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 kinda incredible just how uncompromising this is with what it wants to be, everything is contextualized and nothing is particularly convenient for the player. It all comes together perfectly to immerse the player into the mindset of the slugcat. It's stressful, beautiful and almost infinitely replayable to me. It may be flawed in a few aspects but i can't say it really has any strong detriments with how much it excels at most things and just how much it appeals to me personally. Also hunter mode has got to be one of the best hard modes in any game.

No somos una criatura indefensa. Somos un depredador medio, capaz de usar herramientas, aprender, resolver problemas, hacer amigos y enemigos. Las pantallas fijas funcionan a ratos como laberintos plataformeros en los que hacer parkour y jugar al pilla pilla con caricaturescos monstruos, a ratos como pinturas románticas, con el pequeño animalito descentrado en la composición en contraste con una imponente arquitectura abandonada donde jeroglíficos y grafitis se confunden. Pantallas conectadas en un gran mundo de ecosistemas en diálogo, con nosotros y entre sí. Slugcat, cazador-recolector-explorador-aventurero y, finalmente, peregrino en busca de una salida a un ciclo claustrofóbico.

rain world presents a planet so alive, brutal, and beautiful. its enormous collection of tunnels, hills, and metal structures are designed in a way makes the player feel like the world was not made for them, that it is a real place they're passing through. the setting is inhabited by some of the strangest creatures i've ever seen, which behave fittingly strangely. the adventure starts as a battle for survival, but halfway through, the slugcat's reason for continuing on changes, as both it and the player gains awareness. a truly beautiful video game, and i do not know if there will be many more like it. i recommend you seek out the piece on rain world, buddhism, and transcendentalism out there. it may sound strange to players just starting, but this game has a lot to say about buddhism. yeah, rain world. i love it.

There's a good game at its core, but its held back by far too much tedium and RNG to make it a satisfying experience. I've sunk 7 hours into this game, fully explored 3 areas and partially explored 2 more, and in all that time nothing of significance has happened. At this point, I just don't see a compelling reason to continue any further.

While I admire the game for not holding the player's hand, that approach only works when there is some other guiding force that can act as a replacement. But Rain World really doesn't give you that. Some things you can learn through trial and error. Others require a bit of luck before the lessons finally click into place. But crucial information about the game's core mechanics and direction are totally unexplained.

Without any progress in my 7 hours of playtime, I have to wonder. Did I just get really unlucky and do all the exploration out of the intended order? Was there something I missed early on that stopped all subsequent advances? Is my path the intended one and nothing is supposed to happen at that point yet? Put simply, I have no idea because the game doesn't give me enough guidance to even figure out what I ought to be doing.

I wanted to love Rain World but, the more time I've spent with it, the more it seems this is a game that doesn't want to be loved.

One of the most beautiful environment simulators I've ever seen, with luscious locations and creatures that all interact with each other.

It's a real shame you actually have to PLAY it though.

I tried, I really did, but the butter-stuck-in-the-buttons controls mixed with random generation that makes creatures act like Garry's Mod rag-dolls and the punishing difficulty filled to the brim with trial-and-error made this more stressful than fun, not even stressful in a fun way either.

how early is too early for me to call my shot on the quality of something? i'm not asking this to be facetious, i'm genuinely curious. the reason i ask is that i highly doubt the quality of rain world will falter from my current point in the game. i'm only about say, 3 or 4 hours in? and it's already one of the most impressive games i've played in my life. every frame has been filled with such grace and beauty, while every interaction with the world and it's ecosystem has been lung-crushingly tense at best and downright terrifying at worst. it's chewed me up and spit me out over and over again, but i keep coming back to push through the brutal struggle. if that's not a sign of a special game, i don't know what is.

after i finish the game i may make a vein attempt to write something more formal about it, and by extension probably remove this journal entry to clean up my page a little. for the time being i can only speak for my experience through the first few levels, but if this section is indicative of the quality of the game as a whole, I suspect i'll comfortably be able to call this a masterpiece.