emerges from its large mouth, so you end up facing two at once.

In the player's view, however, the two share a health pool, so it doesn't matter which one you hit. The numbers (marks) above their heads also seem to build up separately, so having more targets to hit is actually an advantage, the player says. Sure enough, once enough marks had built up, a thrust finished it off.

The Gravekeeper, fought in the kingdom's old burial ground, is a troublesome opponent that moves around with every attack. You chase after it to match its rapid combos and make sure to secure the perfect-dodge timing. What the player stresses here is that if you mix in normal attacks, the recovery after the third hit of the combo is long. Mash carelessly and your dodge will almost never come out in time, the player says. When the enemy leaps up and glows red, throwing a needle in that direction counters it and knocks it down hard. After that, the player dodged a three-hit combo and finished it with a thrust.

In the hideout of the Heavenly Nest cult, a large egg sits atop a suspicious magic circle. It seems that secret rituals were held there every night, and the egg may be their product. Pushing the egg into the fire reveals what is inside, and the fight against the Martyred Angel begins. This boss can only be damaged while its body is out of its shell. After a while it retreats back into the shell, so you have to rack up damage while it is exposed.

During this fight, the player explains the relationship between the story's lore and the game system. As depicted in the opening movie, the power source of the monsters overrunning the kingdom is called "Pureblood Crystals," and they are made from the eyes of the Scarlet family. That is why only Ruby, who has the same mysterious eyes, can precisely target and destroy the enemies' Pureblood Crystals — that is the logic.

On the system side, you can only direct your gaze at enemies while "focusing" with the R2 button, and marks are applied over time and through perfect dodges. On the other hand, focusing restricts your field of view and your attacks. The player therefore explains that their approach is to attack normally without focusing most of the time, and to focus only at the moment of a dodge.

In the fight against the Source of the Plague, held in the old sewers beneath the castle, the equipment system is introduced. The game has a system for equipping items to add abilities, and the player went in with a charm that scatters bombs on perfect dodges and a charm that builds marks with normal attacks. Because this enemy has a lot of hitboxes, the charms work especially well, the player says, adding that experimenting with builds is one of the game's pleasures.

The boss is a large worm that splits into two when cut. You cut it into ever smaller pieces, and once all of them are eliminated, the boss is defeated. The part that can be hit is the black section of the head. While focusing, go for perfect-dodge timing, and as soon as the marks build up, crush it with a thrust. First defeat the smaller one, then cut the remaining one as well, and while it is stationary, layer on normal attacks to build marks. When it starts moving, finish it with a thrust. The player took out the last one calmly, watching out for the poison gas.

Once the four are defeated, the eyeball embedded in the castle gate is crushed and the seal is broken.

With the seal on the castle gate broken, Ruby heads there alone, separately from Roy. It is a rematch with Fay, who got away last time. The first half plays out almost exactly as before, the only difference being an added move that throws purple projectiles, and the player says it is not an opponent that should trouble Ruby at this point. The player adds that in games like this, having the same boss reappear is nice because it lets players feel their own improvement.

In the second half, you pound the enemy with normal attacks while it is slumped over, and when it glows red and leaps, you throw needles to shoot it down. Partway through, it unleashed its trump-card big move, but a grab followed right after, so the player was able to evade it with invincibility frames. After that, the player knocked back the purple balls, countered the grab, and wore it down with thrusts and slashes.

On top of the castle walls, a suspicious knight appears. Fill the marks to the max and defeat it with a thrust, and the boss's true form emerges from inside the knight. This time the boss was the Ghost, which possesses corpses.

With each attack, the Ghost vanishes and moves stealthily, either attacking out of nowhere or possessing another fallen knight. According to the player, with luck you can sometimes defeat it easily without it possessing anything, but this time the player drew the pattern where it repeatedly possesses knights. In that case, the only option is to carefully wear down each possessed knight. There are different types of knights, too, requiring responses such as dodging a quick swing and then evading a slower thrust.

Once the first half ends, the floor is engulfed in a frenzy and the second half begins. Its movement until it possesses a knight is the same as in the first half: it floats around evasively and occasionally attacks. In the second half, however, the possessed knights' attacks are greatly powered up. For example, with the greatsword type, flames spread where the second swing lands, so the player explains that you should go for your thrust after the first swing.

From here on, the fights are against new bosses added in this route. Taking a detour to the basement of the base camp and touching a mysterious corpse starts the fight against the Crimson-Eyed Great Tree.

First, you dodge the fierce attacks unleashed from the surrounding roots. The player says that if you use normal attacks too, this boss goes down in an instant, so they deliberately chose to fight calmly using only dodges and thrusts. Because marks build up over time as long as you are focusing, the game properly provides opportunities for thrusts even with a defensive playstyle. The player praises this point as "well made." In the second half, the eyeball in the center fires an extremely thick beam, and the player dodged it while slipping in thrusts between attacks to defeat it.

Crossing the castle walls and advancing into the castle, Ruby is suddenly attacked by her mentor, the hunter Roy. It is suggested that Roy, too, has been using Pureblood Crystals to sustain his body, and that the witch may have exploited this to control him.

As befits Ruby's mentor, his fighting style is very straightforward, the player says. The basic approach is to catch his charge attacks with perfect dodges. Here the player mentions that Ruby, being skilled at sewing, can also attack at range with needles. Since there had not been many chances to use them so far, the player's plan was to throw a lot of them in this fight. In the second half, Roy also makes heavy use of ranged attacks. The player dyed the needles in hand with the blood spattered by thrusts and slipped ranged attacks through the gaps in his offense.

In this fight, Roy also uses focus, so marks build up above Ruby's head as well. The player praises this as a nice touch, but candidly admits that since fights usually end quickly, they don't really know what happens when the marks fill up completely. The player wrapped up this fight in the spirit of "let's beat him before something scary happens."

When Ruby finally makes it back inside the castle, the Puppeteer appears before her. The Puppeteer uses strings to control Ruby's mother and make her fight. In response, the player takes a pragmatic view: the mother is already dead, so there's no need to hold back.

The key tactic is that by fighting from a particular position, you can apply marks to both at once. Throw needles to knock the mother down and land a thrust on her as well. Counter the grab attack that follows, and finally, dodge the hand chop and deliver the finishing thrust.

At last, Ruby reaches the witch. The witch is skilled in illusion magic and apparently intends to cover the entire world in illusion to create a utopia.

The final boss, Witch Alcina, switches among multiple weapons, including a large scythe as well as a greatsword and a flail. Each strike leaves a big opening, so the player responded by throwing needles in those gaps. Holding the button lets you stock up several needles at once, so the player charged them up while dodging and then hurled them all at once.

When the BGM changes, the second phase begins. A ring of fire appears that gradually expands, so you need to break off your attack at a suitable point and move inside the ring. If you wait a while, a counter opportunity comes, but if you dawdle, she deploys the flames again, so you need to drain her health quickly.

In her final form, the witch's goal is revealed. It is said that holding a Pureblood Crystal up to the "Bloody Moon," which comes once every few hundred years, grants limitless magic power, and the witch intended to use that power to rewrite the world into her ideal form. The witch's tragic backstory is also told in fragments here and there throughout the story. Even so, the world can't just be rewritten at her whim, so the player kept fighting and finally defeated her with a finishing thrust.

The witch's plan is thwarted and the kingdom is reclaimed. The player cites the carefully crafted graphics, the music that heightens the story, the mysterious world that stirs the imagination, and the well-made story told through brief exchanges of dialogue, calling all of them wonderful and concluding that the game was enjoyable to the very end.

That said, some points remained unclear through the playthrough. The player has not been able to confirm what happens when the marks building up above Ruby's head during the fight with Roy fill up completely.