RiME
So as it turns out over the years I have discovered one of my favorite genres of games is the one where you get to explore a really beautiful landscape and solve some puzzles. Last year I saw the promo videos for RiME and immediately said "I want that!" as it looked to fit the criteria perfectly. Though I initially balked at the $40 price on a game I knew to be short it only took a few months to erode my will and support the small Spanish developers by picking up the game.
RiME is a wordless, exploration game. There is no text (other than game related menus) and no spoken words - the story is told through discovery and visuals. While not a deep story the way it unfolds leads to many "what is this???" moments and wanting to see what comes next as my curiosity was piqued.
Instead of big story and dialogue you explore a series of beautiful worlds. Running, leaping and climbing over the fantastic landscapes the controls feel good. The game does well with it's internal visual language - quickly you pick up how and where you can interact with the world. There are a few places where the 3rd person camera doesn't behave quite the way you want and in the early parts of the game it has a tendency to path through some of the rock faces but you can self correct it.
Something I have been remiss to comment on in some recent reviews is the music of the game (specifically Human Fall Flat's excellent soundtrack). RiME has a great combination of the soft and melancholy as well as epic and sweeping to keep the atmosphere and tone. The sounds of the game as a whole are well implemented too, with both fore and background giving a rich soundscape to RiME.
The bread and butter of the game play in RiME is exploration and puzzles, the former leading to the later. As you travel the (and I can't emphasize enough) the gorgeous world that has been built by the developers your forward progress is hindered by quite Zelda-esque puzzles usually involving some combination of ancient machinery and/or altering your world. Some of these puzzles are small and quick others are much more elaborate. None are really difficult, which might be disappointing to some, I appreciated as being stuck for a long time on a puzzle would really alter the pacing of the game.
RiME, while could be considered short (6-8 hours), I felt had the right amount of content that it doesn't become tiresome or boring and often just when I thought I had seen it all it surprised me with something new. An excellent combination of magnificent visuals to explore and relaxing puzzles to solve I really appreciated everything RiME has to offer.
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