5/5 ★ – ZedAmadeus's review of Rain World.

(Some... spoilers sort of) Nahh nahnahnah I won't let this stand. This game is a masterpiece. I will defend literally everything about it, except for the camera, and even then! While definitely not positively contributing to the experience of seeing the world through the slugcat's eyes (which the rest of the game works so hard to do) it has... as a side effect, allowed me to memorise most of this game top-to-tail. Every single screen is gorgeous and detailed, and since the camera is locked down, it's a fixed composition, and now, a lot of the game's most beautiful "shots" are burned into my memory. I'm not saying there wasn't a better way to do it, but--you acclimatise. Climbing above the clouds for the first time and then diving so deep below the earth–I don't think I've ever BELIEVED a world as much as I do here with Rain World. Huge part of that is the AI, (which is a marvel) but another is the level design... okay and the soundscape, but I don't have anything too meaningful to say about it other than just--aimless gushing. Oh ALSO the art direction! This is such an inspired take on sci-fi/post-apocalypse with buddhist influences. Easily one of my favourite fantasy/sci-fi worlds in all of fiction... the world-building is also superb. But yeah, level design! On a first playthrough (and even after many, if we're talking sky islands) this shit is fucked up. It reminds me a lot of Team Ico games, this crumbling world, your clumsy, heavy character. The levels never feel designed simply for you to move through them, they feel like real spaces that you have to scramble over, squeeze through, scrape and tumble off of... it all places a lot of emphasis on the physicality of your character, getting you to understand the limits of their body--a body with as much presence in the world as any other physics object, that is often acted UPON. Its this... insane commitment to the game's "reality" to the point where your agency as a player is sometimes challenged, hamstrung by your little guy's physical limitations. another thing is that the world here, especially with the DLC, is MASSIVE, and unbelievably dense with little hidden rooms and shortcuts and interconnected passages. I'm not one to care about the size of a game's world, or dollars per hour or any of that bullshit, but it does really reinforce how small and feeble your lil dude is, the scale of this calamity, the air of hopelessness at knowing how far this ruin extends. I have no idea how 2 people made that original game. For that reason, it's one of the most impressive games, ever, in my opinion. And then the team of modders who did the DLC also did absolutely incredible work, and heighten that sense of... place, of--this world existing without you, stretching farther than your little legs could ever possibly take you. once you've begun to understand the sheer scale of this world, how alive it is, it feels like every step you take, even if you'll never see them, never set foot there, there are thousands of networks of slimy tunnels beneath your feet, all buzzing with life and odd creatures all slowly being ground down, sinking into the core of the earth where you too will eventually find yourself. you're just a little guy! In an unfathomably large and uncaring world, with absolutely no direction. When you find yourself deep underground, there's a physical weight--the ceiling bears down on you, the darkness is suffocating. There are whole little worlds and lives all unfolding in parallel, beautiful, ugly, terrifying. You are alone, but you are not special. And that's okay. Rain World is... not as hard as people make it out to be, at least on a mechanical level. It's gruelling AT FIRST, getting to grips with the very... uhh, UNIQUE feeling locomotion. (With enough time and practice you'll dance through this world, and the precision and flow and weight of this game as a platformer is amazing, but it feels HORRIBLE at first) but you absolutely will get a handle on it. The real difficulty of Rain World is the way it challenges your resolve. Many times throughout my first playthrough I remember thinking to myself, "I don't think I have it in me. I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know where to go, I don't know what the point is and I wanna give up." And I almost did. I wouldn't blame you if you did–most people do, at least a few times! But in small pockets of the world, for small slivers of time, I found fragile warmth and companionship. It was fleeting, but genuinely beautiful. And eventually... I found out what the point was. And it was... I know this is silly but, it seriously felt like a spiritual experience. That's how in it you get. That's how marvellous the pay-offs are in this game. (At the same time, though, Rain World is much more about the journey than the destination. If you can learn to love the feeling of wandering the wastes without a goal in sight, you will love this game. If you read this review and assume you haven't "gotten to the good part yet," you're going to be disappointed.) And if the game had gone any easier on me, it wouldn't have worked as well. It wouldn't have felt nearly as meaningful, as existential. It's all well and good to say this game isn't for most people–but making concessions to a larger general audience shouldn't be a fucken PLUS, guys! If Videocult made the Rain World everybody would like, nobody would love it quite like they do as it is now. As it is now, there is nothing else like it, and it is pure magic. Helps that it's exceptionally replayable now with the DLC, even though I never really stopped playing from the moment I started, like 3 years ago. If you are the sort of person who will fall in love with this, you'll fall HARD. Please give it a chance--or another, if you've previously given up! It's okay to ask reddit for help if you need to, I definitely did, but discovering certain things blind is--honestly incredible at times.