I recently played the game Ruins Story, a 2D rogue like top down shooter game that honestly was one heck of a challenging game. The game opens up with an intro to the story, mixed in with some lore about what your situation is, with a lot of dialogue between the main protagonist and the other characters in the game. Throw in some time travel and a little robot companion called nekoro and you have a pretty interesting story for a fast paced roguelike top down shooter game.
The story is pretty engaging to be honest, I did enjoy the overall introduction and the whole time travel thing, but it can be a fair amount of reading, so keep that in mind. Gameplay wise the game is intense. There is a lot that goes on, and you have 3 modes of combat. You can tap on the enemies to use one type of ammo, and when the ammo bar for that type climbs up, you must swap to the long press gun which when you let go, will also teleport you to where you were aiming.
And then you have your robot companion Nekoro, who will auto shoot for you. When you are attacking the enemies you also have to keep an eye out for their warning lines for when they're about to shoot. So that you can dodge out of their way. But with all the explosions and fighting that's going on, it can be quite hard to see all the enemy fire. There is also a bit of a learning curve when it comes to absorbing all the information that the game throws at you.
There's a lot of instructions on what can do, what type of weapons you have, the ammo, the armors and it all can feel a bit overwhelming for a casual player. Even so, the gameplay is a lot of fun. Visually the game is pretty simple. It's a 2D pixel art top down style game, but it looks really nice.
The pixel art is very good, and the map designs are interesting too. I enjoyed the visual aspect of the game, even with it's simplicity. You'll be too busy jumping around the map trying to survive and kill the enemies to take notice of the visuals anyway. The audio is great too, I love the music in the game, and the combat effects are engaging and appropriate, everything sounds like it belongs and I couldn't hear anything out of place or missing sounds.
Overall I'd say that Ruins Story is a very fun and engaging pixel 2D top down roguelike game that while having a somewhat steep learning curve, the game is fun, and the combat is fast paced and intense. Even the story is interesting. I highly recommend you give this game a try. It could be your next favorite rogue like game.