Arise: A Simple Story is worth a go and worth your time and attention. It carries a heavy-hearted story that is backed by stunning visuals and few flaws.
Arise is a Journey indeed.
There are a handful of games out in the world that make you sit and ponder life. I was fortunate enough this year to play Death Stranding, which sent a powerful message about love, loss, and hope. I was also flabbergasted by the emotional tug of Sayonara Wildhearts, which deals with the issue of loss and personal recovery. Each had its message firmly embedded into the gameplay, which danced each moment with its story in a harmonic fashion. The back and forth sway during that dance is what makes the above games something to remember for years.
As I get older, it seems that more meaningful video game experiences that involve relatable issues of real-life tend to stick better and longer than just pointless adventures or shooting galleries. Anyone can make games that rely on point/shoot methods to drive them. Hell, that’s something that has been done for years in arcades. No one really truly pines for those short-lived experiences, outside of groundbreaking classics (Pac-Man, Galaga, etc.). And if they have, I would bet that they haven’t truly seen impactful video games in their lives to gauge what I mean by the above description. You should always pull something from gaming and feel something from the experience. That’s the sign of a good game and a superb development team that wants you to feel something from what they believe to be their magnum opus.
I bring all of this preachiness up because Arise: A Simple Story is yet another example of going through a meaningful journey with a character that makes you wonder what really is valuable in life, as well as understanding those missed moments that we have all, at one point or another, and that we have taken for granted. I know it sounds cheesy and lame, but as I have gotten older, I have begun to understand what really counts in life, and I honestly wish I had realized it way before the age of 43. Games like Arise, Death Stranding, and Sayonara Wildhearts have brought a ton of self-reflection that I can appreciate.
Anyway, the story surrounds the death of an old man, who is cremated in a funeral ceremony. He wakes in the afterlife and begins his fateful journey of reviewing all the wonderful moments in his own life while trying to navigate obstacles that keep him from those moments. The story, which is visually driven, really puts you in his shoes. It takes you through his stages of love and loss while reminding him of how great he had it. The reminders come in the form of statues that reflect certain stages of his life. Each one shows progression and connects him with someone or something meaningful. It’s touching to see in action as his story unfolds, both the good and the bad.
To help drive the story home further, the game’s presentation value is through the roof. Much like the story, which is pretty simple, the graphical style is of the same suit. While you don’t get heavy details, you get depth in the environments, wonderful lush colors and harsh lights, the latter of which is absolutely stunning at times, and plenty of wildlife/nature to keep the imagery of hope/happiness alive in the world of the dead. From the moment you walk slowly through the glimmering snow to find your best accomplishments in life waiting for you, until the moment you step into a forest teeming with life all around, you’ll understand the compliments between story and visuals, and how they play off each other. You’ll find a Journey-esque flavor to the entire design, which also plays off a masterfully orchestrated backdrop that supports moments of melancholy and joy. It’s like walking outside on a breezy sunny day, where you feel the sting of a chill, but a sun hugging you, as you’ve got music blaring in your ears. All combined, you just fall in love with life all over again. That’s how the mix feels in Arise. It’s mesmerizing from start to finish.
On the technical side of the artsy tracks, what would this game be like if it didn’t have some sort of interactive gameplay stranding this all together. Arise: A Simple Story does a good job of keeping the gameplay mechanics equally as simple, though not all of it is perfect. The game relies heavily on your thumbsticks as the main control crux for the gameplay. The left thumbstick moves your character, while the right stick controls time (forward/backward). The game uses that time control as a device you use to defeat puzzles the game throws your way. For example, there is a stage early on that you have to traverse green hills and find ways to get through a giant forest. You can’t simply climb the hills, rather you have to stop time, freeze things like giant bees, and ride them up from tier to tier in the level. When you’re not riding bees, you’re riding snails, and trying to figure out how to get from point A to B. The shifting of time puts the environment in certain positions that you can move from place to place with ease. You have to get the timing and positioning right to progress. Essentially, the gameplay consists of a giant puzzle, and you simply have to control the movements of the environment to get through it.
Does that sound boring? Sure, on paper, but the environments are crafted to bring variety to the simplicity of the gameplay mechanics offered, which tells me that the Techland really thought their level design thoroughly before implementing it. It’s one thing to design mechanics on a character then send them into a stagnant environment. It’s a wholly other when you basically use your environment to change of the variety of gameplay those mechanics can work within. For example, there is another stage that consists of sunflowers, bees, and spider-webs. You have to navigate through these tall flowers, shifting them back and forth with their positioning to the sun, to get to a spiraling mountain, then you must use spider-webs as trampolines to make it past the level. The latter of that bunch gets complicated quickly, as some spider-webs you hop on require you to shift time before they appear. It’s incredibly intense, while at the same time clever in design. The environments have been carefully and meticulously crafted with independent puzzles that do their best to avoid repetitiveness.
So what doesn’t work in all this brilliance? On occasion, I have run into issues of proper control and camera accessibility with some of the levels. The proper control consists of the controls not exactly working as they should. For example, I spent a while this past week navigating through a wooded area, climbing rocks, and accidentally missing a rock over…and over…and over. The controls were just off a smidge, and I eventually got through it, but it seemed a bit more touchy than it should have been on this particular level. It might have been me, and these moments were rare, but it felt like it was just a bit off.
Another issue I was having with this game was the lack of camera control. The camera is fixed, and with good reason, but sometimes it was difficult to see what I should have been doing, and it seemed like I wasted time figuring out my destination in some puzzles. Maybe that was on purpose, and maybe I should have just sucked it up and dealt with it, but I wanted control of that camera so badly on many occasions, even to estimate out a jump or an angle. Looking back on it now, this was probably by design, which I can accept. I don’t have to love it, but I accept it. Anyway, beyond those complaints, the story and the feelings the game gives off are enough to nearly forgive any shortcomings the game might be carrying.
In the end, Arise: A Simple Story is worth a go and worth your time and attention. It carries a heavy-hearted story that is backed by stunning visuals and few flaws.
