Rise & Shine is one of those games that nearly slipped under my radar, but I'm glad it didn't. Releasing in early-mid January is really a risk sometimes, as gamers are often still working on their own holiday hauls, and reviewers like myself take the typically slow season to catch on our mountainous backlogs. Luckily for me, though, I personally eliminated my backlog early this year, and had to visit trying to find something else to play-leading me to this enjoyable little action-platformer.
Rise & Shine takes place on the world of Gamearth. Here, many of the great video game characters we've arrived at know and love through the years reside in peace, and maintain the security from the planet's less-famous denizens. Once the hyper-violent armies of planet Nexgen decide it's time to invade, the forces of Gamearth are no match. Thus, a brand new hero must rise, and also the magical gun Shine-which bestows infinite respawns-must be used up with a new champion. In this case, it's a young boy named Rise. Now, Rise and Shine must travel across Gamearth looking for the way to stop Nexgen's invasion and save their world.
While the story of Rise & Shine is pretty straightforward regardless of how you look at it-kill all of the bad guys, save the world-where it excels is in its setting, that allows the writing to both poke fun at and celebrate gaming. Rise complaining about how much it hurts each time he dies and respawns, the king's throne being made from SNES consoles, as well as the stereotypical leader of the Nexgen army offer some fun tongue-in-cheek humor that makes you want to keep pushing forward.
And you will see times you'll need that something to help keep pushing forward, because Rise & Shine's gameplay can be punishing. Although there really are a fair amount of puzzles that bar how well you're progressing forward, they are not as testing of the patience as the moments whenever your screen will fill with enemies and you're instructed to duck behind cover and pray. Being a child, Rise has limited health, and will often fall for only an immediate hit or two-whereas the force he is facing can fill the screen with projectiles almost like a bullet hell. It requires some learning from mistakes before patterns become evident, as well as then, Shine's limited ammo before having to reload (you've infinite bullets, however, you begin with only being able to have 10 in the chamber at any given time) may come back to bite you at the worst times. Personally, i didn't mind that it harkens in many different ways towards the early days of gaming, but the amount of difficulty will certainly be an acquired taste for some.
At the very least, you'll look good while dying. One of Rise & Shine's most impressive aspects is certainly its colorful, cartoony art style that pops off the screen, featuring comic book panel-style cutscenes tying everything together. The cute, rounded features of all of the characters provide the aesthetic of a Saturday morning cartoon aimed at younger audiences. The stark contrast against the blood and gore from killing enemies or being killed, and also the dark undertone of the planetary invasion, then made this design choice all the more striking.
I only wish the game's mechanics had grabbed me as forcefully as the art style did. Whether you find the gameplay difficult or otherwise, it quickly tends to become rather one dimensional either way. Using the right stick to aim and right trigger to fireplace proved helpful enough within the parameters of the action-platformer-even one as punishing as this-but Shine only gets a couple of forced upgrades over the course of the sport to go along with optional clip upgrades. These upgrades-an electric bullet to power terminals in puzzles, guided bullets to hit buttons down narrow passageways, and a grenade launcher to arc shots over barricades-are extremely situational generally. Sure, the electric bullets may also be effective against robots, however i found myself defaulting to my original bullets most of the time. And, with no real powers in regards to Rise, dodging and shooting exactly the same handful of enemies became tiresome eventually, particularly when failing in those trial-and-error shooting scenarios.
Rise & Shine also has the unfortunate distinction to be another Indie game that simply seems like it ends abruptly. Three hours in to the game, it felt such as the bottom fell out, and that I was just scratching the surface of what Gamearth had to offer. Additionally, it guaranteed sections of the experience, such as the barrage of mini-games on “NPC Island,” feel even more random and unnatural. Sure, it may be returning to that overarching commentary on games of this ilk generally, but it didn't change the proven fact that due to the compact nature from the game, elements such as this felt like they came out of left field.
Even with one of these rough edges, though, I found I enjoyed most of time with Rise & Shine. I would've loved a longer, more thorough visit to Gamearth, but its strong writing, attractive art style, and solid-if not shallow-gameplay were ample to help keep me going until I'd turned Rise right into a hero worth carrying Shine. Now, excuse me when i attempt to go learn how to build my very own throne from SNES consoles.
