Rise & Shine review

Reviewed on: Xbox One

There’s an old saying: the devil wanted so badly to adorn his son that he ended up poking out his eye.
And that is the impression we get the whole time we spend playing Rise & Shine.

As soon as you start the game you’ll come across nothing less than beautiful graphics, full of detail, vibrant colors and captivating, charismatic characters. The sound is also of great quality, with excellent compositions that capture the game’s atmosphere very well, fitting perfectly in the moments of greatest tension or action. In these respects the game gives a lesson; it is certainly one of the most pleasant games, both sonically and visually, available in the genre.

The game’s story is a great idea, intentionally clichéd, and fits the game’s style perfectly. You control the boy Rise who, as fate would have it, is the bearer of the mythical weapon Shine and uses it to fight the nefarious space villains who want to destroy his home planet: Gamearth.

That is one of the coolest things about Rise & Shine: its setting is built – and satirized – entirely with video game references. Trivial game features such as infinite respawn, the hero’s journey, among other things are not just mentioned, they all have a reason to exist. Because after all this is a video game world, and that’s how games work.

Gamearth is a fantasy world with locations such as RPG City and NPC Island. It has a legendary hero who reminds us of a certain pointy-eared character and is ruled by a king who… well, you’d better see for yourself. Seriously, this setting will put many smiles on the faces of older players.

And it doesn’t stop there: throughout all the stages you’ll find countless references to the most diverse games, current and old. Some are glaring, like a smiling dog (hated by many throughout video game history) blowing up the bridge you’re crossing (don’t worry, here you can shoot him). Others are quite discreet, almost imperceptible in the scenery, like a Flappy Bird among other birds or statues of a certain princess.

The story itself is even simple, with a little plot twist around the middle and a broken fourth wall at the end. A good part of the game’s fun is precisely “fishing” for the references throughout the gameplay and cutscenes; in some respects the game even seems to lean too much on these devices, but it’s still fun anyway.

Up to here you’re excited and the game seems sensational, but it’s in the gameplay that things start to fall apart. The controls themselves are not a problem and turn out to be relatively precise, but unfortunately that isn’t enough to make up for the mechanic implemented in the game, which is moronic at the very least.

You control the character with the left stick and the weapon with the right. You aim and shoot with the triggers (on the console version). Nothing new here, we’ve had several games like this, but in this one it didn’t turn out well. It seems everyone these days wants to be Dark Souls, and the game’s apparently high difficulty didn’t match the mechanic chosen by the folks at Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team at all (seriously, what’s the need for that? There’s no way to tag that thing on Instagram).

Look, I’m not against harder games; on the contrary, I look favorably on games that demand more from the player and don’t bombard them with tutorials every two steps. Nor do I consider Dark Souls such a hard game; it’s a game where you must have patience and quick reflexes without any assistance or support during gameplay. That’s how games used to be, and that’s how Rise & Shine is.

You must memorize the enemies’ movements, where their projectiles come from, observe their behavior and follow each step until you defeat the bosses. All of this following the modus operandi to the letter and without rushing. It’s an old-school 2D shooter, or rather, it would be if it weren’t for the game’s messed-up mechanics.

At certain moments, you must change the type of ammunition you’ll use (normal or electrified), and also how it will behave (normal, homing or explosive), and for that you have specific buttons for these actions. Now imagine having to select the electrified and homing projectile while you need to hide behind a cover position, use the aim and guide the projectile past countless obstacles while a shitload of enemies shoot at you from all sides. It’s not that it’s hard; many times it’s simply frustrating.

There were several times I caught myself imagining how fun the game would be if they had simply let me go out shooting left and right as if there were no tomorrow. More traditional gameplay à la Contra, Metal Slug or even a more recent one like Shank, for example, would certainly give a much more engaging and challenging dynamic, instead of the tedious and frustrating aiming system.
And maybe you think that on PC things improve with the use of the mouse. Sorry to disappoint you, but no. Aiming does get a bit easier and more intuitive, but the wide range of buttons along with the WASD keys doesn’t make the experience more satisfying.

With simpler gameplay, combined with superb visuals and engaging sound, the fun would be unrestrained and we would certainly have an instant classic. Unfortunately, they wanted to “improve” too much and this poor devil’s son ended up one-eyed.

Mechanics: 2
Audiovisual: 10
Story: 8