Rime

Dominated by a melancholic atmosphere and a strong allegorical structure, Rime is a touching adventure game whose problems lie in its repetitive narrative and the way its level design discourages exploration with lots of points of no return: we may still want to see what’s out there, but sadly, it’s impossible now that we’ve crossed an arbitrary part of the level.

The story begins with a shipwreck, when a young boy wakes up on the shores of a mysterious island. Towering above him is a gigantic tower with the symbol of a lock carved into its top. The boy knows he needs to find a way to reach it, and he’s occasionally accompanied by a cute fox and followed by a shadowy figure clad in red.

Rime‘s narrative is sparse. There’s no dialogue whatsoever, so we must pick up bits and pieces of what’s happening by observing elements of the environment and interpreting the repetition of certain characters and objects. The places we visit, for example, clearly reveal the game’s main themes through their sculptures and drawings, and the very repetition of certain elements, such as boats, sails, shipwrecks, capes, and weeping figures – Charles, the snob, likes to call them “the visual motifs” – reflect an obsession rather than a culture, appearing to be more the fruit of a troubled psyche than parts of an actual, tangible place.

If the art direction strongly indicates that what we’re witnessing should be interpreted as a symbol instead of being taken literally, the level design also reinforces this notion: the few puzzles that we must solve, for example, often play with perspective and shadows, with the boy – much like Senua – having to realign his gaze to realize that he is able to go where it was impossible before, walking on a path that has just materialized.

The design of each island tries to follow its corresponding theme (at the end of the first chapter, for example, we must reverse time to proceed – an action that’s imbued with pathos when we discover the chapter’s title), but these thematic connections are often as thin as the story itself – and a bit repetitive to boot. The first level has that figure clad in red appearing more frequently because they personify a specific feeling related to the island, but, save for the time mechanic, that’s basically all there is to the place in terms of thematic importance.

Even the time mechanic itself is not unique to that island, appearing in the next one as well, which diminishes its symbolic function. Rime, therefore, would have benefited from a greater variety of symbols and metaphors, especially since it foregoes any kind of dialogue – an element that greatly helped another (far superior) game with similar themes: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

The motifs here are always the same (boat, shipwreck, tears, sail, cape) and, although they serve to cement the obsessive aspect of the scenario, after a while, there is little being presented that is new: the attentive player who has already captured the message, then, will be at a disadvantage. Poor Charles, the snob, it sucks being smart…

But the ending is not as impactful as it could have been, either, even for those who’ve missed the hints: it doesn’t add new elements or subvert old ones, but only reaffirms everything in a clearer light. It’s basically saying “it’s about this theme, ok?” sharing the same energy of this moment from Del Toro’s Frankenstein.

Rime’s atmosphere, on the other hand, is excellent, greatly benefiting from the game’s approach to music, which turns the protagonist’s melodic voice into his main skill. As in Ocarina of Time, the focus on music in Rime contributes to the mystical aura of the world, with the boy using melodies as a key to open the locks that eluded the person who built that abstract place.

The soundtrack, in turn, is a constant presence in the adventure, reinforcing the melancholy that marks the boy’s journey, while soaring at just the right times to make everything feel a bit more epic and grander. Since the game’s art uses a cel-shaded style, the composer, David García Díaz, crafts melodies that seem to seek inspiration from the animations of Studio Ghibli – and one cannot help but think of Princess Mononoke when hearing the track “The Song of the Sea.”

Finally, let’s tackle exploration. Rime is an adventure game at its core, with the protagonist scouring each island for clues and answers. But the level design runs counter to this mindset with a lot of arbitrary points of no return, which lock us out of parts of the level, making us lose access to whatever was there – mainly collectibles. When we cross one of these points, we need to restart the whole chapter if we want to acquire any collectibles we’ve missed, which is, well, tiresome: most people won’t bother, and no one can judge them.

It’s bad enough to have lots of points of no return in a game about exploration, but Rime makes it worse by rarely signaling us that we’re about to cross one. It’s one thing for us to realize that we’re jumping off a platform from which there seems to be no way back:  we may have faith in the developers, believing there will be a shortcut hidden somewhere to get us back to the previous area, but at least we take into consideration the danger of not being able to return. It’s quite another thing entirely to find out that we’re not able to get back from a bridge, which is still standing there in perfect conditions, because now there’s an invisible wall blocking our path. It’s quite frustrating, but what isn’t in life, right?

Rime has some wasted potential, then. The fantastical setting that serves as an allegory for the pain and suffering of a character is not developed to its fullest, being hampered by the excessive repetition of the same symbols. Meanwhile, its moments of exploration are sabotaged by a strict level design. In the end, the game is certainly better than Tequila Works’ past title, Deadlight, but it could have been much more. Rime could have been truly great.

March 02, 2021.

Review originally published in Portuguese on September 19, 2018.