Developer: Homebear Studio
Publisher: Another Indie, Hound Picked Games
Platform: PC, Switch
Tested on: Switch
NAIRI: Rising Tide – Review
It’s no secret that the team behind 3rd-strike.com is based in Belgium. Now, you can definitely call us chauvinists for what we’re about to say, but we do have a soft spot for games made in the Benelux region, whether it’s a home-grown title like Trifox or one made by our neighbors in the Netherlands, like Coromon. A couple of years ago, Dutch indie studio Homebear Studio introduced us to their point-and-click puzzle series NAIRI. The first game in the series was met with a positive response by one of our fellow reviewers, so we were eager to find out what the sequel, NAIRI: Rising Tide had to offer.
Story
Despite the child-like cartoon visuals, Rising Tide’s story isn’t afraid to tackle heavy themes like social injustice and politics. It’s worth mentioning that Rising Tide is in fact a direct sequel to the first NAIRI game, Tower of Shirin. We haven’t played that previous title, and although there is an optional recap of the story so far included in Rising Tide, we still felt like we were missing out on some relevant pieces of lore. In fact, we found it quite difficult to piece together Rising Tide’s narrative. The story centers around two young children, the titular Nairi and her friend Shiro, as they become involved in a political conspiracy. In the previous game, Nairi’s parents were arrested under false pretenses by their political opponents, and the young girl had to go into hiding. Together with her new friends, she tries to find and free her parents. As if that wasn’t enough, there is also an ancient prophecy about a great storm that is coming, with Nairi being the chosen one destined to stop this from happening. Unfortunately, the overarching story is a convoluted mess that then gets drowned in side plots and an overabundance of characters. This made it difficult to follow and care about what was happening.
Graphics
The visual style of Rising Tide doesn’t match the narrative atmosphere of the game. The character designs are cutesy, and the colors are bright and saturated. While the overall juxtaposition doesn’t work, we do enjoy the game’s aesthetics on their own. The hand-drawn character designs look fantastic, and the different backgrounds are beautiful. The game mainly comprises static images, with barely any animations to speak of. That’s not a bad thing in this case, given how Rising Tide’s gameplay isn’t action-based, and the story is told through visual novel-style cutscenes. This also means that Rising Tide isn’t too taxing on the Switch and as such, it runs like a charm.
Sound
There actually isn’t a whole lot to say about Rising Tide’s soundscape, but that’s because it’s a matter of less is more in this case. There is no voice acting, and the sound effects aren’t anything to write home about. However, the soundscape is still enjoyable and does what it needs to do, thanks to a simple but effective soundtrack. The music does a fantastic job at setting a suitable atmosphere, as it changes effectively depending on the mood of the story. It does precisely what it needs to do, and sometimes, that’s all we could ask for.
Gameplay
Billed as a ‘puzzle dungeon’ game, Rising Tide essentially mixes a visual novel with point-and-click gameplay. On paper, that’s something that’s right up our alley. In practice, however, Rising Tide’s gameplay doesn’t stick its landing. The game is structured around three massive puzzle dungeons, which are lengthy sections filled with interconnected puzzles. In between these dungeons, the story unfolds. Although the story segments and puzzle dungeons feel like separate entities within Rising Tide, there isn’t a clear-cut divide between them, with smaller puzzles and side stories further fleshing out Nairi and Shiro’s adventure. The puzzles in the dungeons are arguably Rising Tide’s main draw. They range from quizzes to typical point-and-click fare like combining items from your inventory to overcome environmental obstacles. Admittedly, these can be very hit-or-miss, and Rising Tide doesn’t avoid the common genre pitfall of the solutions being a bit too much out of the box.
There is a hint system in place, but it isn’t implemented very well. After meeting Pipi, a young bird, for the first time, you’re able to buy clues using hint coins. The issue here is that there is a disconnect between the hints and how far you’ve progressed in the puzzle you’re dealing with. Sometimes, you’ll get a hint for a step you’ve already completed, and other times, a hint may be two or three steps down the line. And even then, the hints themselves often barely serve a purpose. The developers seemingly acknowledge Rising Tide’s obtuseness, as the game itself tells you that it is difficult and you can even skip dungeon puzzles if you do get stuck. That typically does mean you’re also missing out on relevant story information for the already convoluted plot. We were left wondering what the entire point of Rising Tide is if you’re going to present players with nigh unsolvable puzzles, if only to tell them to skip the entire thing and then simply hold back relevant info for other parts of the game. We ended up resorting to the walkthrough that Homebear Studio put online. The fact that the dev team themselves felt the need to put this out illustrates that they’re aware of how unintuitive Rising Tide is to play through.
An attempt was made to give Rising Tide some replayability, as there are hidden collectibles to be found throughout the game, but apart from the hint coins these seemingly didn’t have a point. Maybe there are different endings depending on whether or not you find all of them, but we couldn’t care enough to return to Rising Tide after the credits rolled. We also found it very difficult to gauge the game’s length. We occasionally referred to the aforementioned guide whenever we got stuck, and it took us roughly 8 hours to complete the game. Without that guide, we probably would have taken a lot longer, but it would’ve been time wasted. We’d either be staring at the screen and wondering what to do next, or making haphazard attempts, hoping that we stumbled upon the right item in our inventory. If you ask us, there are better ways to spend €13.49.
Conclusion
After the standard Homebear Studio set with the previous game, we can’t imagine Rising Tide to be anything but a disappointment, even to die-hard fans of Tower of Shirin. The story is a convoluted mess and the puzzles are poorly thought out. While the art style is certainly pleasant, it doesn’t fit with the tone and atmosphere of the game’s narrative. It’s a shame, because, on paper, Rising Tide should be a homerun for enthusiasts of visual novels or point-and-click games. Skip this one and go play Loco Motive instead.
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