It became apparent to me rather quickly I was not part of the intended target demographic for this game. My enjoyment of playing videogames stems from the empowerment of my characters; whether it is done through items or abilities across dozens or hundreds of hours of play does not matter to me, as long as it does happen. In my mind, the more approaches there are to a problem, e.g. the more weapons, characters, Passives and Actives - the more interactive, flexible, and thus enjoyable any one game becomes.

That's not to say I don’t enjoy the occasional platformer, however Rain World is far from a typical one. The challenge in Rain World stems from a unique ecosystem of creatures and fauna, each boasting its own unique traits, lairs, evolutionary steps, hidden motives and fears. This is easily the most interesting aspect of the game - the fact that it revolves around living beings to interact with and discover, adding to the potential complexity of its mechanics.

This is something that needs to be addressed properly in order for it to work, namely through an effective means of dealing with creatures as well as a good incentive to do so. Rain World does neither; it fails to give you the tools or motivation to survive, or anything meaningful in return for surviving at all. Enemies merely serve as an obstacle on your way to the next cutscene, and you gain nothing by neutralizing them. Navigating the stages doesn't get any harder or easier as you gain no new means to tackle neither earlier nor later stages.

Playing thus becomes an unrewarding, if not an outright frustrating game experience. You have two engagement options, and both suck equally. You can throw rocks that deal zero damage, or spears that get stuck in creatures and permanently in terrain if you miss. They can only be thrown horizontally, while enemies can climb background elements or fly to approach you from all directions. Enemies are faster and kill you instantly, on top of having measures against these tools anyway, i.e. a hardened skull or a heightened HP bar.

You evolved as a biped, with limbs that can grab and hold onto man-made objects used for hunting. This alone could have laid the foundation for a combat system that lets you utilize weapons in order to compensate for the feline claws and teeth you're missing. You are further able to trade with a faction of primate-like beings, so at least trading for these tools should have been made an option. As it stands, there are no weapons to make you stronger, no abilities to make you quicker, no upgrades to make fighting enemies trivial.

Rain World’s self-described "survival" element further disappoints with the way you feed and rest. You can’t eat other predators unless you’re on Hardmode. Your only source of food - bugs and fruit - spawns in clusters of 2-8 every few screens, and respawns within 2-3 "days", each equating to one point of hunger out of the four you need to fill daily. There are no added bonuses to eating different types of food, so what you eat doesn't matter. You can thus move between two food sources indefinitely, with almost zero risk involved.

You are further encouraged to do so by vague bars advancing on the intermission screen, which are, at that point in the game, your only pointer to the game's objective. However, merely "surviving" this way goes on to complete one of 10 quests present in the game, and has nothing to do with its completion. There is indeed somewhere you need to be and certain things you need to do, but you don't know this, and likely never will unless you look it up. Completing the quests grants teleportation tokens out of difficult areas and nothing more.

Your companion Iggy is partly to blame for this confusion. If you don't move towards Iggy's suggested destination, it will feel "ignored" and give you less and less directions until it stops interacting with you altogether. At some point it may "think" you don’t "like" it, and start physically spawning further away, off-screen, where you can no longer see the advice to follow it. Worse yet, if you fumble with the controls and end up narrowly missing or killing it, at any point during the 40-hour play experience, it will never give you directions again.

This absolutely cripples the player without them even realizing it, as it is the only internal mechanic that points you towards your destination. Iggy's "hand-holding" mechanic (it is actually called that in the code) tries to point you towards food, shelter, or goal depending on a list of priorities set by another vague algorithm. This algorithm never actually manages to guess what you need at the moment, making Iggy feel pretty much useless from the get go.

The real objective of the game turns out to be hibernating enough times to pass through Karma Gates, reaching specific story regions. You figure this out by keeping to one direction and stumbling upon one such Gate, with newfound understanding of the cryptic symbols on the intermission screen. There are 12 regions gated by Karma Gates, with only 3(!) of them pertaining to the actual story. The rest serve as filler; guessing where to go is left up to the player, as the only text or UI in the game are reserved for the controls manual.

Story regions have to be entered in a specific order, which is not something you're ever told. If you enter the wrong region, i.e. attempt to enter the endgame without proper knowledge or skill, you seriously screw yourself over to a point where you might need to restart the whole game. You might then reluctantly turn to external sources to see where you actually need to go, which is what I would consider bad game design.

The earlygame regions are absolutely dreadful. Three of the five are almost entirely submerged in water, which is clunky to move through, has invincible enemies, and poses a significant threat due to the miniscule (hidden) oxygen bar your Slugcat possesses. Another is shrouded in complete darkness, with deadly creatures roaming inside. You have to either give up all item space in order to carry a bioluminescent creature, or navigate blindly using the map, which loads slowly and requires you to stand still in order to use it.

"Surely then, if you can’t fight well, you get to be really good at running away?" No. Despite this being a platformer, your character constantly gets slowed down by each bump and slope in the terrain, stumbling and changing stances over every crack and raised mound of dirt. Hostile creatures also constantly bug out because of this, contorting and coiling in on themselves, becoming unapproachable. These creature spawns are RNG-based, meaning your "death-pits" and "instakill spikes" spawn some times, other times not at all, and always behave erratically.

Even the game's own aesthetic goes against it at some point, when jagged and rocky platform overlays make it impossible to guess how long a platform is, foreground looks like physical platforms and makes you miss jumps, inaccessible tunnels look identical to accessible ones. There's little to no ambient music in the game, with it instead being used to signify a threat somewhere around the level. There's no closed-captioning; the hard-of-hearing will be put at a disadvantage, as well as players who simply want to play with their own music in the BG.

Rain World does everything within its power to discourage players from fighting, actively punishing for killing monsters to emphasize they're at the bottom of the food chain. Walking around looking at scenery is the only source of player agency. It doesn't feel rewarding, it doesn't motivate to do better. When the reward is some still image and a vague piece of storytelling, why bother? What a waste, to create such a beautiful environment, such a vast alien world, only to have players run away from it at the slightest hint of danger.

It became apparent to me rather quickly I was not part of the intended target demographic for this game. My enjoyment of playing videogames stems from the empowerment of my characters; whether it is done through items or abilities across dozens or hundreds of hours of play does not matter to me, as long as it does happen. In my mind, the more approaches there are to a problem, e.g. the more weapons, characters, Passives and Actives - the more interactive, flexible, and thus enjoyable any one game becomes. That's not to say I don’t enjoy the occasional platformer, however Rain World is far from a typical one. The challenge in Rain World stems from a unique ecosystem of creatures and fauna, each boasting its own unique traits, lairs, evolutionary steps, hidden motives and fears. This is easily the most interesting aspect of the game - the fact that it revolves around living beings to interact with and discover, adding to the potential complexity of its mechanics. This is something that needs to be addressed properly in order for it to work, namely through an effective means of dealing with creatures as well as a good incentive to do so. Rain World does neither; it fails to give you the tools or motivation to survive, or anything meaningful in return for surviving at all. Enemies merely serve as an obstacle on your way to the next cutscene, and you gain nothing by neutralizing them. Navigating the stages doesn't get any harder or easier as you gain no new means to tackle neither earlier nor later stages. Playing thus becomes an unrewarding, if not an outright frustrating game experience. You have two engagement options, and both suck equally. You can throw rocks that deal zero damage, or spears that get stuck in creatures and permanently in terrain if you miss. They can only be thrown horizontally, while enemies can climb background elements or fly to approach you from all directions. Enemies are faster and kill you instantly, on top of having measures against these tools anyway, i.e. a hardened skull or a heightened HP bar. You evolved as a biped, with limbs that can grab and hold onto man-made objects used for hunting. This alone could have laid the foundation for a combat system that lets you utilize weapons in order to compensate for the feline claws and teeth you're missing. You are further able to trade with a faction of primate-like beings, so at least trading for these tools should have been made an option. As it stands, there are no weapons to make you stronger, no abilities to make you quicker, no upgrades to make fighting enemies trivial. Rain World’s self-described "survival" element further disappoints with the way you feed and rest. You can’t eat other predators unless you’re on Hardmode. Your only source of food - bugs and fruit - spawns in clusters of 2-8 every few screens, and respawns within 2-3 "days", each equating to one point of hunger out of the four you need to fill daily. There are no added bonuses to eating different types of food, so what you eat doesn't matter. You can thus move between two food sources indefinitely, with almost zero risk involved. You are further encouraged to do so by vague bars advancing on the intermission screen, which are, at that point in the game, your only pointer to the game's objective. However, merely "surviving" this way goes on to complete one of 10 quests present in the game, and has nothing to do with its completion. There is indeed somewhere you need to be and certain things you need to do, but you don't know this, and likely never will unless you look it up. Completing the quests grants teleportation tokens out of difficult areas and nothing more. Your companion Iggy is partly to blame for this confusion. If you don't move towards Iggy's suggested destination, it will feel "ignored" and give you less and less directions until it stops interacting with you altogether. At some point it may "think" you don’t "like" it, and start physically spawning further away, off-screen, where you can no longer see the advice to follow it. Worse yet, if you fumble with the controls and end up narrowly missing or killing it, at any point during the 40-hour play experience, it will never give you directions again. This absolutely cripples the player without them even realizing it, as it is the [b]only[/b] internal mechanic that points you towards your destination. Iggy's "hand-holding" mechanic (it is actually called that in the code) tries to point you towards food, shelter, or goal depending on a list of priorities set by another vague algorithm. This algorithm never actually manages to guess what you need at the moment, making Iggy feel pretty much useless from the get go. The real objective of the game turns out to be hibernating enough times to pass through Karma Gates, reaching specific story regions. You figure this out by keeping to one direction and stumbling upon one such Gate, with newfound understanding of the cryptic symbols on the intermission screen. There are 12 regions gated by Karma Gates, with only 3(!) of them pertaining to the actual story. The rest serve as filler; guessing where to go is left up to the player, as the only text or UI in the game are reserved for the controls manual. Story regions have to be entered in a specific order, which is not something you're ever told. If you enter the wrong region, i.e. attempt to enter the endgame without proper knowledge or skill, you seriously screw yourself over to a point where you might need to restart the whole game. You might then reluctantly turn to external sources to see where you actually need to go, which is what I would consider bad game design. The earlygame regions are absolutely dreadful. Three of the five are almost entirely submerged in water, which is clunky to move through, has invincible enemies, and poses a significant threat due to the miniscule (hidden) oxygen bar your Slugcat possesses. Another is shrouded in complete darkness, with deadly creatures roaming inside. You have to either give up all item space in order to carry a bioluminescent creature, or navigate blindly using the map, which loads slowly and requires you to stand still in order to use it. "Surely then, if you can’t fight well, you get to be really good at running away?" No. Despite this being a platformer, your character constantly gets slowed down by each bump and slope in the terrain, stumbling and changing stances over every crack and raised mound of dirt. Hostile creatures also constantly bug out because of this, contorting and coiling in on themselves, becoming unapproachable. These creature spawns are RNG-based, meaning your "death-pits" and "instakill spikes" spawn some times, other times not at all, and always behave erratically. Even the game's own aesthetic goes against it at some point, when jagged and rocky platform overlays make it impossible to guess how long a platform is, foreground looks like physical platforms and makes you miss jumps, inaccessible tunnels look identical to accessible ones. There's little to no ambient music in the game, with it instead being used to signify a threat somewhere around the level. There's no closed-captioning; the hard-of-hearing will be put at a disadvantage, as well as players who simply want to play with their own music in the BG. Rain World does everything within its power to discourage players from fighting, actively punishing for killing monsters to emphasize they're at the bottom of the food chain. Walking around looking at scenery is the only source of player agency. It doesn't feel rewarding, it doesn't motivate to do better. When the reward is some still image and a vague piece of storytelling, why bother? What a waste, to create such a beautiful environment, such a vast alien world, only to have players run away from it at the slightest hint of danger.