Review: Arise – A Simple Story Definitive Edition is a beautifully heartbreaking tale

videogameschronicle.com:

Initially released in 2019, Arise: A Simple Story is a game that leaves much more of an impact than its modest title suggests.

Having previously been met with critical acclaim on PS4, Xbox One and PC, the game is now available on the Switch in a new ‘Definitive Edition’, with a few new features.

The game – which is played with no dialogue – opens with a Viking-like funeral as an elderly man’s body is burned.

You then play as the man, who arrives in a sort of limbo-like existence and gets to relive all the memories in his life before his soul is finally put to rest in a way that all but guarantees you’ll get a bit weepy.

Each of the game’s 10 stages is based on a different part of the man’s life, from his childhood to him falling in love and everything that follows.

For the most part the game is your typical 3D platformer, but the main gimmick here is that by moving the right stick left and right you can move time forwards and backwards.

This allows for some basic puzzles, where moving time can raise rivers (to let you jump on floating logs), make flowers grow and shrink, cause cliffs to crumble and rematerialise, that sort of thing.

While the platforming can be a little fiddly and some jumps are hard to gauge, you do have infinite lives and respawns always occur close by, so frustration is kept to a minimum.

What makes Arise stand out over other indie platformers, however, is the way everything’s so beautifully presented.

“What makes Arise stand out over other indie platformers, however, is the way everything’s so beautifully presented.”

The protagonist’s animations are superb. He’ll pause for breath when he’s tired, he’ll take a while to get up after a big fall, and he’ll hold his arms out for balance when you’re using