Braid [Review by Uzzbuzz]Braid is an indie 2d puzzle platformer in which the main mechanic is rewinding time in order to solve puzzles. This is one of the notorious breakthrough games using this concept, if not the main one, as it has won many awards for innovation. The game’s goal is to ultimately save the cliche princess, or so, that is what it appears.
Mechanics/Gameplay - The main mechanic of the game is innovative and unique. At the point of writing this guide, I’ve seen many games take from this idea of manipulating time via rewinding it, but this was the first one I ever played and seen. Not only can you rewind time, but you can do it at different speeds, so depending on the competency of the player and the knowledge of the puzzles, one can beat the game really fast, hence the dreaded speedrun achievement. More on that later.
The game isn’t overly long, but it is short and sweet. You might get stuck on a puzzle or two (or two dozen), but it never really gets to the point of being boring. As you progress through the game, you uncover different techniques of time manipulation, such as objects/enemies that won’t rewind, slow motion for everything around you but not yourself, and a few others.
Despite the tricky to implement mechanic, I did not encounter anything remotely buggy in my hours playing this game. Despite only really having one real way to solve a good amount of the puzzles, it never felt less rewarding to figure them out, even though sometimes there couldn’t have been any other way, looking back on it. Not once did I really feel constrained to “do this again” to solve a puzzle. 8.5/10
Fun Factor - To be honest, puzzle-platformers are not exactly my cup of tea. I did give it a fair shake, however, and I enjoyed figuring out the mind boggling puzzles it had to offer, and then doing it again and again until I got fast. The platforming is simple, but it’s smooth. The rewind feature is quite a bit of fun as well once you get you to it. There isn’t that much gameplay here though, but it really is a must have for any puzzle game enthusiast. If you only like platformers, then this game might not really interest you, but you may have picked it up in a bundle so give it a go, it’s worth the experience. 7/10
Graphics/Animation - I’ve never seen anything like it. The art style is so outstandingly different than other games that it’s hard to compare. To make this even more impressive, Braid was created by a single designer, Jonathan Blow. He hired an artist [David Hellman] to make it comes to life, and that it did. Without this beautiful art direction that so perfectly fits the game, Braid could have been lost in the abyss that is Steam. Every detail in every level feels personal and hand-crafted, and the animations are simple, but they work seamlessly, which is a feat in itself for a game such as this where you’ll have animations playing backwards.
Speaking of animation, the amount of time and effort put into something as simple as a walk cycle is not something you see often from a one man art team, let alone ones by even bigger companies.
Those lion-headed grunt enemies do still kind of give me the creeps though. 9.5/10
Music/Sound - From an artistic standpoint, this game has it in the bag. Maybe that’s why it is so memorable. The music is spot on: soothing, simple, yet complex too. You’ll be hearing that violin for most of the game, but I really do think more puzzle games should employ this type of music. It promotes spending more time to figure out the puzzles without getting too frustrated, though you still may get frustrated a few times.
One aspect I need to talk about that is a double edged sword is that you do get the dreaded rewinding sound of backwards music when you go back in time. You also get stopped music when you pause time, and so on. This is to be expected of course, and they’ve done it in the best way they could have without it sounding too jarring, but you’re often rewinding so often that you don’t always get a chance to just listen to the music while playing the game. I do have to commend them though, as when you slow down, the music starts to warp and it slows down and resumes with you, really adding to the immersion of the game.
The sound effects are not up to the bar that was set by the soundtrack, which is a shame, as they play as normal whether you’re going forward in time, or reversed. They’re short and simple though so it seems that way. Also, what is up with the screaming rabbit enemies… 8/10
Replayability - Once you beat it once, and beat it thoroughly, ie getting all the puzzle pieces, there is little to bring you back to replay it. You may decide to play it a year down the road just for the sake of enjoyment, but there’s never really that sense of solving anything new again. You can compete with the speedrun times though, and that adds significant hours to the gameplay if you really want to get all the achievements, but it really is nothing new from the general playthrough. 5/10
Level Design - For puzzle games, this category is essentially puzzle design, which is no easy task for game developers (trust me). Creating even just one unique and satisfying puzzle can be a real challenge. Think of how long it takes you to solve some of these puzzles, and then multiply that by ten, twenty, thirty sometimes to get how much time and thought was put into creating them. Let’s just say I was stuck for a while on a few of them, which is nice since many puzzle games can end up being quick to breeze through without really feeling the struggle of solving a puzzle. What makes it even more interesting is how genuinely simple the mechanic actually is. Think about it: all you’re really doing is going backwards and forwards in time and jumping. I wouldn’t be able to create a very difficult platform puzzle only knowing these criteria. The depth of the mechanic really does unfold as you move through the game, and the developer seems to understand the power that a solid core mechanic really has. 9/10
Achievements - The achievements are simple and straightforward, but bland. They do not encourage you to explore with your abilities any more than the game itself does. All of the achievements in Braid fall under the category of completion, which is my least favorite category for achievements. One achievement for beating each of worlds 2-6, and another for fully beating each of worlds 2-6, which brings us to ten achievements. The eleventh is for completing the game, which is essentially beating the level that comes after world 6.
Finally, the bane of the achievement hunters: the speedrun achievement. For this achievement, you must beat the game in speedrun mode (which is the same as the normal mode, just with a timer), in under forty-five minutes. It seems like a long time, but you will have to be fairly quick. Some of the top times from players who have been playing many many hours are around twenty-five minutes. So yes, there’s some buffer time for us normal people to make a few mistakes along the way. I don’t exactly approve of this idea, as speedrunning a game like this feels wrong, and not how the game should be played. Clearly it is what the developer wanted to come from it though, and I know some people really enjoy speedrunning puzzle-platformers. It does break up the monotony of the other achievements though.
I do realize that this is essentially an Xbox 360 port, which is why there are only twelve achievements. For those not familiar, Xbox Live Arcade games are limited to a maximum of twelve achievements worth two hundred gamerscore sans DLC. I am assuming the dev did not feel it was worth adding in some extra code to keep track of other stats in order to implement other achievements, and just left it as it was before, so I’ll give him some slack there. 5.5/10
Pros:
+ Beautiful fitting soundtrack
+ Unique art style
+ Solid core mechanic
Cons:
- Short (not just the character)
- Some obnoxious SFX
- Lackluster achievement set
Overall Score: 7.5/10
4.0