This review was posted on GameFAQs before I posted it here, if you're interested.
Time control was a revolution when it was first released onto the gaming world. A way to skip the game over, a way to perfect every mistake, and a way to get another extra advantage on your enemies. But now, five years after this mechanic was spearheaded (in Ubisoft's infamous Prince of Persia series) it has been tried, tested, failed, and cast to the side as just a quirky gimmick used only to spice up the blandest of games.
Jonathan Blow, head of independent games company NumberNone, took offence to this. He took time control and livened things up, he changed the rules of a concept that has already broken so many, he saw the control of time as a blank canvas for him to doodle on. And I'll tell you something, Braid is more than just a bland game with time travel mixed in - its an absolutely brilliant game...with time travel thrown in.
Braid is, in essence, a bit like Mario. You control Tim, a rather dashing young hero, who trawls the worlds of Braid in search of his princess. The whole game is in beautifully rendered 2D - I know this is the twenty-first century and lots of people won't touch games that don't have super polymer enhanced graphics with surface textures and realistic lighting effects, but I dare these people to look at Braid and not say that it looks fantastic. Everything has a very hand-drawn feel to it, and the smoothness of Tim's movements (check out his tie wafting in the breeze) only augments that further. So, 2D game, hero searching for a princess, has to travel through different worlds to find her?
Yes, yes, its VERY much like Mario. The Braid community have even started calling the enemies 'Goombas'. And there are biting plants that come from ground. AND, every time you reach a world the dinosaur there tells you "The princess is in another castle." But what kind of critisism is that? Isn't Mario, like the most popular and famous game of all time?
I digress really, since Braid is 100% not Mario. Not by a mile. Mario had you leaping over objects and running into castles on the assumption that he loved the princess. In Braid, you don't assume, you damn well know it. The story of Braid is told before the start of each world in text format, ie paragraphs of writing, but these paragraphs of writing are so amazingly written. You definitely get the feeling that Tim Heart Princess but its left nail-bitingly cryptic when it comes to the more ambiguous pieces and leaves so much of the plot up to the player so you can fill in the blanks as you like. Yes this sounds cheap and one shouldn't have to make up one's own plot for a game when the plot should be readily built in already, but somehow it works, and it works damn well.
One more point on the story. The ending might be the best ending in any videogame made. No matter how you've filled in the plot holes the ending will still be brilliant to all who see it.
Right, I got at least 500 words there without talking about time manipulation. So lets get into it.
As with most games with the wizardry of Dalorian power, the integral part to the twisting of time is the reverse. If Tim dies, you can reverse time and make him un-dead. If you screw up a puzzle, rewind back to get it back to a doable state. What makes Braid special in its use of this power is that its complete unlimited. You can reverse time as many times as you want, as often as you want, and as far back as you want (I experimented - you can rewind back 2 hours if you really want). However, this in no way makes the game easy.
The main beef of the game is to collect the sixty puzzle pieces scatter around the lands. (A bit like stars in Mario. Alright I'll stop drawing parallels.) Apart from the first half a dozen, each of these pieces requires cunning and high brain capacity to accomplish. And, with the exception of two pieces, every piece you see can be collected right there and then - you just have to know how to use the enemies, switches, and time travel at your disposal to claim them.
Of course, time travel is not restricted to going backward. Each of the five worlds in Braid has its own particular spin on the time travel mechanic. The first world plays out normally, with only reverse at your disposal. The next world gives you objects that are unaffected by Tim's timely powers, meaning that slight slip-ups can render pieces unsolvable. Next, Tim controls time purely on his position in the level - moving right shifts time forward, moving left shifts it back. The idea of a doppelganger is brought up in the next world - when you reverse time, a shadowy version of yourself will redo the events that you just reversed, leading to complex, 2-man puzzles. The final world see you with a ring, which you can place to slow the flow of time in its proximity.
These tailor-made worlds are broken down into tailor-made puzzles, where you must get the pieces whilst utilising the time mechanics available. The learning curve is absolutely perfect, with easier puzzles at the start of each world to break you into the new rules, and fiendishly tricky puzzles at the ends which stretch your brain to an insane degree. But despite the unlimited amount of rewinds you have, every time you grab a puzzle piece and see it zoom into the top left of your screen, the sense of accomplishment (coupled with the sense of "OMGZ IT WAS SO SIMPLE!!!!) is something that you feel here in Braid more than in ANY other game. And the dulcet tones of the games calming yet eerie soundtrack increase that feeling so much more.
Of course, there are flaws. It prices at a huge 1200MSP (15$, or 10£
, but in my mind there is no better way to spend £10. I've seen some true piles of crap fly of game shelves at £50 a go, so this is honestly not that expensive. There are also niggles that the game is too short, and doesn't have much replay value. In my opinion, the game is like Portal - just long enough to keep you satisfied, and not too long as to outstay its welcome. And the in-game Speed Run mode is enough to keep some people playing for a long time, trying to make their speedruns of Braid flawless and perfect.
And, these are the words which I will end on. Braid is flawless and perfect, it is one of the smartest, deeply immersive games I have ever had the pleasure to play. Its good for people new and experienced in the puzzle platform genre, it features some of the finest 2D graphics ever produced, and the story (or slight lack thereof) is beautifully balanced between fact and opinion.
Braid - absolutely sublime from start to finish, and easily the best game on XBLA today. And its only a tenner.
Recommendation: BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT. Seriously.
Time control was a revolution when it was first released onto the gaming world. A way to skip the game over, a way to perfect every mistake, and a way to get another extra advantage on your enemies. But now, five years after this mechanic was spearheaded (in Ubisoft's infamous Prince of Persia series) it has been tried, tested, failed, and cast to the side as just a quirky gimmick used only to spice up the blandest of games.
Jonathan Blow, head of independent games company NumberNone, took offence to this. He took time control and livened things up, he changed the rules of a concept that has already broken so many, he saw the control of time as a blank canvas for him to doodle on. And I'll tell you something, Braid is more than just a bland game with time travel mixed in - its an absolutely brilliant game...with time travel thrown in.
Braid is, in essence, a bit like Mario. You control Tim, a rather dashing young hero, who trawls the worlds of Braid in search of his princess. The whole game is in beautifully rendered 2D - I know this is the twenty-first century and lots of people won't touch games that don't have super polymer enhanced graphics with surface textures and realistic lighting effects, but I dare these people to look at Braid and not say that it looks fantastic. Everything has a very hand-drawn feel to it, and the smoothness of Tim's movements (check out his tie wafting in the breeze) only augments that further. So, 2D game, hero searching for a princess, has to travel through different worlds to find her?
Yes, yes, its VERY much like Mario. The Braid community have even started calling the enemies 'Goombas'. And there are biting plants that come from ground. AND, every time you reach a world the dinosaur there tells you "The princess is in another castle." But what kind of critisism is that? Isn't Mario, like the most popular and famous game of all time?
I digress really, since Braid is 100% not Mario. Not by a mile. Mario had you leaping over objects and running into castles on the assumption that he loved the princess. In Braid, you don't assume, you damn well know it. The story of Braid is told before the start of each world in text format, ie paragraphs of writing, but these paragraphs of writing are so amazingly written. You definitely get the feeling that Tim Heart Princess but its left nail-bitingly cryptic when it comes to the more ambiguous pieces and leaves so much of the plot up to the player so you can fill in the blanks as you like. Yes this sounds cheap and one shouldn't have to make up one's own plot for a game when the plot should be readily built in already, but somehow it works, and it works damn well.
One more point on the story. The ending might be the best ending in any videogame made. No matter how you've filled in the plot holes the ending will still be brilliant to all who see it.
Right, I got at least 500 words there without talking about time manipulation. So lets get into it.
As with most games with the wizardry of Dalorian power, the integral part to the twisting of time is the reverse. If Tim dies, you can reverse time and make him un-dead. If you screw up a puzzle, rewind back to get it back to a doable state. What makes Braid special in its use of this power is that its complete unlimited. You can reverse time as many times as you want, as often as you want, and as far back as you want (I experimented - you can rewind back 2 hours if you really want). However, this in no way makes the game easy.
The main beef of the game is to collect the sixty puzzle pieces scatter around the lands. (A bit like stars in Mario. Alright I'll stop drawing parallels.) Apart from the first half a dozen, each of these pieces requires cunning and high brain capacity to accomplish. And, with the exception of two pieces, every piece you see can be collected right there and then - you just have to know how to use the enemies, switches, and time travel at your disposal to claim them.
Of course, time travel is not restricted to going backward. Each of the five worlds in Braid has its own particular spin on the time travel mechanic. The first world plays out normally, with only reverse at your disposal. The next world gives you objects that are unaffected by Tim's timely powers, meaning that slight slip-ups can render pieces unsolvable. Next, Tim controls time purely on his position in the level - moving right shifts time forward, moving left shifts it back. The idea of a doppelganger is brought up in the next world - when you reverse time, a shadowy version of yourself will redo the events that you just reversed, leading to complex, 2-man puzzles. The final world see you with a ring, which you can place to slow the flow of time in its proximity.
These tailor-made worlds are broken down into tailor-made puzzles, where you must get the pieces whilst utilising the time mechanics available. The learning curve is absolutely perfect, with easier puzzles at the start of each world to break you into the new rules, and fiendishly tricky puzzles at the ends which stretch your brain to an insane degree. But despite the unlimited amount of rewinds you have, every time you grab a puzzle piece and see it zoom into the top left of your screen, the sense of accomplishment (coupled with the sense of "OMGZ IT WAS SO SIMPLE!!!!) is something that you feel here in Braid more than in ANY other game. And the dulcet tones of the games calming yet eerie soundtrack increase that feeling so much more.
Of course, there are flaws. It prices at a huge 1200MSP (15$, or 10£
, but in my mind there is no better way to spend £10. I've seen some true piles of crap fly of game shelves at £50 a go, so this is honestly not that expensive. There are also niggles that the game is too short, and doesn't have much replay value. In my opinion, the game is like Portal - just long enough to keep you satisfied, and not too long as to outstay its welcome. And the in-game Speed Run mode is enough to keep some people playing for a long time, trying to make their speedruns of Braid flawless and perfect.And, these are the words which I will end on. Braid is flawless and perfect, it is one of the smartest, deeply immersive games I have ever had the pleasure to play. Its good for people new and experienced in the puzzle platform genre, it features some of the finest 2D graphics ever produced, and the story (or slight lack thereof) is beautifully balanced between fact and opinion.
Braid - absolutely sublime from start to finish, and easily the best game on XBLA today. And its only a tenner.
Recommendation: BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT. Seriously.
