There's a lot of reviews talking about the game not working well on modern computers. The open source project OpenRCT is designed to address these issues -- and it adds some modern QOL features on top. It's free, but does require this game to run (due to IP issues with the art in the game, it's not able to be as standalone as OpenTTD is).
The unfortunate thing with Lucas Pope's games is that they tend to occupy a genre of 1. I say unfortunate because this game left me heartbroken that there are not 100 like it. For my tastes, this is about as perfect as a game can get. Very tight, very well designed mystery/deduction game with a good mix of "so obvious you'd have to be sleeping to miss it" clues and "expert deducers only" clues. I think the art direction is stunningly cool, the sounds are incredible, and in general I found the whole experience deeply immersive. There's not much else to say, really. Maybe if I'm nitpicking, the meta story that ties everything together could have been a bit stronger? It seemed like it was going somewhere more... significant, I guess? It's not bad by any means, I'm really being picky here. For bonus fun, get a friend/spouse/SO to play through it separately and simultaneously, and then come together at the end to discuss. My wife and I did this and it was really cool how much we both got into it. A great shared activity even though we didn't directly solve it together. I suppose you could also do it couch-"co-op" style but I have a hard time doing puzzle games with other people and it worked really well as a "book club"-style game. Last thing I'll say is, don't listen to the people who claim the game gets grindy and there's no way to figure out some of the later characters. It's not true. Every single answer can be deduced without any guess work at all. Now, some of them are fiendishly difficult, and I don't think there's any shame in making a few educated guesses at the end, but the ability to use your brain cells to solve it the right way is there if you want it. (And the fan wiki is there at the end to show you all the obvious-in-hindsight things you missed.)
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.
Not much reason to get this one when Runner 2 exists. Runner 2 is the same basic idea, but done much better. In this one, too many of the obstacles blend into the background, and it's often hard to tell what's dangerous and what's not.
The presentation is that of a runner, but make no mistake: this is a rhythm game through and through. The game combines sound and visuals really well, which makes for almost a synesthesia-like experience. The challenge (and your available actions) starts out relatively low, but builds up over time. By the time you get to the end, it's fairly difficult, especially if you enjoy trying to go for perfect scores. The presentation is fantastic overall. It has a great quirky charm to it that's just pure fun, and it's incredibly colorful. My main criticism is that it's too short. It spends a fair amount of time ramping up the challenge by adding new mechanics and obstacles, but then doesn't spend too many levels simply exploring those mechanics. Also, this is more like a neutral, but be aware that this game really shines if you push yourself to go for perfect runs. If you simply play to get through it, there isn't much there in terms of challenge or reason to keep playing. I'd expect most people would manage to get a weekend's worth of playtime out of it; probably somewhere around 6 hours to simply get through the game, and longer if you get hooked on getting higher scores. For me, I find it relaxing enough just to sort of chill out to --- it's not that it's a chill game, just that rhythm games fill that niche for me.
