Braid, the game that’s both Artsy, fun and downright tricky all at the same time.

So its Braid up for review now, the much praised Mario and Prince of Persia puzzler with a hint of salt hybrid. Seems like a tough idea to get your head around right? Well you’d be wrong, before I get deep into the game I would like to say how struck I was with it as soon as I started it up for the first time, I was confused, perplexed and interested before I had even gotten into the first level, normally this wouldn’t be a good thing but with Braid, it truly is.

So the game opens with you currently a mere silhouette, Tim, standing on a bridge with a beautiful watercolour background and some truly amazing yet haunting music playing, at this point I was expecting some sort of menu to pop up, with the average, Continue, Load and Options buttons that are ever so familiar nowadays, but no, just the music, and that amazing background. Don’t get me wrong, people will look at this game and immediately draw the conclusion that it’s rubbish, for example on Steam just before writing this review;

\DEANO/: just gunna write up my review for braid

NATHAN: lool looks crap

A prime example of somebody who doesn’t appreciate the depth and art in a videogame (wow look at me sounding like a spend my weeknights criticising people who don’t understand the Tate modern.) Anyway, as I was saying, the lack of menu immediately shows the game is different, but whether or not this was intentional I am unsure. So you walk to the right a little bit and soon see some more stunning backgrounds, I’m not sure why I like them so much with a starlit sky and streetlamps with an urban vibe at the same time, after crossing the midpoint, you will see Tim come to life, the style of his character is reminiscent of Maplestory, with a nice colour palette and 16 bit style, yet still keeping the look of an ordinary guy with a suit and tie. Continuing right you will step into Tim’s house, from this area you can access all of the worlds you have played and view how complete your puzzles are (which I will go into later.)

After going through the first door, you are faced with a series of six books in a beautiful looking cloud room, the first immediately made me think of Mario, yet hooked me at the same time, simply because of the first two sentences are ‘Tim is off on a search to rescue the Princess. She has been snatched by a horrible evil monster.’ This made me think of ‘Sorry, try another castle straight away, but then the hook at the bottom of; ‘this happened because Tim made a mistake,’ just made me want to read on. Incidentally, you can sprint through this and get on with the game straight away, which was a good choice to let the player choose what they do. The thing is, what happened to the princess and why she is gone I honestly can’t tell you, not for fear I will be had a go at for not marking the review with spoilers, but because there are so many points you could look at that there seems to be no exact answer. The story makes a reasonable amount of sense, and is given to the player through handy bitesize chunks through the books before a level, a decent yet somewhat forgettable way of doing things.

Graphically, as I mentioned earlier, the game is a stunning mix of 16 bit art with watercolour paintings and beautiful backgrounds, and at some points it feels like you are playing a work of art more than a game, the animations are simple but flow incredibly well, and the smoothness Is something I noticed from the start. Through the game you will traverse environments from lush green plains to frozen tundra’s, the amount of visual goodness that you will see reminds me of Lost Winds and the first time I set eyes on Little Big Planet.

Gameplay is definitely reminiscent of Mario, jumping on enemies to kill them is something that never gets old, however, in Braid, you cannot die, you simply have a death animation which you can rewind to correct your mistakes, the amount of rewind time is brilliant, and at no point have I ever been truly stuck in a spot where I have a repeated loop of death. Braid is even more unique than most games, not because of the time rewinding, but because of the sheer scale, thought and toughness involved in the puzzles, there are 12 puzzle pieces per world and a total of 60 dotted around the entire game. Putting together a puzzle will open up a pathway leading to the final level, and the general ease of the puzzles varies as you continue through the worlds. Each world teaches Time a different skill, with the ability to rewind time present in all levels from the start. Every skill you gain from a world will be useful in its levels, and a good example is the ‘ghost Tim’ which does the task you did before you rewound time, for example, if you hit a switch, then rewound, ghost Tim would hit the switch again, interesting, and useful for navigating the levels.

The sounds in the game are minimal, with the orchestral pieces you hear at the start of the game looping throughout, whilst playing the music seems to simply lie in the background, gently taking you through the game. Aside from the jump sounds and Tim’s death sound, there isn’t much else to offer, however, this minimalistic approach seems to be a good choice and goes well with the games ideas and themes.

My final thoughts on Braid are that it is truly a stunner, with puzzles making you think to backgrounds your eyes can feast on. The one thing that concerns me is the length of the game, If you are willing to get stuck in and do all of the puzzles, then you will get a lot for your money, if you just want to play through and attempt a few of the puzzles, you could probably finish the game in around an hour, not so great for the money you pay for it. To truly recommend this game I would suggest being in the mood for an original puzzler, because it doesn’t get much better than this.

-Dean Case