Rain World Review
This is a review for the game Rain World. I played the game on Steam, but you can also play it on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation systems.
There won't be any specific story spoilers in this review, I mostly talk in generalities.
This is probably where I would normally put a wholehearted “go play this game!”, but my feelings towards this game are more complicated than that.
I think that this game is very good, but I don’t think that this game is for everyone. I mean, it almost wasn’t for me, even. I got this game, and I had ended up taking a break from it. I’m happy that I went back to it, though. The experience was very much worth it.
Perhaps me describing the game to you will pique your interests. I would encourage you to at least give it a try.
Rain World is a game about survival, exploration, and persistence. You can kind of think of it as a “survival” game, but it’s more of a “struggle for survival” game.
It’s one of those games where it tells you the bare minimum of how to play and trusts that you will survive and make it through.
You are (almost literally) dropped in a world with nothing more than the fact that: as a living being, you need to survive.
One of the first things that you learn is that the world is cruel and unfair.
You are not an apex predator. You are small, weak, and fragile. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you are very likely to die if you pick fights with anything that wants to eat you. Simply being unlucky: a predator in the wrong place at the wrong time or a missed jump, is enough to end your life.
The land is sprawling and confusing. You are living and exploring in a world that wasn’t designed for you, or for anyone really. It’s just the result of an ecosystem struggling to survive.
To me, this atmosphere is masterfully done.
At the beginning of the game, the story is told with no words. You are dropped in the world, taught the basics of survival, and you are guided by your curiosity and vague hints as to where you should go.
The soundtrack of this game has this spiritual, alien feeling to it which perfectly pairs the alien world that you must explore and survive in. My only regret is turning down the music volume at some point and never being able to fully experience the music. Though, I think that most of the time the music quiets down and lets you contemplate in silence.
One of the first things that I learned was that I can’t pick fights. I learned to avoid direct confrontation by watching, waiting, and sneaking around. Running past an enemy has a greater chance of survival than trying to win a fight.
There isn’t a stat-based progression system which means that survival is entirely based on your mechanical skill and understanding of the world.
I don’t know the specifics on how the enemy AI works, but it works very well. Every creature, friend and foe alike, is just like you: trying to survive in this hostile environment. Surviving in this world requires an understanding of its ecosystem. Knowing how your enemies act can greatly boost your chances of survival.
For as much as you want to take things slow and steady, you are pressured by the largest threat: the rain. After a certain amount of time in a cycle, a bullet-like, crushing rain comes down upon the world. If you do not find a hibernation spot, you will die.
The hibernation spots also serve as checkpoints that you will return to. If you consume at least 4 food items, you will be able to hibernate and set your spawn point. In this way, death is no barrier.
The rain and checkpoint system encourages a healthy amount of reckless abandon. You want to be careful, but not too careful.
It’s under these conditions that you learn to survive. You must be quick and efficient, but willing to take risks and learn from them. It’s honestly brilliant.
The game is very unfair. Your fragility means that just about anything can swoop in and end your life in an instant. It’s never really a question of “can I survive this?” because you’re either lucky or dead.
There were many times that I was trying to explore in a specific direction, but the enemies and hazards in my way would keep killing me and sending me back to the checkpoint. That’s a pretty common occurrence in this game: running off in a direction, dying, and running back again.
Because the game basically sends you loose with little guidance, I spent quite a bit of time simply exploring and not knowing where to go. I didn’t even know if I was making any tangible progress and I didn’t have any goal.
It’s not that the game doesn’t have systems that point you in the right direction, it’s that they are kind of subtle if you’re not paying attention to them.
With the way that I’ve been describing the game, it must seem like a very frustrating game to play. The game barely tells you how to play it, it’s unfair, and you die constantly trying to figure out where to go.
However, I do think that this is one of its greatest strengths if you are able to face these challenges.
To me, this game perfectly encapsulates the feeling of fighting to survive in a hostile world.
Every challenge that you face and overcome is done by your own merits because the world certainly isn’t trying to help you.
Many times, I almost put down the game for good, but the mystery of the world and my place within it kept me coming back to the game over and over again.
Rain World is one of the most interesting games that I have ever played.
It provided the experience of raw survival to a degree that no other game has been able to.
Some random stray thoughts:
Sometimes geometry isn’t readable which makes precision platforming and maneuverability difficult. Sometimes you don’t know where you can and can’t go.
You can definitely hibernate (and thus set your checkpoint) in areas where it’s hard to go back. This means that it’s pretty easy to get stuck in a place where going forward and backtracking are very difficult. This actually happened in my first save file but since I didn’t really progress that much I didn’t lose that much progress.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether or not there’s a bottomless pit that will kill you or a screen transition to another room.
This game definitely has its fair share of creepy crawlies. I don’t know why, but certain enemies just freak me out so much. I just get shivers down my spine whenever I see them.
The game can be quite scary, for me at least. Not scary in a jumpscare kind of way but scary in a “fear of the unknown” kind of way. I’m surprised I got through some parts, honestly. The game just intrigued me so much it helped me brave it.
The game’s visuals are quite simplistic but honestly really beautiful. The level design conveys just how tiny you are in this giant, sprawling industrial ruin.