When I write a review, I first like to establish the tone opposite to how I feel about the game on the whole so I can end with those true feelings. I’m going to break that pattern here because even though I eventually lost interest in Rain World, I feel compelled to discuss its biggest strengths at the end. I want them to be the main takeaway of this review, if nothing else.

Rain World is a game I would NOT recommend to most players for many reasons. Loads of predators are eager to kill you and the death system is the harshest I’ve ever seen outside of roguelikes. Because of how dangerous enemies are, it’s better to avoid them. Getting to a new area, however, requires you to have a high-enough karma level, which you increase by hibernating in metallic cages after eating enough food. Your karma level goes down when you die, but enemies never stay in the same place for every cycle, so memorizing your way through obstacles is impossible. This is actually a fine gameplay loop, and most areas introduce new obstacles to keep you on your toes.

Where the game loses me is the story and overall purpose of the slugcat’s journey. The intro suggests getting back to your family is the main goal, but apparently that never happens. Instead, you need to ascend like the Buddha, or something like that. Yeah, I couldn’t follow any of it. This isn’t usually a problem for me, as I love several games with minimal or vague storytelling. However, Rain World is so minimal that it ends up undermining what should have been an amazing setting. The story is told entirely through the environment and still images that appear with such inconsistency I have no idea how anyone is supposed to follow it. I’ve come to the conclusion that this type of storytelling works for me when there’s actual dialogue or characters. Even infamously cryptic games, like Dark Souls, Dead Cells, and Blasphemous, have funny dialogue, memorable character designs, and lore tidbits that give some context to their worlds.

As for the world itself, it conforms to a post-apocalyptic theme rendered with the most beautiful pixel art I’ve ever seen. It’s so detailed that I sometimes missed a spot where the slugcat can crawl through or couldn’t tell if a platform was interactable or part of the background. Not a huge issue though. But despite all of the love the artists put into these environments, I don’t see how they relate to each other. The karma gates effectively separate each region into their own bubble and this is a bizarre choice for a game that so clearly wants you to believe its world is real. Yes, predators never stay in the same place within levels and some of them remember your actions, but when your goal is to survive, it sometimes feels like you have to get lucky and wait for predators to fight each other so you can slip by. I’m well aware that the movement system is a lot deeper than it looks and I won’t deny that I felt like a genius figuring out things like using spears as climbing poles, crushing large predators inside a metallic cage’s locking mechanism, and using the slugcat’s physics to eke out an extra few inches on a jump. But Rain World’s gameplay encourages using stealth above all else, and it feels incredibly basic. I haven’t been able to finish the game because it was too boring. I realized around the 12-hour mark that I was no longer having fun, so I regrettably had to put the game down. Maybe I’ll return to it after a long break, but no guarantees.

With my feelings established, let’s finally address the argument I made at the beginning—why Rain World is nevertheless worth studying. There are two things it does that more games should do: detailed enemy interactivity and eschewing permanent upgrades. To elaborate on the former, no game I’ve played shows off this much interactivity between you and enemies, as well as among enemies themselves. Every single one has a distinct behavior and not all of them are immediately hostile to you. The fact Rain World doesn’t tell you about these interactions makes witnessing and exploring them all the more intriguing, especially when they can be used to your advantage.

As for permanent upgrades, the lack of them is a big middle finger to the Metroidvania genre. I mentioned in my Blasphemous review that I ended up not missing movement upgrades, but even that title resorted to items that unlocked various platforms for accessing late-game areas. Rain World on the other hand fully commits to this idea, and it serves to remind the player that they are never safe. Instead of gaining power through artificial means, you gain it through exploring the game’s mechanics.

Both of these ideas are refreshing and while I don’t expect them to take off anytime soon, I do hope more games experiment with them in various frameworks. Metroidvanias would especially benefit, as most rely on static, predictable enemies and a world that opens up through upgrades that function like keys for specific locks. Acceptable design choices for sure, but something different would be appreciated.