Rime Switch Review – An Almost Unforgettable Adventure

By Zac LaRocque-Walker
8 years Ago

A few years back, I watched the trailer for Rime&period; I remember being enthralled by the visual style and the gameplay shown off&semi; like a mix of The Legend of Zelda&colon; Wind Waker meets Ico or Journey&period; It was on my radar for quite a while and seemed to disappear&period; Finally, last year it was confirmed it was going to finally be released by Tequila Works, but not just on PlayStation 4&period; Earlier this year Rime released on PS4, Xbox One and PC, however the Nintendo Switch version was delayed until November, almost a half a year later&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve managed to hold off on playing it until now, so it was a joy to experience Rime fresh without any knowledge of the story or the game in general&period; However, the game has some bumps and a few issues that really kept me from fully enjoying it&period; Nothing completely game-breaking but frustrating nonetheless&period;&NewLine;https&colon;//www&period;youtube&period;com/watch&quest;v=AN5bbHJQSB4&NewLine;Rime is a 3rd person action-adventure game, that does share some similarities with games such as Ico or Journey, where there is minimal dialogue and somewhat obtuse storytelling&period; The game is about a boy who washes up on a mysterious island, and he has no clue how he arrived there&period; Eventually you are joined by a mysterious little fox who helps guide you, and a red cloaked figure that you can never quite reach&period; You control him as you run, jump, climb, carry items, and most importantly, yell at things&period; The island is broken up into four areas, however they often felt a little disjointed, and not just like a whole cohesive island with some areas, but it felt as if you were controlling a character in a game going from zone to zone&period; Regardless they are full of hidden secrets and puzzles galore to be solved&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;131655" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-131655" style="width&colon; 1000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-131655" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/13001915/RiME-screenshots-4-1024x576&period;jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="563" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-131655" class="wp-caption-text">Rime, Tequila Works</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;The core of the game is most definitely revolved around puzzle-solving&period; Rime eases you into this with some fairly simple puzzles, things like moving blocks or carrying items from one location to another&period; As the game progresses you do have a more diverse assortment of puzzles&colon; some of my favorites being the light manipulation ones&period; However in the end, most of them are pretty easy, and you can sail through them without much difficulty&period; There is a decent amount of exploration though, and lots of climbing and scaling areas to be found&period; I always enjoyed it when the game offered me some new areas to explore, except I wished that I had a bit more control over the climbing and that it felt more fluid and less choreographed&period;&NewLine;For the most part, your character, the young boy, controls well&period; He has some great movements in general and reactions to environments that he is in&period; The controls are also pretty tight which of course is needed in a game where there can be some platforming elements&period; The camera in the game also works wonderfully, and Tequila Works really need to let other developers know how to set a camera and how to get it to swing just right to not obscure things, and also show off the world&period; When it came to controlling the boy though, that&&num;8217&semi;s where I had issues&period; Not that that there was any trouble controlling him, but it had to do with some pretty intense frame-rate dips&period; It seems that especially when you are perhaps entering into a new area, the game can suddenly just chug, and the frame-rate really starts to go from decent to really bad&period; More then a few times, when I was doing a platforming part and had to navigate some platforms, it just so happened that the game would start to struggle, and then as I was still trying to go a direction or turn, I would just fall to my death&period; Thankfully, the game autosaves constantly so it was never the end of the world, but it got annoying early on and continued as the game went on&period; This is both in docked and handheld by the way&semi; it didn&&num;8217&semi;t seem to matter which way you played, the game had some serious frame-rate issues&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;131657" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-131657" style="width&colon; 1000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-131657" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/13002723/rime-screen-04-ps4-us-20aug14-1024x576&period;jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="563" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-131657" class="wp-caption-text">Rime, Tequila Works</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;As for the visuals of Rime, well it is indeed a gorgeous game&period; The areas on the island do look wonderful, and the game does seem to be aesthetically a distant cousin to Wind Waker and Journey&period; The various sections on the island, the flora and fauna, the animals, the blue sea, and even the day-night cycle all look wonderful&period; The cycle of day to night is something I was not expecting and one thing I really welcomed&period; The game is very pretty in the daylight, but when night time rolls around, and the sky is full of stars, the game looks that much better&period; The soundtrack is also full of stellar instrumental pieces, and sometimes I just liked to take in the vistas and listen to the music&period; As is with many Switch games though, there is a difference between playing docked and in handheld mode&period; In docked, the game looks great and really pops visually&period; Playing handheld though, the colors seemed to be a little bit faded and there would often be some weird visual effects around the boy&period; His character model looked a bit rougher, with some jaggies, and running through dirt left some odd particle effects around his feet that weren&&num;8217&semi;t really noticeable on the TV&period; The game is still fine when playing in handheld mode&semi; it&&num;8217&semi;s just a shame that it doesn&&num;8217&semi;t seem to be as vibrant as on the television&period;&NewLine;In the end, Rime is a very solid action-adventure game for the Nintendo Switch, and one that will give you a good ten or so hours of playtime&period; The story is a little obtuse, and the ending did require a bit of contemplation after I was done, but it&&num;8217&semi;s one that will stick with me like the story in Ico or ABZU even&period; While the framerate issues were a little bothersome, I was still able to enjoy the adventure that Rime offers the player&period; If you are a fan of action-adventure games like Journey or Ico, then you definitely should check out Rime and explore the secrets of the island with your trusty fox and your Nintendo Switch&period;&NewLine;A review code for Rime was provided courtesy of Tequila Works for the purpose of this review&period;&NewLine;

Categories: Game Reviews, Nintendo Switch Reviews
Tags: Ico Journey Nintendo Rime Tequila Works The Legend of Zelda Top Stories

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