Xbox Reviews

RiME review

Review RiME | Yes, they hit the spot. Again! After the great survival platformer Deadlight, released in 2012 for Xbox 360 and in 2016 as a Director’s Cut edition for Xbox One, and the lovely puzzle adventure The Sexy Brutale, released earlier this year, the Spanish developer Tequila Works teams up with Studios Grey Fox and Six Foot to bring us RiME, a puzzle adventure like you’ve never seen before. Controlling a young boy who, apparently, shipwrecked on a mysterious island, you will arm yourself with his courage and curiosity to discover this new world and search for answers about his past.

 THE GOOD

  • You seriously have to listen to it’s wonderful music. It is inexplicably captivating and hypnotizing, like those old lullabies that our mothers used to sing for us when we were little kids or maybe you are even singing it to your own kids now. It’s really magical what their composer achieved in this game and I can’t express enough how much I loved it. You’ll have to see (or listen) for yourself!
  • The graphics are also great! Cel-shaded in high quality, very colorful and animated. The nameless boy also has very fluid movements. The immense ruins  that you are going to explore throughout the game are beautiful and very well designed. You see little animals that fell alive: mammals taking care of their little kids, seagulls flying around, small lizards walking in the shadows and so much more.
  • The gameplay is all about exploring the environment and solving puzzles. Some very original, I must say, using things in a way we rarely see in games like light and shadow, perspective and time. It isn’t only that ‘take key A to door B’ that we see all the time, even though they are also present.
  • The controls are ok and works very well for the game. You can walk and run using your left analog stick, jump with A, grab, throw or interact with things with X, duck and roll with B and use your voice with Y or View (don’t know about you, but for me this button is always going to be Select). They are simple and effective. The camera also helps a lot, not blocking or clipping the walls as you move it with your right analog stick.
  • The game doesn’t tell you the story: Why are you there? Who are you? Why those animals are helping you? You’ll have to look for the answer yourself. Like in a true adventure, you’ll have to search for yourself. Remember that only finding all the collectibles you will understand the full picture of the story.
  • You’ll have the help of few animals and mysterious NPCs, one of which I must mention: your little fox friend! I know that it acts like a dog, but it’s in the game to guide you through the huge game world to help you not to get lost. I can already see teddy bears in its shape being sold on stores and websites very, very soon. (I hope)

 MIXED FEELINGS

  • Sometimes when you’re jumping to grab on a ledge, the grab command doesn’t work, resulting in something more frustrating than death: a non-lethal fall, in which you’ll have to climb everything again. And considering that, when you die, you come back in the closest checkpoint or, in other cases, a few steps back from the place where you missed the jump, not to die becomes something annoying.
  • I can’t remember any cel-shaded game with realistic water, but RiME could have received a little more detail in this aspect (specially the waterfalls).
  • I understand the option of the developer for not using it and respect them for it, but as you have a lot of collectibles to go after (especially if you’re aiming for 1000G) a map or radar, at least, would help a lot.
  • I really missed a sprint function when traveling around. Sometimes looking for my next step became tedious because of the boy’s walking speed.

 THE BAD

  • The only thing that really bothered me in this game is the long loading times when starting or loading your adventure. Watching that spiral become colored takes more than one minute and half!

 

 

Score: 91% | Marvelous! No other adjective describes the quality of RiME more appropriately. It may seem a little slow paced for those who are searching for an adventure with more adrenaline and action, but for those searching for a different, emotional, beautiful (graphically and musically speaking), with a great story, you’ll have a great time with RiME. It’s going to be a journey you’ll remember for a long time.

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