--- title: Rime Review description: Tequila Works' puzzle game Rime builds a beguiling world over mediocre puzzles. canonical: https://time.com/4786966/rime-review/ author: Matt Peckham article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-25T15:00:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:43:46.475Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Review: 'Rime' Builds a Beguiling World On Mediocre Puzzles og:description: It's a new puzzle game for PS4, Xbox One, and PC og:url: https://time.com/4786966/rime-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66403daeb004415b/6988ce2dfb4eac0248892164/rime-launch-screenshot-02.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: RiME - Launch Screenshot 02 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: 'Rime' Builds a Beguiling World On Mediocre Puzzles twitter:description: It's a new puzzle game for PS4, Xbox One, and PC twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66403daeb004415b/6988ce2dfb4eac0248892164/rime-launch-screenshot-02.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Review: 'Rime' Builds a Beguiling World Over Mediocre Puzzles by [Matt Peckham](https://time.com/author/matt-peckham/) ## Matt Peckham May 25, 2017 3:00 PM UTC  Tequila Works by [Matt Peckham](https://time.com/author/matt-peckham/) ## Matt Peckham May 25, 2017 3:00 PM UTC It’s a great time to be sad in video games. Take Fumito Ueda’s magisterial [_The Last Guardian_](http://time.com/4588009/the-last-guardian-review/), which explores a harried creature’s cheerless odyssey through wrack and ruin. Or Giant Sparrow’s [_What Remains of Edith Finch_](http://time.com/4751800/what-remains-of-edith-finch-review/), which chronicles the slow and strange near-extinction of a family over more than a century. There’s Playdead’s [_Inside_](http://time.com/4380020/inside-review/), which wraps its Mengele-ian discoveries in Kafkaesque gloom. And Thomas Brush’s [_Pinstripe_](http://time.com/4745187/pinstripe-review/) posits a horrible hereafter sprung like a Jungian trap. Even Nintendo’s [_The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild_](http://time.com/4683122/zelda-breath-of-the-wild-review/), with dazzling vistas on par with a Studio Ghibli flick, feels shot through with sorrowful tones. Add _Rime_ to the list, a puzzle game for PC, [PlayStation 4](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MXYX880/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fsp%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timetechvideogames-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B01MXYX880&linkId=4a3623eb56a13eb0afbe9cd5a1b1c8c3) and [Xbox One](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZ0BCFR/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fsp%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timetechvideogames-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B01MZ0BCFR&linkId=02a11b9678f6a758c5be99e03d63f5ad) that has players guide a lissome boy through island labyrinths in search of memories and other backstory bits. That search positions _Rime_ on a well-trod continuum, from films like Sidney Lumet’s [_The Morning After_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091554/) to novelist A.E. Van Vogt’s [_The Book of Ptath_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FBook%5Fof%5FPtath), that dangles the amnesiac trope as narrative bait. What happened here and why? Who is the protagonist and what does he want? Is the world real or imagined? The journey figurative or literal?  Tequila Works The difference in a game like _Rime_ is that the mysteries de-cloak piecemeal in accord with your choices. Race through areas front to back and you’ll get the CliffsNotes account of the story. Scrutinize areas for collectible clues on the other hand, and, if not quite everything is illuminated, significantly more can be gleaned. First impressions of _Rime_‘s world-building impress, a succession of island venues framed by crumbling parapets and broken down towers redolent of the [painterly gouache](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouache) approach Nintendo brought to _Breath of the Wild_. Azure pools harbor swaying beds of emerald seagrass and schools of amaranth jellyfish. Boreal semaphores sketch calligraphic patterns against twilight skies. Alabaster flagstones and plinths vie for your attention with cantilevered towers and cryptic tracery on telltale sculptures or other civilizational artifacts. Much of what’s interesting about _Rime_ can be had simply by looking.  Tequila Works Yes, we’ve seen games that resemble _Rime_ before. I mentioned _Breath of the Wild_ above, and _Rime_ also bears passing comparison to Nintendo’s _The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker_. But there’s more going on here. The game’s creative lead Raúl Rubio [has cited](https://analogaddiction.org/2013/08/28/tequila-works-creative-director-talks-playstation-4-exclusive-rime/) stop-motion maven Ray Harryhausen, Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla, Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico and surrealist Salvador Dalí as influences. It’s a mouthful that produces idiosyncratic eyefuls, from bleached watercolor sanctuaries filled with teetering ley-lined contraptions, to haunting midnight labyrinths of rain-soaked onyx stones. Its puzzles are a more mixed bag, shifting from the occasional novel take, say the particulars of light, shadow and position, to stale exploration rituals. Think of problems whose solutions are simple matters of elimination, where deduction isn’t on the menu and you just poke your nose into possibility space until you trip on the resolution.  Tequila Works Making progress becomes a matter of noticing obvious cues — in _Rime_‘s case, traversal marks on stones, or movable this-fits-with-that doohickeys — and obliging some rote action. Climb here, shimmy there, touch a thing or collect an object, then have it interact with another object to conjure the way forward. Nothing surprises, a critical flaw in a medium that values the latter above diamonds. What of _Rime_‘s title? It’s signaling to Coleridge’s _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_, of course, another tale of seaborne calamity. But it’s also making reference to a less known form of the word: “to make clear or vacant, to remove or take away.” Something ceremonial lies behind the game’s maneuvers and oblique incantations, a rite of sorts. Its final moments are commensurately heartbreaking but also bracing. They don’t resolve the game’s shortcomings — in games the journey must by definition upstage the destination — but the ending is beautifully handled, cleverly connected to the undertaking, and almost worth the price. **3.5 out of 5 (Buy Now: Rime, $30 at Amazon,** [**PS4**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MXYX880/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fsp%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timetechvideogames-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B01MXYX880&linkId=4a3623eb56a13eb0afbe9cd5a1b1c8c3) **|** [**Xbox One**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZ0BCFR/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fsp%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timetechvideogames-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B01MZ0BCFR&linkId=02a11b9678f6a758c5be99e03d63f5ad)**)** _Reviewed on PlayStation 4 Pro_ [(_Read TIME’s affiliate link policy_.)](http://time.com/4605406/time-affiliate-link-policy/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4786966/rime-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4786966/rime-review/"},"headline":"Review: 'Rime' Builds a Beguiling World Over Mediocre Puzzles","datePublished":"2017-05-25T15:00:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:43:46.475Z","description":"It's a new puzzle game for PS4, Xbox One, and PC","url":"https://time.com/4786966/rime-review/","keywords":["Video Games","Tech","review","PlayStation 4","xbox One","Windows","Action","adventure","gamereviews","nintendo switch","timeshop"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66403daeb004415b/6988ce2dfb4eac0248892164/rime-launch-screenshot-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Matt Peckham","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/matt-peckham/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66403daeb004415b/6988ce2dfb4eac0248892164/rime-launch-screenshot-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"RiME - Launch Screenshot 02","caption":"","creditText":"Tequila Works","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/video-games/","name":"Video Games"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4786966/rime-review/","name":"Review: 'Rime' Builds a Beguiling World Over Mediocre Puzzles"}}]}] ```