"Rain" Review

The Indie Game market has had a good run in the last few years. We have seen such grand pieces of work as "Limbo" a few years ago, and the masterful "Journey" last year. There has been a lot of hype surrounding "rain," and given how much I have come to trust the Indie market to deliver games that I will never forget, I was looking forward to this story-driven playstation network exclusive game. In terms of other people's thoughts in the end, it has scored everything from a 7 to a 9, so opinions have been split. None, however, deny the potency of the game's story. Rain is not a perfect game, but it is most likely going to make my top 5 list this year. It is a haunting and deep story that left me unable to play anything else the night I beat it because of how amazingly everything was resolved. Now, let me tell you why. This will be a much shorter review than I typically write.
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Our protagonists (1)

It is post World War 1 in Venice, Italy, and a young boy is sick at home, unable to go to the circus that is in town, because of a fever. It begins to rain, and he looks out the window and sees the silhouette of a girl standing in the rain. He then sees her being chased off by the silhouette of a monster. He gets out of bed and he rushes after them, and he finds a door leading into darkness. He enters the door and finds himself in a rainy nighttime version of the city. He realizes he is now invisible, only able to be seen in the rain. Both he and the monster, referred to as "The Unknown" are searching for the girl. This is the premise of the story of "rain." In terms of character development, there isn't much to see for the boy and the girl.
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One of the watercolor screens from the prologue (2)

This is because they don't ever say anything, all of the story is told through text on the environment (in the gameplay) and through watercolor screens (in the prologue and epilogue). The text never gives them words, they are merely players in the larger story and meanings. This does, unfortunately, slightly take away from character development, as I mentioned, but it makes the tension heavy-hitting. As you run away from the Unknown, the text describing the boy's fear makes it more potent than if the boy said "I'm afraid."
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Venice feels truly real, and dodging creatures feels more realistic (3)

But, before I talk any more about the story, I should first talk about gameplay. There isn't much to it. Essentially, you are invisible in places such as under an arch, where rain is not falling, and you use this to avoid being seen by monsters. There are various kinds of monsters that can be distracted or killed in different ways. It is essentially simple logic puzzles, and at times they kind of drag. A lot of the puzzles feel like they were put there just to make the game longer (it is about 2-3 hours long). The rest of the gameplay is based on getting past obstacles, which drags even more, and is a downside of the narrative method. A lot of this extra space is put there so that the story can be told with better pacing, which makes sense, but a few parts of the game really crawl.  That being said, it could be a lot worse. The setting could be lame, but it isn't. Sony really outdid themselves with the environments, they make Venice realistic despite the Supernatural elements, and this makes the dragging parts of the game a tad bit better.
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*Sniff* (4)

The soundtrack is also one of the better soundtracks of the year. I mean, how can one go wrong when the theme of a game is Clair de Lune? That ought to give those of you who know the piece a taste of what the atmosphere of this game is. Besides Clair de Lune, there is also a fantastic original soundtrack composed by Yugo Kanno. I don't know who that is, but he did a great job. There is also a reworking of Clair de Lune with lyrics sung by Connie Talbot. I don't know who that is either, but she did a decent job as well. Ultimately one of this game's biggest strengths is its soundtrack. Coupled with the historically accurate but also supernatural WW1 Venice, it is an atmosphere to be reckoned with.
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Aaaaaaagh! (5)

Now lets talk about the antagonist, the Unknown. This flipping monster that is chasing the boy and the girl the entire time. This guy is so annoying. Its like, every single time the characters get anywhere he happens to pop out of nowhere and cause trouble. He is a fantastic villain in that I want to flipping kill him the entire time. He just makes everything so doggoned complicated. You "kill" or "trap" him like, 20 times throughout the course of the game, and he keeps coming back to life and getting out and popping up right where you don't need him to be. The Unknown will be getting a high place on my top 5 villains list this year because there are few villains that I have wanted dead more than the Unknown.
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A single light in the darkness (6)

But the strongest point of the game is its ending. I don't want to spoil anything, but there is a twist that isn't seen coming about 3/4 of the way through the plot. From there, the supernatural Venice has a whole new meaning with so much symbolism and depth. The ending was like the ending of Journey, only in that I had to struggle to keep the tears back when it happened. It is so beautifully handled, and the narration is spaced out just enough to keep you in suspense until the very last minute, at which point the emotional overflow is absolutely overwhelming. I was going to play "The Last of Us," the game that, unless something truly fantastic comes out, will be my game of the year this year, after I finished Rain initially. But I was not satisfied with even my favorite game of this year after the beautiful, tear-jerking, philosophical question-provoking end of rain. I played it again the next night, the last night I was home for the weekend that I played this game on, and it was just as good even though I already knew what happened.
As much as I want to call this game a Masterpiece, especially given the fact that it has the best ending of any game this year, I can't call it that. Parts of it simply dragged too much, and it didn't take much away, but it did take away its place as a Masterpiece seal holder. That, and the fact that some of the story was a tad bit cheesy and nonsensical even within the logic of the story. I will still give this emotional bulldozer a perfect score, but it will have to live without the Masterpiece Seal.
10/10
Nice work, Sony, very nice work.

Picture Sources:
Cover: www.thefourohfive.com
(1) www.theguardian.com
(2) www.games.highdefdigest.com
(3) www.theverge.com
(4) www.forums.ffshrine.org
(5) www.polygon.com
(6) www.otakudome.com