RiME

Short and simple, but will sneak up on you at the end.

The best game I've played in a while. Genuine lump in my throat at the end.

The art style is nice and easily the best thing about the game. It's only hampered by the rare framerate dip and audio glitch. The gameplay is a bit too linear and simplistic for my tastes given that the only thing the player ends up doing is some climbing and light puzzle solving. The game world is also presented a little inconsitently in that some climable ledges are marked while others are not and some creatures are harmful sometimes but not others. The story on the other hand was the worst part about the game. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely appreciate the themes the game is attempting to tackle here, but it does so rather nonsensically. The player's motivations for many of the actions they take are... just because. I'm not trying to spoil anything, so I'll just say the switched perspectives doesn't seem to make any sense and only appears to happen to make things extra emotional. It's going to invite comparisons to similar games like Journey or Shadow of the Colossus, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, to even be held in the same light as those games is pretty impressive. On the other, those are some big shoes to fill which it doesn't quite manage to do. All in all, it's an alright game.

This is a very well done game with beautiful music, plenty of vistas and mild puzzle elements mixed in. It's a game that one can easily get lost in for hours as you explore every nook of each section's landscape to find hidden treasures. Don't expect this game to be like Zelda as there is no weaponry or enemy encounters that need attacked through conventional means. Solve obstacles and enemy encounters by using objects and elements within the land itself.

The game is cute, but not as capturing as I hoped for. The is prize too much for running around a half dosin hours "yelling at globes" (the puzzels in a nut-shell)