Disclaimer: I'm not pretending to have 100% new, previously unheard opinions about the event, cinematic, etc. If you think you saw one of these thoughts somewhere else (like YT comments) — probably it is true, and I just totally agree with them, so here they are.
Riot Games released 3 champions this year (so far): Viego, Gwen, Akshan. All of them are directly related to Ruination. One of the next champions (probably the very next one) will be Vex — another Shadow Isles champion, Viego's ally.
Why so many champs are from the same region? Even Akshan while being from Shurima, was released as one of the Sentinels.
Do Riot really think Ruination is such a good opportunity for a big, half-year-long meta-event, combining few champion and skin releases, in-game event, and few videos?
They released two packs of Ruined skins in the same year. Imagine two packs of PROJECT, Star Guardian, or KDA skins released so close to each other.
Maybe the opportunity was good, but the execution was Ruined.
Skins are mostly considered as parallel universes, so skins' lore may be anything (like Pentakill or Pool Party). But it also means that skin's lore isn't canon, parallel universes do not affect the core lore of the main universe (aka "base skins").
Here are some examples:
Sentinel Vayne vs. Ruined Shyvana
It's okay: parallel black(ruined)-and-white(sentinels) universe, everything is possible there.
Lucian vs Viego
It's okay: Lucian fights for Senna, which was trapped by Tresh, who was "created" by Viego a long time ago, canon lore of Runterra.
Sentinel Vayne vs Viego
Not okay. Why parallel universe ("ayayayayay we are making everything we want") is mixed with core Runterra? Does it mean Sentinel Vayne is also canon? Or Viego is "ahahahah, waht a cool idea for a skin" champ entirely? Sure, Vayne fights evil things, but not ruination itself, more like beasts and evil guys (like vampires).
How Riot Games would explain, why base champions are fighting alongside or versus champions with skins, but not without? Do they really love (or hate) the color scheme? It's easy to explain why Ruined Karma would fight with Gwen — but almost impossible to imagine why would base Karma do the same.
Mixing this skin-universe with core-universe can't be done in some seamless way.
Riot Games did their best to include a lot of champions in all Ruination-related events and skin releases. Also, some champions are related to Ruination because of their lore, even if not mentioned in the event's materials.
Here's the full list of all champions who were/are related to Ruination in a somewhat "strong" way. For example, here is no Elise because she pretty much just was transformed into a spider and now eats some humans — nothing special.
In total: 8 ruined, 12 Sentinels, and 2 who also fight Mist. 22 champions+skins - that's about 1/8 of all the champions available. A big number for a big event.
Here's a graphical representation:
First of all: I like neither comic books nor visual novels. I prefer either a long story (probably illustrated, but not split into sentences) or maybe a video. Unfortunately, this event got into the "Meh" category right from the start, just because of how it's presented.
Here's, however, some more in-detail descriptions.
They are bad. "You're a noob, lol. Okay, I'll follow your commands, because you're a kinda Chosen One. But you're a noob" — basically every piece of text. Why am I treated in such a way? Yes, my character may be not so experienced as other Sentinels, but if you're so good, and I'm so bad — why that magical GPS navigator chose me and not one of you? Are you just jealous?
It's very long and tedious but empty: nothing important happens for a long time, and then BOOM — big fight! Eventually, the fight is over, so we need to go to another region of the world, yay. Repeat several times, done.
This approach isn't bad on its own, and it's used quite a lot in other stories. However, Riot struggled to find the good reasoning for this story layout. Imagine, how you could fit a lot of comparisons into the story: one of the characters is impatient, so they got into trouble very quickly. Another character is way too cautious, so Viego and co. can just escape without any problems. The third character could be of another personality, and so on. But no — all the story is revolving around the "Talk, fight, move to the next region, repeat" template.
I don't know how choices truly affect the future story, but the description of the event on Riot's site makes me feel like all the difference is which of the available regions you visit first. All future events (in still-locked areas) depend on the average decision of the whole player base. So what I really influence is pretty much the next line of dialogue after I choose one of the options.
As I already mentioned, I'm not a big fan of visual novels (and movie-like games, e.g., Heavy Rain or Life Is Strange). One of the reasons is because the ending and plot overall don't depend on my choices. In games, the whole point of which is to make choices! Basically, what Riot did — they created the illusion of a choice to make the VN part of the event feel variative while it actually isn't.
I can understand why they did so — they just need to have a single version of events, so the lore is consistent among all players (it's Runterra, not Tamriel in Daggerfall after all). But again — what's the point of choices if they don't matter, not in the end, but even in the next region?
The cinematic isn't bad visuals-wise. It's not that bad if you consider it outside of the event (imagine it's not in the League universe).
However, as a Ruination-related video it's awful.
Here's a screenshot of the Shadow Isles page of the Universe.
Let's count how many champs are involved in the cinematic, made for the end of the event, literally affected whole Runterra's map and many centuries (green).
Let's also write release dates of involved champs) (yellow).
In total: 2 ruined, 6 Sentinels, and 0 who also fight Mist. 8 champions+skins.
Again, here is a graphical representation:
Looks a little less than all the guys from Ruination event, doesn't it? That's because it's only 8 out of 22 — 36%.
Riot forgot to include Yoric, Thresh, Maokai, didn't show Vex. They forgot more than half of Ruined ones and Sentinels for no reason.
Who got their role in the cinematic, skin-wise? Legendary Vayne, legendary Graves, possibly-Prestige Pantheon. Definitely not money-making.
Imagine:
What we got instead? Viego, the ultimately mighty necromancer, who created (unintentionally) Shadow Isles, the Mist, who destroyed thousands of lives for resurrecting Isolde, dies. Dies, because he didn't close the portal after he got the last pieces of Isolde. After the fight when he was almost crowd-controlled to a defeat (by Gwen, LOL).
Is he that dumb? Well, big love may make a person as smart as a piece of bread, but… he really doesn't have any self-preservation?
Does Viego's death mean anything to the LoL lore? If he's dead — then he should be removed from the game, because the base champ was killed, not one of the alternative skin-versions. If he's not dead — then cinematic means nothing to the lore, hence it's nothing more than fanfic. Really tough decision: remove the champ from the game or accept that the final video of the huge event means nothing.
Dixaba (THE), 2021