people will tell you that the worst part of flower, sun, and rain is all the damn walking. the running back and forth, the constant little tasks, the characters who exist just to annoy you.

hell no it isn't. that's the good part. all those stupid characters who just make you do things for them? the huge island you just have to get through by foot? the nonsense puzzles you need to look through a big book to solve?

that's CHARM, buddy.

no, the worst part of flower, sun, and rain is when it tries to connect back to the silver case, a game that only made about 60% sense at any given time but made up for it with an incredibly slick presentation and writing style with an eye to the future in terms of Oh So Many Things. none of it works or provides anything meaningful, and most of it is half of an idea with a big "maybe play the next game to find out more..?" vibe all over the place.

the dialogue here can still be funny, witty, or evoke strong lasting imagery in your mind, but anything regarding the Strict Plot is just really not worth it. look up any explanation of it and you'll see people throw in "apparently" and "somehow" all over the place. and this really isn't a game where you can just say "ignore the plot entirely"-it's there, and the latter third of the game is dedicated to it.. but it is not good.

but that's not why you came to this island, right? it's a vacation, relax a bit.. talk to the people you meet on the way. don't focus so much on what'll happen tomorrow when there's still so much left of today!

Sumio must have calves of steel after all the walking he does in this game.

Flower, Sun, and Rain might be one of the most unique games I've played. Spending copious amounts of time doing nothing but walking back and forth between distant locations, solving esoteric math equations... None of that sounds like fun, and yet I loved every minute I spent with this game. While I'm not too crazy about all the puzzles being number-based (I'll admit I found myself having to consult a guide at times), the way the game handles them by technically having the solution to every single one of them on the player at all times is brilliant. The monotonous gameplay loop of slowly getting closer and closer to your original destination each day is oddly exciting, and once I started making serious progress I found myself unable to put the game down. The simple early-game tasks the player is presented with evoke a sense of comfort, which is quickly ripped away once the plot threads start unravelling and the truth of the island you've been walking around on starts becoming more apparent. Many of the big reveals in the game left me genuinely surprised. Some confusion is inevitable, but the links the game has to The Silver Case become very clear. This didn't stop when I finished the game, as dwelling on what I'd just played (as well as talking with friends that are fans of the Kill The Past series) had me drawing more and more conclusions in regards to both FSR and TSC (and even Killer7) that continued to blow my mind.

It's definitely not for everyone. But The Silver Case is a game that definitely deserves to be given a chance, and you'd be massively missing out to stop there and not play this one. Flower, Sun, and Rain has me very excited to dive into the next entry in the series, The 25th Ward, and see what it has in store.

A very Suda game. It's got everything you'd expect from him: wrestlers, assassins, chapters that start and end on very similar beats, a great sense of style, and fantastic writing across the board.
Not to break into a whole "can games be bad on purpose" type beat discussion but they definitely knew what they were doing here. One of the most notable things about it is how the game actively slows down the protagonist's journey with unnecessary distractions and then has the gall to have characters get mad at you for not doing what you were brought here for in the first place. Reminds me of YIIK but unlike in that game it builds up to something here and is very well executed where the player is very much in on the joke and it leads to extremely well explored characters that never fail to be interesting and charming.
If you're new to Suda and have just gone through killer7 or the No More Heroes series and want to see more of what he made, this is 100% worth checking out though I would recommend everyone to play The Silver Case beforehand.