Rime
A land of discovery stretches out before you. Explore the beautiful yet rugged world of RiME, a single-player puzzle adventure. In RiME, you play as a young boy who has awakened on a mysterious island after a torrential storm. You see wild animals, long-forgotten ruins and a massive tower that beckons you to come closer. Armed with your wits and a will to overcome—and the guidance of a helpful fox—you must explore the enigmatic island, reach the tower's peak, and unlock its closely guarded secrets. Explore – Discover the mysterious island at your own pace. Interact with wildlife, search for hidden items or simply take in the sights and sounds. Solve Puzzles – Make your way through the ancient ruins and its hidden marvels by solving puzzles with sound, light and shadow projection, perspective, platforming, and even time manipulation.
Steam User 3
Me: this game is perfect for modern activists.
Someone: how do you figure?
Me: because this is the only game I know where yelling at the top of their lungs gets them anywhere.
Introduction
RiME is an puzzle/adventure game developed by Tequila Works, with heavy emphasis in visual and environmental storytelling. To be honest, I played this game before cracked, but I decided to buy it to support the developers, because I liked it... a lot. Let me explain why.
Worldbuilding
It's difficult to talk about worldbuilding in a game like this, because the player visits several worlds, each with its own theme and aesthetics, but one thing they have in common is their rules. The way puzzles are resolved is consistent in every world, and seem to function the same, no matter where the player are in the game, which implies the existence of some sort of magic. And given the overall intentions of the writers with this game, I'd say it's pretty consistent in essence. If the rules were different for each world, taking into account the main storyline, that would be jarring, and would disconnect the player from the flow of the story. Fortunately, that doesn't happen.
The plot
Surprinsingly, the plot of this game is very simple. It's just the story of a person going through the five states of grief. Why this person is grieving I won't mention, because it'd spoil the whole story and would robbed it from it's punch, because the story of this game packs a punch alright. I said this game relies heavily, if not completely, on visual and environmental storytelling, and it does it wonderfully. It conveys a hard-hitting messsage without any line of dialogue. Seriously. This game has no dialogue, but the story is written and designed in such a way that they didn't need to. It takes the "show, don't tell" mantra to a whole new level. And that's applicable to either the story and the gameplay (which I'll discuss in the related section). Pro-tip: getting all the white shades makes the ending way more powerful. Refer to guides if you are lost.
The characters
This game features only two characters, a father and his son. The player controls the son. Since there is no dialogue, it's hard to evaluate goals, motivations and personalities. But his actions throughout the game speaks of someone who is kind and compassionate, because of how he interacts with different elements or sentient beings in the game, and the father obviously loves his son, because of some things that happen at the end of the game. Some beings, like the fox, the sentinels and the giant bird are allegories to things in the world the child used to belong to, and represent the five stages of grief perfectly.
Gameplay
The gameplay is also pretty simple. The character the player controls can jump, roll, crouch, grab to ledges, the works. Basic platforming, in short. There are underwater zones too. He can also interact with several objects, like blocks, keys, balls of light and other elements. The puzzles in this game are basic but curiously satisfying. There are basic perspective puzzles, light and dark puzzles, activate all statues puzzles, and so on. The player can also make the playable character to use his voice to a number of purposes, like breaking jars, light up fires, even to solve most of the puzzles in the game (hence, the comment at the beginning). Because the controls are simple and intuitive, the main character is easy to control, and makes traversing the world a breeze. There are no tutorials that break the momentum of the game, only unintrusive control pop-ins when performing an action for the first time that don't stop the flow of the game whatsoever. Oh, and there is plenty of collectibles, too.
Artistic and technical elements
The art direction of this game is lovely and somewhat cartoonish, but fits the setting and the tone of the game. Sure, this game hasn't the best of graphics, but, with a story like that, who needs ultra-realistic graphics? Plus, the art direction more than makes up for it. But one thing this game deserves praise is the music. It combines with the story to give it extra punch, and makes all the emotional highs of the game even better. Since there is no dialogue, I won't mention voice acting quality, but the sounds the boy makes fits the actions he performs and the context he is in. The performance, though, is a mixed bag. I played this game for the first time with a laptop GTX 1060, and the framerate dropped like a rock, even when the visuals doesn't look demanding at all. I had to lower the settings to get a playable framerate, so optimization was an issue then. I wouldn't know now, because my RTX 4070 runs everything just fine. The collision system needs work, though, because there were places that the character won't move, even when there wasn't any collision object, like a step or a wall.
In conclusion:
Pros:
-Excellent story with a hard-hitting message.
-Superb visual and environmental storytelling.
-Simple but functional gameplay.
-The music was just awesome.
Cons:
-Some performance issues (and that's tentative)
-Collision system is imperfect in some instances.
I wish more developers told stories the way this game does, because dialogue, if not done well, can do horrors to a story-driven game, Forspoken being a prime example of this. This game, on the other hand, thanks to the strength of its visual and environmental storytelling, its no-frills gameplay and tear-inducing ending, has no need for it. It's amazing how much this game achieves with so little, and that's why I recommend this game.
Steam User 2
This has been on my wishlist for a while without fully aware of what to expect. At first I expected to mostly play in the starting island with beautiful weather all the time. Kind of like a vacation experience. But the setting changed with every chapter (5 total). I was also initially unimpressed with the gameplay being mostly exploring, solving simple puzzles, climbing a la Tomb Raider/Uncharted and trying to understand the story without voice acting or a single text. It slowly won me over to the point of getting hooked and crying with the ending after completing the game a second time.
Positives:
-Gorgeous graphics and moving soundtrack
-Relaxing gameplay where time moves quickly without noticing
-Some of the puzzles are well thought out later in the game. What’s more, it strikes a fine balance of keeping interest while not being complicated for the most part
-Almost all the collectibles are meaningful additions to the story, they’re there for a reason
-Achievements (and collectibles) that enhance the joy of exploration (more on that later)
-Figuring out the story and how it’s an impressive accomplishment to be told so well despite the lack of words
-How every element comes together to create a game where the developers know what they want and they succeeded with their goals
Flaws:
-Animations can be odd sometimes when climbing or jumping down
-The graphics can have some minor visual bugs when you’re swimming underwater
-Very few collectibles/achievements are 100% impossible to figure out without a guide or pure luck
-The quality of the soundtrack is not very high. You don’t hear the music with full clarity, like there’s a minor muffle. But it might be just my headset
-The chapters are long, you can’t start from a different point in chapter select for specific collectibles/achievements
-The game needs time to grow on you and show you all it has to offer. You also need to go out of your way to put the pieces together. At a first glance you might think the game is boring and don’t understand the appeal because of this
The achievements are the star of the show. Aside from the story progression/collectibles, there are unique achievements that beg you to explore. Each achievement has unique icon and description. Those are especially effective after completing the game once. Because you will then vaguely remember what is being referenced and then you go there to confirm. It’s such a pleasant feeling when you get things right. The best way to play this game is at least a complete first run without looking things up. Just enjoy the game, try to find the secrets on your own and then look things up with chapter select. I did my first run completely blind, second run I mostly tried doing things on my own with some pointers/hints to send me in the right direction and then it was chapter select getting everything missed with a guide. The last step is not as bad as it sounds as the game saves the moment you find something. So you don’t have to complete a chapter or reach a checkpoint.
Even though I haven’t played games like Abzu and Journey yet, I think Rime is often compared with those games. I know that those games are more well known and popular. I’m guessing that Rime is not as good as those best games in the genre but it should definitely be played if you’re a fan of those type of games. Don’t play it if you’re planning on running quickly through it without giving the game the attention it deserves in terms of observation and thinking what you’re witnessing means.
Steam User 2
Man, where do I even start. I was expecting a game somewhat in the style of TLoZ, and sure, the beginning looks like that. Bright and fun. But the story continues, it goes dark. Really dark. This game gave me an insane amount of goosebumps. The aesthetics and soundtrack are superb. It has a beautiful yet very depressing story though. This game is a masterpiece. I cannot really tell anything about the story without giving any spoilers, so just try it for yourself. I have to admit though, that some parts really gave me the creeps. But then again, I am no horror fan, and get easily frightened playing a game :')
Overall I loved it a bunch.
All together I'd give it a solid 10.
Steam User 2
I really was not expecting this kind of experiencie. The music, the environments, the mechanics are very well done for a game if you just want an inmersion and explirative game.
But, to be honest, this time, in which I am writing this review is a very difficult time in my life, I am passing through several mourning in my life; and, getting to the end of this game, and acknowledging the whole narrative, the whole landscapes and things we did in all the game reflected a mourning was a huge shock for me.
Not a bad shock, I mean, it made me a little bit sad, but it also made me appreciate all the effort, and it made me reflect on the mourning stages I have been going through. Exiting to the main menu to see the names of each stage blew my mind too.
I simply recomned this game, it is beautiful, well done, and very emotional.
Thank you to the developpers for making this, it made me happier to play this game, and to know that this was done with such care and love, thinking in the emotional journey we all are in as human beings.
¡Muchas gracias!
Steam User 2
One of my favorite games. Very beautiful soundtrack
Steam User 1
Still trying to decide if I loved it or just liked it. It is beautiful game with a great storyline. Quite linear though I expected more of a free exploration. Still worth trying, graphics are nice, soundtracks too. Can be a bit challenging which is always appreciated.
Steam User 1
RiME is a very beautiful game that's definitely worth your time and money (on sale, it's not that long). It's an atmospheric platformer kind of like Journey, but without the fun movement mechanics to carry the experience. The platforming was a bit tired by completion, but the environments and the music really carries the experience. Narrative-wise, you have to look for collectibles to get a deeper understanding of the story, although the mystery of what's going on is still revealed at the end. Although I expected the ending by the time it happened, I was still moved by it. 8.5/10