Arise: A Simple Story... Maybe a little TOO simple

I love casual games with a good story and in particular I like games where they don't tell you the story but you just have to figure it out based on visual clues or the mood and symbolism that is going on in the game. The most famous of these is probably a game called Journey but there are many many more. I originally got this game because it was on one of those monthly specials and so far, while I do like the art and the way the story is kind of progressing, the gameplay itself is really boring and monotonous and I don't think I am even very far into the game yet.

src

The game starts out with a short cinematic of a group of tribal looking people burning a dead person that they clearly respect at a funeral pyre. Then you are whisked away to another location in the snow where you are this grizzly looking bearded dude that can control time to a certain degree and need to head into the distance for some reason. That is all you are told and none of it is done with words.

src

The graphics are pretty good and really appeal to me. It is colorful and the music is great. There is no fighting as of yet and it is simply a puzzle platformer where you have to push time forwards or backwards in order to change your surroundings in order to make progression possible such as a point in the game where you move the sun across the sky in order to change the direction that these gigantic sunflowers are facing so you can jump on them without falling.

src

At certain checkpoints you encounter these statues of children doing certain things which kind of indicates to me that this is a father who has lost his kids or perhaps the father is dead and making his way through the afterlife. Someone is dead, we know that much because of the opening cutscene.

src

This is all great so far but now we enter the part of the game that I do not like: It is monotonous as hell and consists of don't fall or you are going to have to go back and try again over and over again. Thankfully the load times are almost instant, so it isn't frustrating in that regard - it's just kind of boring.

The only reason why I continue to play is because I really want to know what the story is and I think that is the main reason why anyone plays these games. Unfortunately I think they kind of missed the mark as far as having some variety in gameplay is concerned because you just jump and climb and that's basically all there is to it. Some of the climbing, in particular, is unnecessarily tedious. The puzzles are also extremely simple but I'm not going to complain about that seeing as how doing any puzzle even a little bit wrong results in insta-death and you have to go back and have another try at it. Like I said, at least the load to try again is almost instantaneous.

src

Overall I would say that the graphics and music are just good enough to keep you interested, but also low quality enough that this will run really well on most machines, which is good since my computer is 5 years old. The story I can tell is going to be a tear-jerker and that is always fun to me and the fact that you have to figure it out on your own and it is open to personal interpretation also appeals to me.

The big downside is that there simply isn't much variety in gameplay and every level thus far, even though they look different, feels the same. I'm at the point now where I am kind of hoping that this is not a long game so I can go ahead and get the story without having to play it much more.

They almost nailed this one but ultimately I can't really recommend this to anyone because it's a little too easy and repetitive and therefore I can easily consider this game to be boring. For casuals, this might be a game you consider to be "OK." For people who enjoy a challenge, you will quickly tire of this game so therefore, unless you can get it for say, $5 or so, I wouldn't bother.