Brilliantly designed puzzle-platformers have continued to hold a very special place in my heart for the better part of the last 16 years. Notable titles like Limbo, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, Unravel, and Inside all brought something unique to the table while maintaining different levels of charm and mystery to make each separate experience feel memorable and complete.
Back in January 2017, Adult Swim Games and Super Mega Awesome Hyper Dimensional Team joined forces to release Rise & Shine, an insanely fun and charismatic title that became one of the standout titles for that month. As a single-player platformer/arcade stylized shooter, this indie title deserves your undivided attention if you haven’t checked it out already.
Rise & Shine takes place on an enchanting, yet disturbing alternate video game world known as Gamearth shortly after a widespread invasion orchestrated by a group of warmongering space robots and grunts simply called the NexGen invaders. Players step into the role of Rise, a young kid who is tasked with becoming the unlikely hero that the world needs.
After a brief introduction, Rise crosses paths with Shine, a comical, legendary gun that talks back and allows Rise to respawn regularly after every gruesome death sequence. From this point forward, the duo works together in hopes of ending the reign of terror and saving the day.
As you explore the comic book stylized world, the vibe feels very much like you are a part of a Saturday morning cartoon with the noticeable change that everything is a lot more brutal and gory. The violence is very much on par with the various ways that your character can die in Limbo and Inside.
As you progress through the story, Shine does gain access to electric and explosive ammo which helps you deal with increasingly tougher enemies and boss battles. In addition to all this, there are shooting related puzzles to solve along with some platforming to switch things up. All of these things add up to a challenging, but fun experience for those who are interested in the genre.
Rise & Shine is out now on Xbox One (backwards compatible on Xbox Series X/S), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems.
