RiME

I hate to do this, because the game is gorgeous and the music is wonderful, but the optimization is just non-existent and it makes it essentially unplayable for me. The camera is also very painful to play with, the gameplay can be awkward at times, and I can't really speak to the story quality, but the real issue is the performance. Note that I have an i5-7600k CPU, a GTX 980, and 16 gb of DDR4 RAM. This system could play The Witcher 3 at 1440p on ultra and get 50fps. RIME should not be the sort of game that brings it to its knees. But it does. And its unoptimized status is confirmed by the fact that reducing graphical quality does not drastically improve performance. (We are talking FPS levels in the 20s at times.) For instance, there appears to be very little LOD work being done. Usually, an engine will automatically reduce the detail and quality of meshes and textures when they are very far away. This improves performance without noticeably reducing fidelity at all. Sadly this game doesn't seem to do that, because (for instance) particle effects that are taking place halfway across the world show up with the same level of detail as those taking place on the other side of the path. Besides being taxing, this actually takes me out of the world a bit, because I am so used to LOD being used. When the detail doesn't fade at distance, it makes everything seem artificially close. I wish this weren't the case, because the game seems earnest and it's got a lot of promise. Unfortunately, many indie games that push 3D gfx seem to fall victim to this trap. Unreal makes it very easy to turn up the visual quality; but optimization can be challenging for any game. I wish indie devs would learn -- you HAVE to be able to hit at least a steady 30fps on AVERAGE hardware before you release. It's almost mandatory. Since this one doesn't, I can't recommend it.

Everybody seems to praise the visuals, but after playing it for a few hours I find them to be merely ok, they are good enough but nothing spectacular. But that is not why I hate this game, I hate this game because it is beyond boring and feels so handholdy and you're fighting the camera and the character's movements the whole time. Your movement is horribly slow and yet it feels like you have no control over the character and the camera which seem to just do what they like. The climb/jump sections are the worst, you literally can't fail unless you don't know which button the game expects you to press. There is nothing to do in this game, you can't explore the island because everything is locked off, there is nothing worth finding because nothing looks interesting and none of the items you find do anything. I cannot express to you how horrible dull and boring this game is, playing it is a chore, avoid at all costs.

RiME is a very pretty game as you can immediately see from the screen shots, but its gameplay is very shallow. There is some platforming, which reminds me most of the Prince of Persia games, but not remotely as fluid and freeing, and there are some puzzles. These are of the more obvious sort. The sort you'd see in, say...well... a Prince of Persia game. There is no combat--not necessarily a negative, but in that case the puzzles should be a LOT stronger, while the story is only delivered by finding collectibles. That is perhaps the biggest sin, because the story is what's supposed to inspire you to complete the darn thing. I don't think I'm going to. I've completed two and half worlds, and think there are probably better ways to spend my time.

My toddler had been in charge of looking for the fox and yelling to light the statues - we had a great time until the final stage, when I had to explain "where fox go" and "why that daddy sad".

Ever since Ico became popular I've seen a lot of games attempt doing something similar - a puzzle and platforming 3D game with no spoken narration, simple but beautiful artstyle, moving music and some central concept/idea to it all. RiME is just another example of this type of game. Made with lots of care, genuinely good looking, with a good story concept behind it and yet all too familiar, not particularly fun and ultimately forgettable. The big issue RiME has lies in the fact that the game never really gets anything to truly hook you with. You run, jump, climb and scream at things to solve problems as you start the game, and that's all you do until the end, with all of these basic mechanics being rather bland. There's never any clever challenge or strategy involved with the platforming bits. Puzzles suffer from a bizarre decision to make action button work only after a short pause after a full stop and scream not working at times if another animation is playing, which isn't helping already mundane puzzle design. There's no good story or even mood hook either. There's an attempt at one, but when the revelation of what this game is all about comes, it feels unexpected because the game never actually delivers on that mood at any point prior to that. Not that the game doesn't try to be interesting and evocative. It does look good, it does sound good (sans that annoying fox), there are a few puzzles that aren't boring and there are moments that are genuinely interesting. It's just that this isn't enough and it's one of those instances where after finishing the game in 5 hours you feel drained as if you spent the entire day and all your energy on it without really getting anything in return. RiME seems to have its heart in the right place and it does feel like it tried to be an interesting moving and beautiful journey. But it's not what it turned out to be.