GRIS

Every inch of this game was beautifully crafted from the light puzzle platforming to the incredible soundtrack and visuals. The biggest knock I have is that the actual gameplay i.e. the platforming and puzzle-solving is mediocre at best and more of a means to progress the game to the next canvas.

Definitely the kind of game where either you have an alright time with the steady progression and beautiful presentation, or it resonates deep within your heart and soul and changes your life. Was the former for me, totally get it being the latter for others.

3 hours of pure perfection. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I find everything in this game is absolutely beautiful: the art, the music, the controls, the level design, the story and gameplay. During the later stages I just entered this zen-like flow. I just knew where to go next and time flew by like nothing.
Just an amazing, complete package.


I have not read about the story before or after playing, but my take is that it centers around depression. How it strips all color and joy from your life. How the feeling of endless darkness chases after you and no matter how much you want to scream, you can't. You have no voice. You self-image literally shatters and you have nothing left but an empty shell of your self. You have disappeared.

Step by step, you have to fight to get all those precious things back in life, and start to believe in yourself gain. That's how you grow, and finally escape the torment.

Maybe that's not at all what the creators intended. Maybe it does not matter, because this is one of those rare games that make you think. Make you wonder. It left me shaken and fulfilled.

As far as presentation goes, this game gets full mark. The artwork is really really good, the usage of colors is some of the best I have seen ever. It's also got a magnificent soundtrack that is used quite well in the game, the music is well timed with your progression and also offers quite the atmospheric emotional experience. But that boils down to what the actual problem of the game is: it's more of an experience than a challenging game itself. I did give a few game some high marks that did not offer much challenge (Virginia, Kentucky Route Zero come to mind), but these games had strong narratives along with their experience, what GRIS has to offer is the most basic of passive platforming experience (there are no enemies) and some rather simple puzzles. It only takes a few hours to complete the game and there isn't much to it, what you get is some very nice visuals paired with good music to match... and then it's over.

I think it's a dangerous precedent that some big gaming websites are giving this top marks (Destructoid 10/10 and Gamespot 9/10), this is like saying to devs that it's ok to have no challenging aspects to a game and that gameplay can be put as the least important part of the game. Sure there are things that this game does that is mindblowing with the art and I do wish that some are inspired by it, but please don't forget to put a game into your game! I guess we do need games for every type of gamer and I can't speak for anyone, but for me this had some potential at first and it completely fell flat after that... and I certainly hope there isn't going to be a legion of following games that lack on the gameplay but look pretty.

Gris offers incredible artwork, through its handpainted backgrounds and animation.

But when it comes to gameplay it really falls apart. Its only offering very simple platforming and puzzles, but these arent ones that are satisfying to complete or easy enough to breeze through. Its the sort of unrewarding puzzles that are annoying to complete and feel that are there just to drag the game along.

The soundtrack is some lovely ambiente, that quickly becomes unmemorable outside the game.

Overal i find that the artwork gave way too much attention to what is otherwise a pretty mediocre experience. Similar games like Jorney offered these big emotional moments in addition to the artwork, and these are missing in here.