Games are considered to be imaginations from the people behind game studios. The creative director is always there to make every concept and bring those games to life. Hideo Kojima and Fumito Ueda are two popular influential individuals in the gaming industry. Their unique minds and creativity pushes a title to be intriguing and mysterious.
But I want to talk about how Fumito Ueda’s games and RiME capture me in their interesting worlds. All the games like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian, and RiME are open for interpretation. It drives our mind to think, wonder, and come to a conclusion of what the game is trying to relay. This makes our imagination run through our eyes and realize that games like The Last Guardian and Tequila Works’ RiME are pieces of what we call “art”.
When you interpret a game’s story, twist, and even the characters, it makes you craft your own story and also develop your creativity. The boy in The Last Guardian doesn’t have a name, and Trico’s gender is unclear, and even how the world came to be in Ueda’s adventure title is also vague. You have to fill-in those blanks to complete and finish the whole story.
Even if it leaves you hanging in the end, you have to understand that a dot in a painting is already considered as “art”. People wonder in art galleries what a small black dot in a center of a picture with a white background means. The answer is simple: it’s open for interpretation. The message of the painting might relay sadness, a small drop of hope, or loneliness. That’s how The Last Guardian came to be – it’s a work of art because it’s open for analysis.
There are critics and gamers who don’t actually understand the whole concept of games similar to The Last Guardian yet. They think the story is just dull and flat and uninteresting. What they also forget that games like The Last Guardian and RiME are games with blanks that you have to answer by yourself. That’s why I don’t quite agree with Oscar Dayus’ review of RiME – “pretentious”, “frustrating puzzles”, and the “confusing plot”.
RiME’s beautiful world is heavily inspired by the likes of Journey and Team Ico’s titles (Shadows, Ico, and The Last Guardian). I’m enjoying every bit of exploration I get to experience in this intriguing world. The puzzles juggles with your mind that wouldn’t really frustrate you and it can also be rewarding when you get to solve them. I’m in the progress of writing my review since we just got the review code yesterday, and RiME is definitely a game to get.
What makes me continue more in this mysterious adventure of mine is I want to know what the tower holds, its stories, the fox, and the man (or woman) in the red hood. In corridors I get to explore, there are paintings that convey a part of the island’s history and its visitors. It’s a bit shallow if you think of it, the plot might not be amazing as The Last of Us or The Witcher; it’s the simplicity that goes well with a humble game like RiME which doesn’t need additional loads of twist that makes everything more confusing than it already is — this also goes the same to The Last Guardian.
In the end, games are still works of art. May it be Call Of Duty, NBA 2K18, or even Need for Speed – it’s the creativity that also counts in games which makes them unique in every aspect. So, for those who think RiME is nothing compared to The Last Guardian, you might need to re-evaluate that again and try to open your mind and see how the game is also an emotional adventure.