Rain World

There is so much depth to Rain World, it made me experience so much love and even more frustration, then joy and hate, and then experiment. I've seen every room, every creature, died in every possible way, finished the game on all difficulties, and played the game again with my wife, explaining everything to her. The main wish rain world gives me now, is that I cannot forget rain world so I could discover it again for the first time. What may keep players away is the difficulty level, because you have to understand that you're just a link on the food chain, and you're higher or lower depending on how good you are at the game. However once that sinks in, it all starts to make sense. Once you get lost into the world, it's wonderful.

Found it through and decided to give the game a go myself directly due to the Curious Archive's YT video "The Most Complex Ecosystem in any Game" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMx8OsTDHfM but the controls are abysmal and absolutely insufferable in my personal experience, it's a refund for me, I want to have fun, a brief to the point tutorial and time to familiarize yourself with the mechanics, controls and whatnot, but they're beyond unnatural and confusing, even with my tolerance and ability to adapt going between games like Elite Dangerous or No Man's Sky for example, or Wrath of the Righteous and Baldur's Gate 3, but Rain World just frustrates me beyond compare and I'd rather have fun, frankly.

I bought the game here just to share it with my younger sibling, but at over 100 hours played I can confidently say it's the best game I ever tried. From the incredibly intrincate gameplay mechanics and the AI that brings an amazing ecosystem to life to the utterly deep narrative and catchy music, Rain World achieves what no other game has achieved, to put forward an artistic vision without pulling any punches. This game was panned by reviewers who approach videogames as mere fast food products, so don't pay any attention to their ramblings, as this is one of the most beautiful experiences you will ever have in any form of art.

Rain World's biggest weakness, and also its biggest strength, is that it's utterly unconcerned with you as the player, both in its design philosophy and its moment-to-moment gameplay. The developers made an experience they wanted to and cared deeply for, and whether you understand what's going on or even manage to experience it is of no significance to them. If you want to play through some of the most beautiful and well thought out areas in gaming, you will find that here. You will also find incredible creature design, both visually and in their absolutely amazing AIs that truly make living creatures feel alive, and some occasional great music. If you want some of the coolest storytelling in gaming, coupled with a couple moments that made my jaw hit the floor, you will find it here (though you will have to search a lot for it). If you want to spend hours trying to find neat little secrets about how the game works and what makes it and its various little critters go about life, you will find that here. However, what distinguishes Rain World from any other game I've ever sunk my teeth into, is that it doesn't care whether you do any of this. And I don't mean this in the metroidvania/open world way of "it hides parts of the game from you to make it feel special", no. Rain World is constantly, whether you're looking or not, doing its thing, and if you want to understand anything from basic mechanics to the overarching plot, its up to you to decypher what its doing from context clues and a lot of thinking. While other games are like a puzzle for you, the player, that's been carefully crafted to be enjoyable to solve, Rain World is more like a beautiful but very messy painting. You can *see* the artistry, but whether you get the meaning or not is not the painter's business. Also slugcats are peak character design and I will die on that hill. So... scrungly. So beautiful.

I already have a job.