Rise and Shine Review (Xbox One)
Rise and Shine is a side-scrolling platformer/action game, published by Adult Swim Games, with a comic book art style and (sometimes) brutal gameplay. Players play as Rise, a little guy who’s thrown into a war between humans and aliens on his home planet of Gamearth. After a brief encounter with a giant robot, you wake up in a mall filled with chaos and destruction. There you meet a guy who gives you a gun named Shine. Shine is no ordinary gun, Shine is a revolver that has special abilities such as a homing system, and a range of different types of bullets. After getting out of the mall, you embark on a constant mix of firing Shine, manipulating his bullets and contemplating your next move.
The control system is fairly basic, but can be a little wonky at times. Players move with the left stick, jump with A, hide behind cover with B, very simple controls. Shooting is done by bringing up the aiming reticle by holding the left trigger, using the right stick to aim and pressing the right trigger to shoot. The left bumper is used to change gun enhancements and the right bumper is used to change bullet types. These enhancements and bullet types have different uses throughout the game.
Gameplay-wise, Rise and Shine is really difficult at many points, but it is fun enough to keep players engaged and wanting to get through the tough parts. One of the main things that makes the game so difficult is that, for the most part, it takes only one enemy bullet or strike to kill you. Thankfully, you restart at the closest checkpoint, which are abundant enough to keep you from having to go back too far in a level.
Rise and Shine incorporates a lot of puzzle mechanics in its campaign, which really helps keep the game entertaining. For example, you’ll come up against a door that won’t open, but by selecting the homing bullet, you can use it to move through tight gaps and past unsuspecting gun turrets to blow up the generator.
The artwork in Rise and Shine is very, very good. There’s a rich palette of color, plenty of variety in each scene, and a real attention to detail. From the beginning of a stage to the end, nothing seems to repeat itself. There is a lot of over the top violence and gore, especially for the comic-book style artwork. There is lots of blood, as well as heads and other body parts rolling around. This caught me off-guard at first, but is actually pretty cool.
Overall, Rise and Shine is a really fun game. It is very fast paced and keeps you on your toes and thinking both at the same time. The puzzles really help save the game from being a boring side-scroller.
3/5