Review - RiME
On the shore of a strange island a child awakens. With little more than a small red cape, he sets out to discover what happened to him. RiME is a game from Tequila Works that is similar to games like Journey and ABZU. It mixes a bit of exploration with simple puzzles as the player tries to discover how this boy ended up stranded on the island.
RiME falls into a genre that I would call the spectacle game. These games focus on providing the player with gorgeous landscapes and cinematographic moments. Generally, gameplay is streamlined to allow the player to more easily move from spectacle to spectacle. In order to facilitate the artistic moments, spectacle games make use of automated cameras and changing perspectives to get the best angle on every shot. Other games that I would consider to be in this genre would be the aforementioned Journey and ABZU.
Being a spectacle game, the gameplay elements are more limited. The player generally goes between solving puzzles and exploring the world. The exploration is, in most areas, somewhat limited. The game is divided into different levels that then seem to be broken down into what could be considered different rooms where the player does a few things. As such, exploration is only likely to yield small off-shot rooms with one of the various collectibles therein. I didn’t consider this to be a bad move. There were no wide areas that the player could become easily lost in as the world was limited enough for the developers to (most of the time) easily direct the player to their next goal. The secret areas are much more of a bonus to those who are lucky enough to find them.
The puzzles, on the other hand, were a bit of a mixed bag. As gameplay elements they were lacking. None of the puzzles were difficult, as seems to be a trend in many games. Where they succeeded was in mostly staying within the themes of the game. The majority of the puzzles focused around perspective and the duality of light and dark. The latter was a key theme throughout the entirety of the game. It was nice to see a game not just adding random puzzles, but instead having those puzzles conform with the narrative.
Speaking of the narrative, let’s get on to that. So, the narrative was a massive let down to me. There were two big issues. The first was that the game barely gave the player any narrative until the very end of the game where it was all dumped on them. It would have been highly beneficial to give the player an idea of what was going on while they were doing things. Quite frankly, I had gotten half way through the game and knew nothing about what I was doing. Paired with the simple puzzles, I had found the game rather uninteresting. As I was not coming to the game just to see some nice visuals, RiME didn’t succeed at holding my attention too well.
The other issue with the narrative is that it seems to be so disjointed from the majority of what the player is doing. I can only see a direct connection between the story and the majority of the gameplay in a few smaller aspects of the game that mostly manifest themselves around the end of the game. Perhaps I’m missing something, but the game seems to be a pretext to a short and disjointed story.
Beyond the main story that is revealed at the end, there isn’t much else in terms of narrative. The relationship between the fox and the player is poorly developed, causing it to be more of a meta-gameplay element that directs the player to their next objective rather than a companion. The few other characters either spend next to no time in the game or aren’t developed enough to have emotional weight. I will also make it clear that they are supposed to have emotional weight. The game plays out a few emotional moments that fell flat because there was no build up.
What did work quite well was the aesthetics. The game looked beautiful. There were vistas for the player to look over, the occasional strange creature to see, and a whole strange civilization to explore. There were no graphical glitches, just a crisp almost Windwaker-esc aesthetic.
It is worth noting the camera in RiME. It was a semi-automated camera, meaning that the game would sometimes take control to direct the player’s gaze. For the most part this was unobtrusive, not forcing the player to look at areas they didn’t want to. However, on some puzzles and in the occasional tight space the camera could have some issues. Despite that, RiME was rather conservative in its camera control. I quite enjoyed that. Allowing the player to discover the great views of the game instead of being force fed every vignette was quite nice. Also, the levels were well designed to naturally direct the player’s gaze, making it harder for a player to miss the views while not forcing it on them.
Overall, this game is a bit of a mixed bag. If you’re looking for great story or gameplay then this is likely to disappoint. The narrative was poorly formed and the puzzles were un-engaging and were sometimes hampered by stiff controls. However, if you’re searching for a great looking experience then you’ve come to the right place. There is a lot of visual appeal in every inch of the environment. Make of that what you will. This game really only succeeds at catering to a rather niche audience.
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