game recommendation Rakuen

[Dreamy]

So I'm not normally the sort of person to do this kind of thing, but the fact that several songs from this gem still make me teary-eyed about a month after playing it tells me that it deserves it. 

 

So, Rakuen. 

 

This is a story-heavy game with some light-moderate puzzle elements and some optional collectables, but really it's all about experiencing the story and the world.

It follows the story of a young boy in hospital with his mother who finds his way into a fantasy world talked about in an old storybook, and helps the other patients of the hospital reconcile with some of their past regrets by travelling between the two worlds, which parallel eachother in many ways. 

It's hard for me to explain in a way that sounds appealing while also remaining vague, but it's really good. 

 

The pixel art is really really nice, the soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal, the characters are really interesting and have a ton of depth to their stories, and the rich atmosphere expertly switches between quirky and jovial, warm and wholesome, mysterious and haunting, and bittersweet and sad.

 

It's primarily developed by Laura Shigihara, who was the composer for the original PvZ, and she also sings most of the non-instrumental songs in the game. 

Over on the Steam Store it has an Overwhelmingly Positive (97%) review score, but only ~1200 reviews overall, so I feel this game is criminally underrepresented for it's quality. It's also only ~$10 (12 in my country)

Here's the store link for anyone interested, you can get a better idea of visuals/soundtrack, but beware of spoilers if you look at the reviews! https://store.steampowered.com/app/559210/ 

 

It took me about 9 hours to thoroughly play (I think I only missed one collectable out of about 2-3 dozen) over the course of a weekend, but at least several days afterward to emotionally stabilize after the ending, and I'm not even a very emotional person. 

 

Overall, would recommend this a thousand times over, and hope I've convinced some of you to try it out, even if I'm not great at writing this sort of thing.

If you've already played this, or even play it because of this, I'd love to read some peoples (spoiler-free!) thoughts about it down below! 

 

 

dammit now I'm crying again

[Dreamy]

The game's currently 40% off so it's a good chance for anyone who wan't to give it a go! https://store.steampowered.com/app/559210/Rakuen/