now playing: Rime (2017)
Dec. 31st, 2024 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
requiemsI have PS+, but only the basic tier. One of the reasons for this is peace of mind for cloud saves - and the convenience of uploading said saves for the times I was regularly still able to go to my parents' house for my PS4 there. The original reason was that it was required to play Overwatch before it went f2p, but there's also three free monthly games that you get to keep forever with an active subscription.
After seven years I've accrued a lot of random games in my library (I save most of them if they vaguely pique my interest). Especially the indie games. You never know when you'll want something much shorter to play... or when it's Christmas and you don't want to be in XIV hubs and you're scrolling through your library for something that appeals and in this instance, I picked Rime.
The only thing I knew about Rime was rough duration to get the platinum (8 hours). I usually check on psnprofiles to see how difficult it is to do and if there are walkthroughs - undoubtedly I'll need one at some point if not immediately. The guide encouraged me to play it blind, so I did.
SPOILERS BELOW.
Rime has no dialogue. It relies completely on visuals and its score (which was beautiful, by the way: the instrumental for the reconstructed lullaby was very soothing), and its gameplay is largely "make character go here" speckled with very simple platforming that was mostly intuitive. There are two points in the game where actively hostile enemies are present but you resolve this through avoidance of them, and you are not punished for failing other than restarting at a checkpoint, usually seconds before. It felt spiritually very similar to Journey on the surface... and all the more so the longer I played it.
It was about half way through the first chapter when I realised this was a game about grief. That I had instinctually chosen to play on the days of the year I grieve the most.
"Hmm," I said. "Not sure if that's a good idea." But that would require me to break the decision paralysis of a library full of games a second time and now we're here and committed though not invested yet so on we go.
There's an air of mystery in the first chapter: the colours were very vibrant and reminiscent of Wind Waker, and you can even pick up fruit and toss them off a cliff much like you can on Outset Island with the small little pigs. As you explore and traverse your way around for collectibles whilst dutifully ignoring your fox shaped waymarker, I kept stumbling upon a red robed figure waiting for me, watching. Always on paths untravelled. A stand-in; an untruth you are not seeing, or are refusing to see. This figure is not seen again until the end of chapter 3 and it's only at the end of the game when you discover who this figure is. The first chapter was very straightforward, though the very first "complex" puzzle made my brain buzz enough that I went and retrieved a walkthrough for it and kept using it because some were like, too much trial and error to figure out, I don't want to be frustrated by gameplay blocks that needlessly use my limited energy up, I am not always very smart or intuitive in puzzle games and never have been, I just want to keep going... this was equally a wise choice because the second and third chapters are very sprawling and you simply will not find collectibles without a guide and like, if this is a souls journey about grief I want to experience it the once with the final message it would undoubtedly impart and not have to backtrack through it multiple times. Which I think is valid.
Each chapter was colour coded. This colour was reflected by the controller light on the dualsense; I miss when games frequently did this. I played one chapter per day, but four and five together: the fifth only takes a few minutes, whereas the third chapter was very long and takes about two hours, likely longer still if I didn't have the walkthrough to help me out. Some sections felt particularly unobvious.
That said, the third was my favourite, because it started playing with gameplay logic and world physics and after Control I am very much an enjoyer of developers pushing their engines and making coding do seemingly implausible things. It's just, stuff you can only get away with in this one medium and it works so well, I love when it's exploited and utilised. For instance, at one point you enter a hallway, and you can go either left or right, it's up to you. Whichever way you choose the hallway indefinitely repeats and goes on forever... unless you turn the camera around. The persistence of running forever and refusing things as they are will award you a trophy, for as soon as you turn around the way is open with a new doorway to go through. If you turn around again, the loop is gone, and the corridor only goes a short distance until you are rewarded with a collectible type that allows you to glimpse the truth of what has happened to you but you have forgotten. It was a very good sequence. Very subtle, all told in steps and motion.
Because there is no dialogue, you have to piece what is happening together from what you discover, what the boy relearns on their journey. The music is emotive and swells to what he feels. I was under the impression for much of the game that the main character's father was dead, that the moment on the boat after each chapter ended was perhaps a metaphor, and the boy was coming to terms with it. It was only at the end of the fourth chapter and the ensuing reveal that I realised I had been wrong - the boy was the one who had died, and suddenly every carved relief and statue I had passed of a crying man made sense. The boy was lost to the sea during a storm and boy's cape had torn in the father hands, the only thing he has left of him... the same cape that the boy has been wearing the entire time as part of his outfit. As the game ends, the boy, who has reached confluence by your hand, moves on. The endless climb up a tower becomes a descent instead. And the father lets go of his grief, and the piece of red cape that he has kept this whole time.
That last moment got me. I was misty eyed through a few other companion departures but it was the father accepting what had happened that made me start crying. Grief is so poignant and personal but it was just... a very lovely moment, a very good sentiment, kind of exactly what I needed right now.
Hold onto your hurt... and then let it go.
After seven years I've accrued a lot of random games in my library (I save most of them if they vaguely pique my interest). Especially the indie games. You never know when you'll want something much shorter to play... or when it's Christmas and you don't want to be in XIV hubs and you're scrolling through your library for something that appeals and in this instance, I picked Rime.
The only thing I knew about Rime was rough duration to get the platinum (8 hours). I usually check on psnprofiles to see how difficult it is to do and if there are walkthroughs - undoubtedly I'll need one at some point if not immediately. The guide encouraged me to play it blind, so I did.
SPOILERS BELOW.
Rime has no dialogue. It relies completely on visuals and its score (which was beautiful, by the way: the instrumental for the reconstructed lullaby was very soothing), and its gameplay is largely "make character go here" speckled with very simple platforming that was mostly intuitive. There are two points in the game where actively hostile enemies are present but you resolve this through avoidance of them, and you are not punished for failing other than restarting at a checkpoint, usually seconds before. It felt spiritually very similar to Journey on the surface... and all the more so the longer I played it.
It was about half way through the first chapter when I realised this was a game about grief. That I had instinctually chosen to play on the days of the year I grieve the most.
"Hmm," I said. "Not sure if that's a good idea." But that would require me to break the decision paralysis of a library full of games a second time and now we're here and committed though not invested yet so on we go.
There's an air of mystery in the first chapter: the colours were very vibrant and reminiscent of Wind Waker, and you can even pick up fruit and toss them off a cliff much like you can on Outset Island with the small little pigs. As you explore and traverse your way around for collectibles whilst dutifully ignoring your fox shaped waymarker, I kept stumbling upon a red robed figure waiting for me, watching. Always on paths untravelled. A stand-in; an untruth you are not seeing, or are refusing to see. This figure is not seen again until the end of chapter 3 and it's only at the end of the game when you discover who this figure is. The first chapter was very straightforward, though the very first "complex" puzzle made my brain buzz enough that I went and retrieved a walkthrough for it and kept using it because some were like, too much trial and error to figure out, I don't want to be frustrated by gameplay blocks that needlessly use my limited energy up, I am not always very smart or intuitive in puzzle games and never have been, I just want to keep going... this was equally a wise choice because the second and third chapters are very sprawling and you simply will not find collectibles without a guide and like, if this is a souls journey about grief I want to experience it the once with the final message it would undoubtedly impart and not have to backtrack through it multiple times. Which I think is valid.
Each chapter was colour coded. This colour was reflected by the controller light on the dualsense; I miss when games frequently did this. I played one chapter per day, but four and five together: the fifth only takes a few minutes, whereas the third chapter was very long and takes about two hours, likely longer still if I didn't have the walkthrough to help me out. Some sections felt particularly unobvious.
That said, the third was my favourite, because it started playing with gameplay logic and world physics and after Control I am very much an enjoyer of developers pushing their engines and making coding do seemingly implausible things. It's just, stuff you can only get away with in this one medium and it works so well, I love when it's exploited and utilised. For instance, at one point you enter a hallway, and you can go either left or right, it's up to you. Whichever way you choose the hallway indefinitely repeats and goes on forever... unless you turn the camera around. The persistence of running forever and refusing things as they are will award you a trophy, for as soon as you turn around the way is open with a new doorway to go through. If you turn around again, the loop is gone, and the corridor only goes a short distance until you are rewarded with a collectible type that allows you to glimpse the truth of what has happened to you but you have forgotten. It was a very good sequence. Very subtle, all told in steps and motion.
Because there is no dialogue, you have to piece what is happening together from what you discover, what the boy relearns on their journey. The music is emotive and swells to what he feels. I was under the impression for much of the game that the main character's father was dead, that the moment on the boat after each chapter ended was perhaps a metaphor, and the boy was coming to terms with it. It was only at the end of the fourth chapter and the ensuing reveal that I realised I had been wrong - the boy was the one who had died, and suddenly every carved relief and statue I had passed of a crying man made sense. The boy was lost to the sea during a storm and boy's cape had torn in the father hands, the only thing he has left of him... the same cape that the boy has been wearing the entire time as part of his outfit. As the game ends, the boy, who has reached confluence by your hand, moves on. The endless climb up a tower becomes a descent instead. And the father lets go of his grief, and the piece of red cape that he has kept this whole time.
That last moment got me. I was misty eyed through a few other companion departures but it was the father accepting what had happened that made me start crying. Grief is so poignant and personal but it was just... a very lovely moment, a very good sentiment, kind of exactly what I needed right now.
Hold onto your hurt... and then let it go.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-01 04:45 am (UTC)This is a lovely entry. I've no familiarity with the game, but I can easily imagine how it plays out from what you've written, and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
no subject
Date: 2025-01-02 03:15 am (UTC)