After a year that has broken records of quantity, not exempt of launches that have reached the highest level of quality, the independent scene begins to show its cards for the next months . This time it is the national study Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team who comes to the forefront of Steam and Xbox One with his new proposal,
Rise & Shine , a project that we have known for a long time and on which weigh quite high expectations, thanks to the An extraordinary moment
that two-dimensional games go through each year and add new chromos to their album of instant classics.Rise & Shine draws attention immediately thanks to its peculiar duo of charismatic protagonists, wrapped in a carefree story that does well not to take itself too seriously. Protagonists and plot are
very well characterized and have personality, but the game stands out for its artistic style in high definition that has reminded us of Vanillaware or the
latest Rayman for its level of detail. The world through which the titular duo walks is an authentic delight at a visual level and is the main achievement of the game, in addition to a more than commendable effort, since in its scenarios hardly anything is recycled: everything that is
appearing on the screen is new and progressively impressive visually, in a truly unique artistic exercise. Colorful, fluent animation, visual effects: everything is in the class of the nerds of the 2D : at the level that we could not even dream when we faced, decades ago, some of the titles on which it is inspired.
Redefining the Run & Gun
How could it be otherwise, Rise & Shine tries to give new horizons to another of the old genres, almost as much as video games. It is inspired without dissimulation in the classic run and gun , so we will spend a lot of time shooting enemies in the horizontal plane that
made Contra or Metal Slug great , but the experience that has fascinated its authors more clearly is much closer in the time. As much as it derives from the
classic titles of endless shots, it is the dark genius of Limbo (almost its opposite in the visual) that manages the rest of the threads of this game. Child protagonist,
its animation, deaths and lack of movement make it very clear, and the idea of a game that is structured in scenes, now action, now with its puzzle component,
it ends confirming. The truth is that the merger has been successful and the framework is satisfactory, although the final result does not end up being as round as we would have liked for the reasons that we will later see.
Rise, the boy on duty so inspired by the games of Playdead, and Shine, the tongue-tied pistol of burlesque and defiant noventera attitude , are controlled like the typical character of so many horizontal games. They can point and jump like their old fellows
and enjoy a dash to dodge the hundreds of shots that enemies will throw at us, but in exchange for their scant motor possibilities they will get the ability to
use different types of bulletsthroughout the game . The use made of these bullets is undoubtedly the most characteristic element of the
title at playable level, since we will have projectiles that we can control after firing them, being crucial inalmost all the puzzles that will emerge
along the way. We will also have an explosive ammunition whose trajectory will have to be calculated carefully and will help us against certain shields ,
as well as a type of electric bullet that sometimes we will have to alternate with the others in very limited time. In the use, very contrasting, of the different types of ammunition is much of the grace that the game exhibits at the level of playable design.
And it is that Rise & Shine nails it when it raises its proposal of action. In addition to thesebullets-puzzle , its twist to the run & gun has other
aspects very well posed that sound to us from several recent classics. Especially its system of coverage to the Gears of War,very well implemented,
or the recharge time that we must necessarily take into account even if we are in the middle of an action that usually becomes frenetic. It is also very attractive the abundance of shots
across the screen, worthy of a whole bullet hellon many occasions. All this, as well carried as it is, gives the game a character of its own that no
doubt will like novices and veterans alike, and gets something very complicated today: that a 2D shooting game has its novel point.
Shooting and Puzzles: the new Think & Gun
Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case with other mechanics that the game emphasizes. The proposal of Rise & Shine, as
distributed as its playing time between puzzle games and action arcades, gives us moments of relaxation without enemies in the form of some very
loose puzzles, which we found the most improvable of the game and they link to the main objection that anyone who finishes the campaign will find. The puzzles of the game are
triumphant when they surround themselves with the unbridled action that abounds there , but they are exaggeratedly simple by themselves, and do not pose any challenge beyond realizing what we have to do with them. Without going any further,
in Limbo lThings could become very complicated even after figuring out what could be the solution, as in similar proposals like Trine’s.
It seems clear that the authors, deliberately, have not wanted to complicate it too much, but the result raises doubts, which affect the great disadvantage of the game. The snag that distances him from the goals he could have achieved: his duration.
