Man I love having to cover a super-long and distance with no food, unprecise controls, dangerous ennemies and a time limit.

I really love some elements of this game, and I get why so many people love it : the environments are gorgeous, the atmosphere on point, and the concept of a "metroidvania" with a living ecosystem where you play as your own part of the food chain is simply brilliant.
Unfortunately the frustrating controls, inherent unfairness and obscure mechanics all combined prevent me from appreciating this game as much as I'd like to, and that second trip to the Shaded Citadel was the last straw (pretty huge straw I must admit).

I'd still recommand it if it looks interesting to you but it truely saddens me that it wasn't for me.

Rain World is something larger than life itself. I have my own gripes about this game, and its ending (it is still an excellent ending, just feels like it could represent some things better), but when we look at our lives beyond the little scopes and cycles we go through, our own gripes can be lost in it all and at the end of the day are something that we should strive to let go. In Rain World, we go straight back to the basics of life, and live to live another day. We continue to go through our cycles of death and life as the unwavering oppression of our world rains down upon us, despite it all, we continue our lives, repeat our own cycles in these lives. Rain World provides its Buddhist themes beautifully, and even if I personally felt it wavered at points, but it is not in the name of Buddha to hold on to those grievances.

I am not a Buddhist, and probably will never be, but it is easily the philosophy I can relate to the most. I cannot describe exactly how I relate to it, but reading through piece after piece adjacent to Buddhism, I can't help but be entranced and work myself to be a better person. Rain World did the same for me, and I think that is a feat for any game, with the only games I can say that did the same for me being Outer Wilds and Library of Ruina. This game feels so different and yet it brings me to the same conclusions I have after witnessing those masterpieces (but shouldn't be compared directly as this is still a vastly different game). This game is a beautiful, atmospheric, spiritual, and philosophical journey that I think will really stick with me for a while. This whole review has just been me really sitting to think about the whole game after completion, no real structure and just a flow of thoughts. Always happens with these games that I truly adore, just as if these cycles always end with this same flood of rain.

I got this game because a friend really wanted me to play it and go in completely blind. I'm only 3 cycles in right now and nothing could've prepared me for how scared shitless I'd become while playing this. It's probably one of the few games out there that makes being at the bottom of the food chain a genuinely horrifying experience.

Not only are you trying to hunt lesser creatures for survival, but you also have to deal with bigger eldritch horrors hunting you relentlessly for their own survival. It's fucked up.

Really makes you FEEL like Slugcat.

Endlessly gorgeous in its world design, refreshingly subtle and minimalist, and one of the most effective tone-pieces and uncompromising gaming experiences out there. Every element combines in a masterful display of how unconventional, inconvenient game mechanics can bring greater purpose to the player experience without sacrificing thematic resonance in its Buddhist-inspired circle of life philosophy, providing further context for its harsh, challenging world and uniquely animalistic mindset required to survive. Frustrating? Yes, but, while I might be insane, I found it fun more often than not, with a rewarding sense of exploration and movement detailed enough to provide continual mastery of your slugcat’s many abilities, a huge, varied world that always feels fresh and exciting to traverse, and for being a 2D Metroid-like that doesn't half-ass its warping system, finally.

Rain World is the best game I've ever played that I can't recommend, as it is so bold in its vision of game design as a form of artistic expression that it won't hesitate to crush you with that vision. I know, for me, the feeling of being in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by predators, and happening upon a shelter at the end of a long hallway while I hear the frightening rumbling of the oncoming downpour is something I won't soon forget, and exemplifies the magic needed of esoteric games like these.

Rain World is the best survival game i've ever played, that because it isn't fair, it doesn't make you feel special like the other similar games, you are not the strongest of animals, you're not even the smartest, but you are not the weakest neither the dumbest, that gives you a shred of hope, and with enough determination you will thrive.

there's way more than just that... The art style of the game, beautiful; The soundtrack, amazing; The AI, incredibly believable to all beings; The gameplay, great, but, it can get clunky at times.

If one were to come up with a "golden rule" for making video games, I think the most commonly applicable mantra would be this:

Games should feel good to play, and they should be fair.

Hard to disagree with on the surface, and it's a rule that, in 99% of games, wouldn't steer you wrong. But assigning "rules" to art is tenuous at best. Filmmakers, musicians, writers, artists of all kind have long since learned the lesson that breaking conventions and established rules can be valuable in evoking certain emotions. Filmmakers have broken basic rules of shot composition to create a feeling of unease or intentional confusion, dissonance can have its value in music, and one may argue that traditional art may not have moved much past realism if not for artists pushing the boundaries of the medium to better present the intended emotion of a piece. Not every piece of art should be enjoyable to experience at all times, because life itself isn't always enjoyable to experience.

Rain World is a game which understands the value that can be created in not being enjoyable. Rain World is unfair, not because the developers didn't balance the game correctly, but because they understood that as soon as they started making concessions for the player, the ecosystem they created would cease to feel believable, and the world would become the same as nearly every other game; a space made for the player, in service of an enjoyable experience. If enemies arbitrarily ceased attacking you as you changed screens or adhered to specific patrols and behaviors they would no longer feel like inhabitants of this world, but instead merely obstacles meant to be overcome.

To be totally fair to Rain World’s detractors, there are two stances one could take in opposition to this unfairness that I see as valid concerns:

1. Players with any sort of accessibility concerns may be completely incapable of completing Rain World due to its indifferent approach to fairness - I sympathize heavily with anyone who simply cannot complete Rain World due to conditions out of their control. The game added the Monk character which goes a decent way towards making the experience easier for players, but this "easy mode" character doesn't fundamentally change the way the world works, it just makes those moments of unfairness less frequent.

2. Related to my previous point, video games are the only medium which are largely active experiences. You may find an aspect of a film upsetting in some form, but you can take solace in the fact that so long as you don't shut it off or walk out of the theatre you will see the ending to the movie, you don't need any sort of active input to see the credits roll. This isn't a promise kept for video games because many of them require some direct input from the player to reach the ending, so therefore some consideration should be made to allowing the player to reach the ending of a game. I don't think that buying a game somehow entitles you to experience it in full without trying, but I also understand the idea that at the very least, the obstacles presented to the player should be ones they can overcome with their own skill, rather than left to the whims of an unfair system.

As a side note, Rain World may not seem to be very fair, but at the very least it has two concessions made in the players favor; that you can respawn at all flies in the face of the idea behind making a believable ecosystem but I think we can all agree that it’s a necessary concession, and that you can see when enemies are coming through pipes in advance to avoid getting killed by something you had zero chance of seeing.

Yet barring those small concessions, Rain World is indifferent to your plights, and because of this, it approaches a level of realism that beats out the almost lifelike graphics and shallow survival systems of triple A games. Navigating this world is truly treacherous and yet, because of this, it creates some of the most satisfying moments I’ve experienced in a game, none of which are scripted. Escaping the jaws of a salamander through a well-placed spear to its face, out-swimming a massive sea monster, befriending a group of scavengers and helping them fight off a dangerous vulture are all satisfying and memorable because you know that the game didn’t lean in your favor in the slightest, you accomplished these things by yourself using your knowledge, survival skills and wit.

It also helps immensely that the music is appropriately foreboding and suits the drop-dead GORGEOUS art of the game. Seriously, Rain World is probably the best looking 2D game I’ve ever played, all the realism in its mechanics would have been utterly wasted if the art hadn’t been up to snuff but thankfully, it compliments the gameplay perfectly. I also want to give a small shoutout to the ending sequence which, without spoilers, left me in a state of complete awe and was the perfect capstone to the experience.

I can completely understand why many find this game frustrating, but to me it’s proof that this medium has so much room to grow and expand. Gaming is a very new form of art, so seeing indie games like Rain World be willing to push the boundaries of the medium gives me hope that maybe the art form isn’t as doomed to homogenization as I thought. As usual, the indies continue to push art forward, while the big companies are content with stagnation.

One of my favorite games of all time, and is probably the most unique game I've ever played.
Rain world puts you against a world full of dangerous predators, and unlike other games, gives you barely any ways to defend yourself other than your mind. You will miss your spear attacks, your attacks will bounce back, and getting out of a tough situation will take a lot more than simply killing whatever's on the screen.
The wildlife in this game is well.. wildlife. It's a real ecosystem where every creature fends for themselves. You aren't the only thing the enemies focus on, you're just a part of a bigger ecosystem. Enemies will attack each other, have territorial fights with their own species even, some will straight up ignore you and getting past a difficult area sometimes will require you to take advantage of the fact that these creatures behave like real actual animals with goals rather than mindless entities hellbent on killing you and you alone.
Rain world is all about experimenting and observation, seeing what works and what doesn't, what you can eat and what you can't eat, what moves can you pull off and what moves you can't; observing every creature's behavior carefully to come up with the best plan to get past them. Even getting past one single creature trying to hunt you down will feel like you just outsmarted an intelligent opponent, and will feel satisfying. A lot of people give up on this game immediately, and I completely understand why. It's unlike any other game, definitely not everyone's cup of tea, the controls can be extremely rough to get used to, and it can be very brutal, but going into it, you just need a separate mindset and recognize rain world is not just another platformer, another 2d action game, it's its own thing, and trying to play it like a lot of other games will result in too much frustration.
This game is a perfect representation of survival in nature. It's literally the most immersive game I have ever played, and although it beat me down senseless countless times, beating this game felt more satisfying, more accomplishing than beating any other game I have played. Surviving in Rain World is hell, but damn is it satisfying to conquer it.

It's common to describe video game worlds as ”alive”. Obviously, this isn't literally the case, but sometimes a developer will be able to create a strong enough illusion that something approximating life exists within the ones and zeroes of a game's universe. Very occasionally, the illusion will be so powerful that you almost fool yourself into imagining that the world carries on existing after you click Exit To Desktop. As if the AI-controlled figures carry on living their lives even when you're not there to observe and interact with them.

Even though I'm fully aware that this is not the case, there is one game that would make me doubt it. No other facsimile of real life has been more convincing than Rain World.

Rain World is an extremely unforgiving and harsh survival adventure that takes place in a postapocalyptic world, far removed from our own. You play as an adorable ”slugcat” who has to find their way back to their lost family. On the way you will need to hunt for food while avoiding becoming someone else's meal in the process. Alongside the many predators of this desolate land, you also need to avoid the deadly rain that regularly floods the world and will literally crush you to death if you don't find a rare shelter in time.

However, none of this is what makes Rain World a unique specimen. Challenging adventures with a focus on survival and exploration are even more common now than in 2017, after all. Instead, it's the way that the world moves around you that makes it special. That's because practically nothing in Rain World is scripted or predetermined.

Every creature in the game feels like an individual with their own unique needs and moods. This is partly conveyed through the innovative animation system, which feature no premade animations, instead being procedurally created with each body part moving individually. This creates an uncanny realness to their movements that gives each one their own personality and makes every interaction unique.

This is further enhanced with the sophisticated AI, which is as unpredictable as it is engaging. To demonstrate this, let's talk about Scavengers. These creatures live in clans and your relation to them can vary massively due to a number of factors. How you act towards them obviously plays into it – if you come carrying a weapon they will be standoffish, perhaps attack you on sight.

However, if you put the weapon down or lay flat on the ground to signal that you mean no harm, they can leave you alone. If you give a gift, they might even welcome you. Their mood and individual personalities can also change this. If you happen across a Scavenger who is hungry or scared or angry, they can take it out on you. And of course they'll also remember if you ever attack one of their own.

On the one hand this is a system that is ripe for frustration since none of this is communicated to you directly. You have to instinctively work out how to interact with others, largely via trial and error. But it's also the lack of hand holding that makes every interaction feel organic. When I manage to find peace with another creature it doesn't feel like I've cracked a puzzle designed for me by a game developer, but like I wordlessly communicated with a living being.

Even the more primitive creatures have a similar level of complexity. Crocodiles and giant centipedes will move from room to room hunting for prey, completely free of a predetermined pattern. Sometimes they will sleep or hide, ready to ambush a careless slugcat. Sometimes they will start fighting each other, or ignore you entirely if they're tired or already full.

Not only does this manage to give the game a genuine sense of reality, but also makes your journey entirely unpredictable. A room can be empty and safe in one playthrough, only to be full of bats and two crocodile squabbling with each other over the flying buffet above them.

Many games utilise this kind of systematic world design, and while this is sometimes used to create the illusion of a random, living reality, it's usually a way to let the player express themselves. By exploring and playing with the systems, the game worlds become a sandbox for you to experiment in and conquer. Rain World uses the same basic idea to instead make the player feel like just another part of a wild ecosystem.

Rain World is not a world made for you, or at least that's not what it feels like. Every time I return to its rusty, murky ruins, I get the sense that this world carries on whether or not I'm there to see it. There are no enemy routes to memorise, no clearly defined path. I have no power here, I am not its master. I am just a small slugcat in a large, unwelcoming world that doesn't care about me at all. And I love it.

Completamente comprometido a su idea de mundo, Rain World renuncia a cualquier tipo de progresión que incite al jugador a volver. No hay mazmorras, no hay bosses, no hay un sistema de niveles ni de construcción ni de mejora de equipamiento. No hay siquiera personajes o una historia. Sólo unas imágenes al principio que señalan al escape de este mundo como puntapié.

Por esto resulta normal leer cosas como "recién al tercer/cuarto intento con este juego pude terminarlo" o "lo dejé al poco tiempo" o "lo retomé por recomendación de tal o cual persona". Esta fue mi experiencia, efectivamente. No fueron pocas las veces que, tras una sesión de juego, terminaba en una situación peor a la que había empezado. No sólo por su sistema de "símbolos", que castiga al jugador por morir repetidamente, sino porque cada vez entendía menos cómo progresar en ese lugar y cuál era verdaderamente mi objetivo. No hay nada a lo que agarrarse, sencillamente. Sólo a la sensación de vida que desprende en el momento a momento.

Esa sensación de vida es todo en Rain World. Como tantos otros juegos que logran este efecto, contrapone constantemente un mundo muerto con criaturas vivas en él. La idea permanentemente presente del "lo que alguna vez fue" con el "cómo sacarle provecho ahora?". Sobrevivir en un mundo que no da las condiciones para la vida.

Y las criaturas presentes no están quietas esperando a que el jugador pase cerca para activarse o moviéndose en un patrón repetido. En cada ciclo muestran un comportamiento creíble. Inteligente pero errático, redefiniendo a cada instante sus objetivos pero chocándose por inercia o por el tonto manejo de sus extremidades. Como nuestro personaje, parecen estar tanto en conflicto con sus alrededores como con su propia anatomía.

Spoilers:

En el desenlace, hasta esa única premisa del juego es subvertida. La idea inicial en Rain World era sobrevivir y escapar de este lugar? El final entonces es en lo más profundo y a la vez un suicidio. Rain World propone el último acto como uno trascendental, la unión física y espiritual de cuerpo y mundo: la muerte más hermosa de la historia de los videojuegos.

Very interesting concept. Post-apocalyptic world where you're at the bottom of the food chain, and you're trying to navigate the world without dying.

I think the more you play this game, the better you will understand the story behind it. However, at the start of the game, it doesn't really have anything going for it. The way you progress is getting smarter, but you don't unlock anything. It's a shame though, because to me that isn't all that interesting. At a certain point, I just became bored with it, to be honest.

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
--Watership Down

Rain World one of those games where the line of "I like it because I think it's fun" and "I like it because I respect the work that went into it" is blurred.
Every enemy has observable behavior patterns, be it hunting, pack tactics, fear of environmental hazards, or symbiosis with other creatures. Looking at the behind the scenes it's impressive how it all fits together with the AI having separate ways of tracking through sight or vision. It truly feels like I am escaping a wild animal and not an enemy with a "pursue entity: [Player]" protocol.
And understanding that is what helps mitigate the frustrations when the simulation works against you. Three camouflaged lizards camping by the one path forward isn't the devs crafting a challenging encounter, that's just where their AI is telling them to gather because they're being chased out of their usual hunting grounds by a migrating tribe of Scavenger Monkeys.
Still, this can be used to your advantage, because the lizards are territorial and don't like sharing space with one another. Coax one to assault another and they may just leave enough of an opening for you to slip past.
90% of the time it works and feels like you're overcoming the odds of a world programmed against you by fighting back with your knowledge of it.

The other 10% of the time is when the simulation breaks down. You start to see the artifice in the design and things transcend from "Tolerable inconvenience" to "Bullshit Setback."
Because Rain World still needs to be a game with a goal and path forward, and this at times is incongruous with it's measured little world.
Much of the actual frustrations I had came at the fault of the rain mechanic. You're on a timer (with inconsistent length) at the start of each day to fill your belly and find shelter, and sometimes the path to shelter just isn't the path that food has spawned on, and vice-versa.
This wouldn't be so much a problem without the karma system preventing your passage to new areas. Survive a day with a full belly, your karma goes up a level, die and it goes down. At the entrance to new areas you'll be denied access if your karma isn't above a certain level. Get rejected and you now have to remain in the area you just got through, back tracking until you find reasonable hunting grounds and survive enough cycles to get your karma level requisite.

Grinding. It's grinding. And the grinding is never fun because of the aforementioned chaos and unfairness of the simulated ecosystem. Getting through an area by the skin of your teeth feels terrific, being told to go back and do it five more times is deflating.

And it's clear the devs became aware of this deficiency, because endgame areas simply start to include farmable food and shelters right outside the karma checkpoints. Were it not tied to the game's themes and story of cycles and rebirth, I'd question if the game even needs the karma system.

The true frustrations lie in a few gimmick areas causing deaths (and thus depleted karma) far outside the control or understanding of new players. A completely pitch black network of tunnels that causes eye strain, a complex of sentient cancer and zero gravity, and fields of carnivorous grass that can only be traversed on the back of a squishy deer that can sometimes just not spawn near you (this is oddly the worst one).

But as I walk away from Rain World, I can't stay mad at it. It's too fascinating a creation. A labor of passion and experimentation.

I will, inevitably, grit my teeth and dive back in again.

The one thing I knew about this game before going in was how challenging it was and how this challenge created a schism between those who have played this game. By the end, the game had won me over to the side of liking it but only just barely as I had to go through a lot of pain to get to that point.

For starters, the presentation is downright gorgeous with stellar pixel art displaying a very hostile and abandoned world. Creeping around the ruins of civilization you know nothing about and has been gone for god knows how long is an aesthetic I find very appealing. Each area of the game feels very distinct from itself offering new creatures and obstacles to encounter which refreshes the gameplay loop a little bit.

Where my main concerns for this game lie is in its said gameplay loop which requires you to be at certain in-game levels in order to reach the next area. This would not be that bad on its own but the lack of solid directions lead me either to dead ends or down dangerous paths that resulted in my death numerous times. After a while, it felt like the game was wasting my time by throwing enemies at me out of nowhere and forcing me to grind to a higher level only to be killed out of nowhere again. I understand the game is trying to replicate the harsh environment a creature like the "Slugcat" would have to endure but many times my appreciation of this detail was clouded by my rage of dying over 10 times in one area.

I have a lot of respect for this game whether it be because of its aforementioned stellar presentation, impressive enemy ai, and ecosystem, or even its cool ambient soundtrack. I wish I could love this game more but I found its gameplay infuriating one too many times for me to even want to go back and play the other characters. That being said I would still recommend this to those who want to see a unique type of game that has not been replicated yet. I am glad I was able to experience it despite my misgivings about it.

The idea of a living and breathing metroidvania sounded so intriguing to me but unfortunately I can't like it a bit.
In the 1 hour or so of playing I didn't feel any joy and I am at that point in life where I can't push myself to play something just to see if it will get any better.
The atmosphere and the art style are pretty cool but the gameplay feels clunky and not very fluid.
I'll watch some videos about the ecosystem of the game and how it was created as a coping mechanism.
I know it's not my cup of tea but I can understand why others can enjoy it and maybe will recommend it to platformers/metroidvania fans.

Rain World is many things, but if I had to sum it up in one word, I'd say it's beautiful. I'm not great at video games, and I try to stay away from especially difficult ones. I don't know what convinced me to get Rain World though. I mean hey, I managed to beat it in the end. It was incredibly frustrating at times, and there's even some mechanics in the game I absolutely hated, but despite the adversity and problems, and I can say I enjoyed it. It's unfair and unpredictable to a brutal degree, but the way it tests your intelligence and problem solving skills over your reaction speed and ability to press the attack button several times sets it apart from other games that are ridiculously hard. Knowledge is more valuable than anything else in Rain World and embracing failure and letting yourself learn is the key to moving forward.

Gameplay:
Rain World sees you playing as a slug cat, traveling through a world filled with danger around every corner. It'll teach you the basics, but it's up to you to learn how the world works. The game's a platformer at its core with elements of survival woven throughout. The movement system is simple to grasp but takes time to master. Chaining wall jumps, climbs, and careful leaps is something you'll be doing all throughout the game. Quick observation is constantly rewarded, as thinking fast and platforming well can get you out of a lot of situations. The game also spices it up sometimes like the segments with the grapple worms and jet fish. If I had to give one criticism, it would be that swimming feels awful. I feel like I'm in an all-out war against the controls just to go where I want to in the water. Doesn't help that the slug cat has the lungs of an asthmatic snail.

Rain World's world is ridiculously big and complex. You'll encounter a plethora of creatures on your journey, each with their own behaviors and mechanics associated with them. Some are friends, some are predators, and some are prey. There are even tons of interesting plants to interact with, for better or for worse. Learning what each one does can really take time. There were so many things throughout my playthrough that I didn't know were food until I accidentally ate them. Speaking of which, finding food is something you'll have to do on top of dodging danger. It's not too difficult to do, but it is mandatory for hibernating at a shelter. The game is technically on a time limit that is reset everytime you hibernate. Finding shelters is crucial as you travel through the world, as they'll protect you from the impending deadly rainstorms and act as a save point you go back to everytime you die. Locations of plants will stay consistent with every death, but you'll find it hard to find a creature in the same place twice. This is what truly makes the game so hard. You can play through an area several times and learn its layout top to bottom, but enemy placement is something you will always need to adjust for on the fly. You can get both extremely lucky and extremely unlucky with placements of enemies, which can be irritating when you run into unwinnable scenarios. This isn't a detriment to the experience on its own, in fact it might it might even enhance it because it means you can never get too comfortable, but the game has one simple mechanic that makes this dreadful...

I wouldn't call the karma system bad, but it is questionable and pretty counter-intuitive to the game's design. Karma is raised by surviving a cycle and lowered every single time you die. It can be controlled by karma flowers you can find to prevent your karma level from being lowered for one death, but it can still be a royal pain. Karma gates prevent passage between regions without a proper level of karma. This means in order to progress, you need to hope to heck you don't die by stupid stuff multiple times and hope you get lucky enough to make it to a karma gate with the proper level or else oops! you're probably going to die by the rain before you can return to your shelter, meaning you get to lower your karma. Hooray : D While a mechanic like this does encourage players to try not to die, this is Rain World we're talking about. Dying is inevitable, and for a game that behaves so inconsistently sometimes (looking at you, Farm Arrays), it can make the game a frustrating nightmare! I'd highly recommend newbies to play as the Monk slug cat first, as it will let you learn the game without having to have the right karma everytime you need to re-enter a gate, which trust me, you'll be doing a lot. Unfortunately, you still have to sit through the obscenely long gate opening sequence every single time you die. I absolutely don't blame anyone who feels like the karma system ruined the game for them because ugh. Easily my least favorite part of the game.

To compliment the great movement system and wonderfully complex flora and fauna, Rain World brings great level design to the table. Though the world of the game boils down to a nonstop platforming and survival gauntlet, each region brings its own unique challenge to the table. Whether it be conquering verticality, braving the sea, navigating zero gravity, or whatever else, there's always something interesting and engaging to offer. The game gives you a lot to work with too. Every room is filled to the brim with areas to climb and items to grab. The game is nonlinear too, so there's tons of paths to take to reach your objective. Some paths are definitely easier than others though, so while you can't necessarily get lost, you can definitely end up getting stuck going in a direction that is 100x longer and more difficult than another. Still, the options for exploration are amazing. I'd definitely recommend playing this game without a guide, at least when it comes to figuring out which direction to go. I can't necessarily say the same for more confusing mechanics though (LOOKING AT YOU AGAIN, FARM ARRAYS)

Story:
I've already explained what the game is on the surface, but there is shockingly rich lore to uncover. It's best left to discover on your own, but I will say that the game has excellent visual storytelling. There is very little text throughout the game so it's up to you to theorize about what's going on for most of your first playthrough.

Sound and visuals:
Rain World has a "less is more" approach to sound design. The game's sound effects are very subtle, leaving a lot of silence that builds atmosphere effectively. Music is also subtle and infrequent. The game has adaptive tracks with layers that build on each other slowly. This approach to audio fits the game perfectly and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Rain World's visuals are wholly impressive. There's no shortage of gorgeous, wallpaper-worthy sceneries in this game. The environment design is somber and moody with gray backgrounds contrasted by the bright colors of the organisms that inhabit them. It not only serves a game design purpose but also makes for a distinct art style. The creature designs are also stellar. Each one is so unique and out of this world yet they all feel like believable animals. Their movement is almost uncanny, as animation in Rain World is done completely through procedural generation. I actually thought the game was made with 3D models made to look 2D at first, but nope. It's all some crazy complicated programming. The animation has its hiccups but I'd say that's a fair trade for the liveliness that comes from it.

Conclusion:
Rain World is beautiful. It perfectly captures what it's probably like to be a small creature in a big ecosystem. It's got great atmosphere, great visuals, great lore, and, for the most part, great gameplay. It's definitely not for everyone though. This game is daunting. I would recommend it if you're up for the challenge though, as this is one of the most unique and incredible games I've ever played.

I will end this review by saying that I do not recommend getting the game on the Nintendo Switch. It's an okay enough port if it's the only thing you got, but the performance in certain areas of the game can range from annoying to experience-ruining. Stutters, brutal frame drops, input delays, the works. Though not exceptionally common, crashes are definitely something you gotta worry about too. In a game like Rain World where exiting the game will take your karma and send you back to you last save, there were many times where I had to hold my breath and pray that my hard work and luck wasn't about to be erased. Yeah, just please get the game elsewhere if you can.

I think maybe I just don't get it? I have no problem with a game being difficult, but this one seems to be deliberately designed to be unfun. I sunk about an hour into this before giving up for the first time; at this point I was stuck between three or four rooms filled with enemies I have no idea how to deal with and no objective to be working towards and hence no motivation to proceed. I tried to get into it again, not wanting to have given up so easily, but several hours and a fair bit of progress later I still felt no desire to push through the pain. The world seems cool and the art style is pretty, the main reason I didn't want to abandon it so early, but even that seems to be working against the game here; everything seems cluttered and half the time I don't really know what I'm looking at. Maybe I'll try it again at some point and work out how to enjoy it, but this game isn't exactly inviting...