Rain World Review

Rain World is from Adult Swim Games and is an interesting take on the platform genre. Players are forced to play as a slugcat in a rather hostile environment. Join The Gamers Lounge as we play and review this game and try to figure out where it fits in the modern genres.

The story is basic, slugcat has been torn away due to rain storms. Sounds like an adventure must be undertaken for whatever or whomever. The only help players will receive is a little yellow creature who serves to guide players in the beginning. Gamers will quickly learn that Rain World is about survival.

Primarily objective of the slugcat is that it needs to eat.  Players will have to find food because when the time comes a full slugcat can hibernate. Hibernation is important as this is a way to hide from the rain. Rain is the ultimate predator, the screen will shake and players better head for shelter.  The hibernation points, which double as save spots, require at least 4 pieces of food represented by the dots on the bottom of the left side of the screen. Slugcat needs to eat and eat and eat.

Outside of the interesting design of the game, Rain World looks good. The game takes place in a lush environment, think sci-fi meets industrial planets. The world feels empty, but it looks good. The architecture and broken bits of the world are well designed. I stopped a few times mid climb to check out what was in the background.

In addition to the flying insects slugcat encounters all of the time slugcat is going to run into hungry predators. Sometimes they are looking to eat you but sometimes they are after each other. Several times I got them to go after each other and leave me alone.

Slugcat can can find weapons such as rocks and spears and players can throw these. While they will work as a crude defensive tool they can also serve a purpose to move slugcat through an area. Slugcat can cling on walls, squeeze through gaps and can power jump. All of these take a little skill to master depending on the controller of choice. I played this on PS4 and the controller was quick and responsive.

There is plenty of exploring to be done and secrets to uncover. I won't lie the game is challenging and it gets pretty hard. Having a good memory for getting back to the hibernation chambers is important. Knowing when to move and hide vs. when fight becomes very important. I died a lot but there was something about this game that kept wanting me to play.

Game was provided by the publisher for review
Final score is 4/5