WORDS: Eoin Moore

It’s midnight. The moon is high, the stars are twinkling, and it has begun to rain. Two invisible children run through the streets, searching for a familiar light in this dark place. They dare not to stop, for fear of the lumbering presence that menacingly stalks them, causing the ground to shake whenever he steps. This is a night that promises magic and terror in equal doses.

When trying to think of the most significant aspect of Rain, it’s things like this which jump to mind. This is a game which strikes the player not only during its puzzles, chases, and boss battles, but between them as well. It’s captivating in its lulls more so than in its highs.

Rain is a 3D puzzle-platformer in which you play a young boy who wakes one rainy evening to see an ethereal girl being chased by a massive, Pyramid-Head-esque monster. Naturally, you pursue them through a mysterious door to another world where you find yourself having turned invisible, only able to make out your own body from the rain that falls upon it.

The gameplay primarily consists of avoiding enemies (this being a non-combat affair), solving simple yet time-constrained puzzles, and taking part in mad dashes along enjoyable but thoroughly linear obstacle courses. All three classic mechanics are solidly applied in various interesting ways but it is in their combination with the two biggest mechanical oddities of the game that makes them unique.

The first is the aforementioned invisibility. While the protagonist is perfectly visible while standing in the rain, he completely vanishes once he takes cover. This benefits the player in that it hides the protagonist from the monsters, but it also hides the protagonist from the player. While invisible, the player only has the protagonist’s footsteps as clues to their location. The second oddity is the fact that the game uses exclusively fixed camera angles.

Visually obscured player characters and awkward fixed cameras are usually death sentences for any game of this genre, and seeing the two combined should not bode well for this game. However, in Rain these are not mere design miscalculations but are in fact carefully considered gameplay features: it is clear here that the effect produced by these encumbrances is an intentional one. The occasional protagonist obfuscation plays to the strength of this game where a single misplaced footfall can lead to sudden, inescapable death. The game’s thrilling chase sequences are complicated by the fact that the player must not only maintain full speed throughout but also account for sudden changes in perspective as they do so.

By attempting to reshape these mechanical sacrileges into added dimensions of gameplay, the developers of Rain placed a risky bet. The game constantly wavers between the compellingly engaging and the frustratingly unplayable. When these jumbled mechanics work to their desired effect, they manage to bolster by far the game’s most refined attribute: its atmosphere.

The quality of Rain’s soundtrack and sound effects is impossible to ignore. The original score written by prolific Japanese composer Yugo Kanno delivers emotion perfectly to the scenes which it frames. The piano heavy composition is structured in reminiscence of the game’s main theme: Claude Debussy’s Claire de Lune. The mood of Debussy’s melancholic work pervades the atmosphere of the game, the tinkling of piano keys adding a fantastic quality to the endless rain. As the two main characters are completely mute, sound effects are primarily those of the various monsters and the splashing rain, both of which are captured beautifully. The noises of the creatures, in particular the rumbling grunts and thumping footfalls of the massive “Unknown,” embody the sense of dread which accompanies the game even at its most carefree moments. The constant rain makes a multiplicity of noises as it splashes underfoot and thuds on top of roofs. These varied water noises help to build that world of unceasing rain around the player.

Visually, the game is a combination of a host of cultural iconography. Within the city are continental cobbled pathways, Victorian factories, and Escheresque logic defying mazes. This gives the game a look which is both immediately familiar and abstract. The game’s storybook charm comes through heavily in this, with every area harkening to another quintessential children’s tale location. The design of the creatures is also marvellous. They too exist in that off-putting place between the known and the unknown: similar in many aspects to what we know but with their differences all the more apparent because of that.

This is by no means a perfect game. It’s only four or five hours long, highly unchallenging, and regardless of how good the gameplay is when it works, it is very poor when it does not. The gameplay never truly matures past the introduction of its basic concepts, the plot (while charming) is extremely vague and poorly explained, and towards the latter half the energy and beauty begins to fade into repetition.

In spite of these valid issues, the game is still immensely enjoyable. It all comes back to atmosphere. There’s something in that image of children rushing through lamplit streets, splashing through puddles and silhouetted by raindrops, infused with a mixture of wonder, excitement, and terror. At its best and most beautiful, Rain captures that something and so much more.

Rain is available to download from PSN now