Rise & Shine [Xbox One]

Rise & Shine, published by Adult Swim Games - and developed by possibly the longest-named developers ever, Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team - is a gorgeous looking side-scroller, with an outrageous sense of humour. Sadly it's not quite as long as we'd have liked, but we certainly enjoyed it while it lasted.

You play as a young boy called Rise, an unlikely hero with a companion (in the form of a talking gun named Shine), out to save the day. The story is lacking slightly as it is fairly predictable, and in all honesty, the games strengths are definitely within its art style and gameplay. Simple but effective gameplay, tied in with the beautiful hand-drawn art and comedic nods to other game franchises are what sets this game apart from the sea of indie games of late.

It doesn't take itself too seriously, and whilst at first glance, this may seem like a kid friendly game, it is definitely aimed at the older crowd. Gameplay is straightforward, not too hard to wrap your head around, but don't let that fool you. Some of the bosses are really quite frustrating to defeat, and there's definitely a few achievements in here that I don't see either of us getting for some time. You do get better as you progress through the game, partly because you get better at playing it naturally, and also because you can use a variety of different weapons as you go. Different weapons are designed for use within puzzles, etc, and collectibles/chests are available to upgrade your weapons capacity. Lots of cover based combat, making the game feel like a side-scrolling Gears of War (which it suits, considering who your father is clearly designed to look like).

The game is filled with clever, funny nods to other games - usually resulting in death or injury to these games' characters. From a Q*bert statue, to characters receiving first aid, there's lots of things you'll spot without even looking too hard. As said before, it's not a game for kids, with its excessive blood and violence and swearing. Cut scenes are done in a comic strip style, which is something we really liked as it definitely fit the tone of the game well, with its hand-drawn artwork, which is done over multiple layers giving the game some fantastic depth and making everything all the more beautiful, as opposed to a looping-background that you just grow tired of.

There unfortunately aren't too many enemy variants, so it would have been nice to see more of these, but this partly ties into our wish for the game to be longer as a longer game would have undoubtedly increased the variants, and realistically, plenty of fairly-long AAA games have limited enemy variants too, so that's probably us just being greedy, haha!

Another thing I wanted to mention is the music. We were very impressed with the music used throughout as it is very reminiscent of the games it is referencing: Halo, Gears of War, etc. Released on 11th January 2017, Rise & Shine is currently £11.99 on the Xbox Store.

Overall, we did really enjoy the game, the only thing that could have been better in our opinions is the story itself, but Rise & Shine is still definitely worth a play! So we've decided to give it a 7.2/10 :)

Have you played Rise & Shine? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!

- V x

Thank you to EvolvePR for the Rise & Shine Xbox One review code!