Hot on the heels of some negative press, Rime developer Grey Box offers an explanation and a freebie.
We’ve been following Rime quite closely here at Grab It. For the most part, that’s because it looks amazing. Stuck somewhere between Journey, The Witness and Legend of Zelda, it’s focused on exploration, environmental puzzle-solving and the mystery of how a young boy got marooned on an island full of ancient ruins. It’s one of those indie games that really turns heads.
Unfortunately, it started turning heads for the wrong reason when the pricing for the Switch version of the game arrived. At $79.95 here in Australia, it was $20 more than the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the same game. Nintendo fans were quick to take up arms – by which we mean sound-off in forums - and Grey Box was paying attention. The developer just sent us the following peace offering:
The Australian pricing for exciting, upcoming indie adventure puzzler RiME has thrown a surprise figure at Nintendo Switch owners. It's Double!
Update: The distributor just sent through revised pricing due to an error in the initial price release. New pricing is $79.95 on Switch, $59.95 on Xbox One and PS4, and $49.95 on PC. So the price gap is $20 to other consoles and $30 to PC. Still significant.
RiME is one of the more promising looking indie titles coming out in 2017 – one we highlighted in our sister site's Nintendo Switch Guide (see below). The game is like a cross between The Legend of Zelda, The Witness and Ico, mixing in puzzle-solving and adventure-like exploration with a more introspective tone and atmosphere. You play as a seemingly cursed young boy left shipwrecked and alone on a rugged, but beautiful island.
Your goal is to escape, which means discovering the secrets of this place. The action is less about combat and more about exploration and puzzle-solving, the latter using elements like light, sound, time and perspective. It’s all set in a large environment navigated to via an over-world, and it looks gorgeous - you can see the full trailer below.
With swords, demons, explosions and some really bad jokes, this latest stab at recreating a fast-paced 90's shooter makes all the right moves.
If you're looking for a brilliant, mildly offensive time-waster, this is probably it. It's not long after your first fire up Shadow Warrior 2 that you're up to your eyeballs in demon guts, explosive crabs and wang jokes. And it just gets better from there.
Hunting bounties, hauling cargo, accelerating to warp nine; Rebel Galaxy aims to fulfill your wildest space fantasies. Does it conquer the final frontier, or is it heading for a black hole?
Remember that seminal moment in Spore where the camera zooms out to reveal the world is so much bigger than it first seemed? That you were just a tiny fish in an ocean full of possibility? That's the feeling Rebel Galaxy evokes, except unlike Spore, it's not just a one-off trick. There's a lot of progress to be made in Double Damage's space adventure, and every time you think you've hit the top rung, you lift your head and see there's a whole new ladder to climb.
And believe me, you're going to want to keep climbing.
Rebel Galaxy is a space game like no other space game. Right from the get-go you're piloting the kinds of ships that are always off-limits. The corvettes, the dreadnaughts, the capital ships: the ones you normally drool over from the cockpit of a two-man scout ship. Not here. Rebel Galaxy hands you the keys to the big-boy ships and lets you swat those pesky little fighters like so many feckless flies.
Grandeur is something Rebel Galaxy does brilliantly.