Rain (PS3)

With the seventh generation of consoles came the embrace of high definition video game visuals, and with these increased graphical capabilities came plenty of titles that wanted to explore this opportunity with striking new styles. Rain, as the minimalist title suggests, heavily focuses on the moodiest type of precipitation to create its immediately intriguing aesthetic, because while the city the game takes place in is modeled off a mid-century version of Paris, the people and creatures you find in it can only be seen when they stand in the constant downpour.

You enter the melancholy world of Rain as a young boy who pursues a transparent girl into the downpour, your human form soon shed as you too become an invisible member of this city trapped in a night of unending rain. The rain helps to reveal your form though, meaning you can see yourself as you move about… and you can see the shapes of the otherworldly creatures who also inhabit this dark city. The girl is being pursued by creatures the game’s silent pop-up text has no name for, and their strange shapes are revealed only somewhat by how the rain wraps around their bodies, giving them an uncanny monstrous appearance. Unable to see the fine details, you’re left seeing bodies with odd geometry who you can’t truly imagine the appearance of if they were to step into the light. The most common creature is perhaps best described as a dog even though its long bird like neck, hoofed feet, and swirl of a torso means it can’t be easily tied to what we know in our world.

Most of Rain’s story is tied to trying to help the girl escape the creatures of this alternate world and finding your way back to the world of sunlight. You are not given much in the way of explanation on what exactly this rainy world might be, but the metaphorical underpinnings are strong enough to shore up a story that would otherwise be rather plain. The rain-soaked city of Paris is an interesting location, the characters ending up in dilapidated buildings, a circus, and places where city architecture gives way to much stranger geometry, this alternate realm introducing more of its unusual population along the way. The most persistent and terrifying is the sole monster given a name, and even then it’s only known as The Unknown. While the hounds have speed on their side, the bug-like creatures focus on numbers, and the rhino monsters have an imposing presence as they fill the area they charge through, this humanoid entity both packs a destructive capability greater than the others, a dogged persistence that means you must run almost any time you see it, and the intelligence to figure its way around any obstacles you try and put in its path. Whether it’s The Unknown or one of the still deadly but much simpler monsters patrolling the rain, your best bet for surviving them once again ties back to the unique nature of the city’s endless showers.

Since you are only visible when the rain is revealing your outline, that means any area under shelter will have no way to reveal your shape, making you entirely invisible to the creatures you have no means of fighting. Much of Rain could almost be called a stealth game because of how pivotal this feature is to navigating the city and avoiding trouble. Surprisingly, it’s not too hard to keep track of your invisible character, partially because the dry spaces are almost always fairly small but also because of the small wet footprints you leave as you navigate these dry areas. Of course, since the monsters are always only visible in the rain, they too can disappear from view if they move out of the rain, although they definitely seem to prefer being in the downpour and mostly just follow you into the dryness if they spot you running towards it.

Many areas will feature minor stealth puzzles that involve outsmarting the beasts. You can splash in small puddles in the dry areas to draw their attention towards them, you can knock over new cover so you can walk through an area undetected, or you might have to find the right windows of opportunity to bolt between safe areas to avoid detection. Some complications to the puzzles are introduced like mud that sticks to your body and makes it possible to be seen no matter where you are, but most of the game keeps its focus on the rain-augmented stealth, some small mechanics making minor splashes but not overcomplicating things. There are definitely some periods where there is far too much of a focus on raw level navigation, the player simply moving forward without the platforming elements even putting up much of a fight, but these are often tied to some sort of plot point to justify why you aren’t deviating into puzzle-solving as much as before.

Rain’s moody world and the thorough exploration of its concept give it good tone and gameplay, but the playthrough is a fairly linear one despite seeming to offer many areas off the beaten path to explore. Their presence is puzzling when you first experience the game, but these are actually areas meant for the second playthrough where memories are hidden around the city that better explain the lives of the boy and girl. While the floating narrative text gives you a good picture of their current adventure, these memories add a small but appreciated layer of depth to the game that doesn’t feel like it needed to be restricted to repeat playthroughs. Some would certainly reveal a few details too early in the game’s current arrangement, but placing them differently would easily allow these to coexist with the main narrative without removing the mystique or harming the tone. Much of the game seems dependent on its distinct visual direction instead of working on the narrative, and while that ensures the game has plenty of interesting sights and varied play mechanics to work into the rainy atmosphere, the fact the game goes for such a melancholy albeit not depressing tone would be helped by knowing its central characters as more than nearly shapeless children in the rain, although you could certainly say their ghostly shapes complement empty personalities. With more attention given to the beautiful backing piano music and the rain effects though, you’re still left with some lovely things to appreciate in the world of Rain.

THE VERDICT: The game of Rain is well above plain, its novel use of precipitation in its stealth and puzzle mechanics giving the experience a good gameplay backbone even though its focus is certainly more on the mood and visuals. The monsters in the downpour are fearsome and unnerving in design, invisibility both a comforting refuge or a duplicitous veil that makes the now hidden creatures greater threats. While some moments became fairly basic to play through and the story relies more on moods than substance, the visual design and more clever puzzle moments make this game’s unending rainstorm one you will want to be caught in.

And so, I give Rain for PlayStation 3…

A GOOD rating. The experimentation with the rain mechanic is likely just as interesting for the player as it was for the developers. Seeing how this simple idea of objects only appearing in the rain can be iterated on for stealth puzzles continues to impress even if the game perhaps pulls back to the basics a bit too often. It’s hard to imagine a game that’s set in a nostalgic yet rain-soaked cityscape would abandon its tone completely though, so dialing back the play to focus on the dreary mood feels appropriate enough that the player won’t be too bothered by the moments their movements are merely functional instead of challenges. I do think the game could have given more character to its leads before a second run through the adventure, the interpretative nature of the situation not destroyed by the information given to us through the memories. It does feel like many of those side activities would have enhanced the main adventure too just by giving deviations into something more difficult, but the puzzles you do have to solve to safely get around the city and its nearly phantasmal creatures continue to provide situations that test both your problem solving skills and ability to act under pressure, all without being too harsh if you do slip up.

Considering its artistic nature, it’s not too surprising that Rain values emotional resonance so highly. It could have dived deeper into more ways to engage with the rain or invent more creatures that interact with the precipitation and shelter in new ways, but for a game that even avoids capitalizing its title, that might be too much dressing up of something meant to be simple but captivating. The world of Rain is wonderful to look at and its mechanics mix together with its intended emotions of vulnerability and safety, and while I would have loved to see the gameplay ideas explored to their fullest, the lovely sorrow of Rain works well in its current form and is easy to appreciate because of it.