GREY BOX, SIX FOOT AND TEQUILA WORKS RELEASE RiME
Captivating Puzzle Adventure Game Launches on PlayStation®4, Xbox One and Windows PC
HOUSTON and MADRID – May 26, 2017 – Grey Box, Six Foot and independent developer Tequila Works have released the single-player puzzle adventure game RiME as a physical and digital title on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One and Windows PC for a suggested retail price of $29.99 / €34.99 / £29.99.
“We’re deeply thankful for everyone who believed in this day – our loyal fans, our partners at Grey Box and Six Foot, and the incredibly talented team here at Tequila Works,” said Tequila Works CEO and creative director Raúl Rubio Munárriz. “Your patience, passion and faith gave us the strength and support to see this story through to the end. We look forward to all the new adventures that begin today.”
Experienced through the eyes of a young boy shipwrecked alone on a mysterious island, RiME delivers an emotional journey of exploration and discovery. The game takes inspiration from a variety of sources, including literature like The Little Prince, the films of Studio Ghibli and Ray Harryhausen, the art of Joaquín Sorolla, and the gorgeous terrain of the Mediterranean coast. Players will encounter wild creatures, ancient ruins, forgotten secrets and thoughtful puzzles that play with light, sound, perspective and even time itself.
“RiME is a game that will add to the budding influence of the Grey Box brand,” says Christian Svensson, COO at Six Foot. “RiME‘s beauty and power, we believe, will leave an enduring mark on all who embark upon this touching journey.”
RiME is expected to arrive on Nintendo Switch™ later this year. The digital version of the title will cost $29.99 / €34.99 / £29.99 through the Nintendo eShop. A special physical edition of RiME, featuring a download code for a digital copy of the game’s beautiful original score, will also be available on Nintendo Switch at major retailers for $39.99 / €44.99 / £39.99.
David García Díaz’s original score for RiME is now available to purchase digitally for a suggested retail price of $9.99 on Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon Music and Google Play.
RiME is rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and Up) by the ESRB and PEGI 7. Further updates will be available at www.RiMEGame.com, as well as on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.
About Grey Box
Grey Box is a video game publishing brand that champions the idea that games are an influential art form and players should be treated as sophisticated consumers. Grey Box aims to set a unique standard for quality in interactive entertainment. www.greybox.com
About Six Foot
Six Foot was founded in 2000 as an interactive agency, building digital experiences designed to make connections between people, brands and technology more human and meaningful. Now, as a full-service games company with offices in Houston, Los Angeles and Berlin, the company applies that same passion to building extraordinary video games, as well as providing creative direction, marketing and brand management, front- and back-end development, customer service and community support for game publishers, including Grey Box. www.6ft.com
About Tequila Works
Tequila Works, S.L. is an independent boutique studio founded in 2009 by Raúl Rubio Munárriz (founding member of MercurySteam Entertainment, developers of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow) and Luz Sancho Rodríguez.
Tequila Works’ first title, the BAFTA-nominated Deadlight, was published in 2012 by Microsoft Studios. The studio also published The Sexy Brutale in April 2017, and is currently working on several original IPs, including The Invisible Hours and the highly anticipated RiME.
Tequila Works’ philosophy is to create games with gusto. The team consists of a healthy blend of talented veterans from Atari, Blizzard, Disney, Double Fine, Electronic Arts, LucasArts, SEGA and Pixar, as well as new blood from the animation and comic book industries, all of whom enjoy challenging their creative talents and seeing the world with amazement every day. www.tequilaworks.com
From here the story is told through a series of flash backs after players are given a brief look at their future with the focus initially spent on introducing the character to the way the world works in Persona 5 and unfortunately for them, your new school as well as most of your fellow classmates are more than willing to remind you of your criminal past. By joining together with other outcasts from society the player learns of a different realm that allows them to tackle the flawed personalities of those who have come into power.
Bleaker in nature than some may recall in the Persona series, there are a number of colorful characters that will be joining you in your battles and these core members are quite a delight. These outcasts all have their own issues and join under the player in an effort to change society for the better. That being said, the fact that Persona 5 remains a game that is told through a calendar means that while early party members are given plenty of time to shine and develop, a few late game party members can suffer a bit in this regard.
That being said, while the core cast of party members is a lovable bunch of outcasts that each have their own charm, the side cast of confidants is perhaps the strongest I’ve seen in a Persona entry so far. These characters won’t come with you into combat but they will provide various bonuses that can be used either in combat or unlock more options in the main world. For example a back-alley doctor will provide you with special medicine while learning new ways to cook can provide needed SP regenerating items during an infiltration mission.
This can be a bit problematic at times if you feel like you want to see everything Persona 5 has to offer in one go but it is quite possible to do so if you take advantage of various benefits from certain Confidants and work towards boosting your social stats by taking part in various activities when available to you. Outside of these social aspects presenting the aforementioned side-stories your party members will gain new abilities that will help make combat a bit easier while other side-characters will provide either passive bonuses or various other bits of assistance to help you on your way.
It is interesting to note that the core dungeons feature a stealth mechanic that is rather easy to learn but can be a bit odd at times. Players will need to keep their threat level to a certain percentage and whenever you are seen by a Shadow, it will increase. Performing sneak attacks to give your party the first turn in battle often lowers the percentage of this meter and since there is a cover system that allows you to avoid being seen and jump out to take down Shadows, this will quickly become second nature.
By taking advantage of the various elemental weaknesses, using various buffs and debuffs, and properly using your skills Persona 5’s combat system takes the best elements of the series and combines them excellently. Even the guns have been brought into the series with players being able to fire off rounds during their turn, though they are limited to a certain number of clips for every dungeon dive. As for demon negotiation players will be happy to learn that this mechanic returns in a satisfying manner with players being able to target specific demons to speak with after knocking them all down. This system allows for players to either extort the enemy for items or money, recruit them into their party, or simply perform an All-Out Attack that will likely eliminate them.
Those who wish to play through the game using the Japanese voice track are able to do so through free DLC but those who simply choose to use the fresh English dub will be more than happy with what Atlus has produced here. The English voice cast handles their characters quite well with the translation work appearing to be rather top notch with only a few hiccups here and there. As for the soundtrack, this title features an amazing OST with a wide variety of tunes to fit every place you explore, whether it is inside of a dungeon or simply traveling through a back-alley. There are even a high number of tracks including English vocals for those who want a bit of a change of pace.
After a series of disasters leave you an orphan and the new human Pathfinder, things only get worse as all pre-established worlds have become unlivable during the journey leaving the Nexus, an orbiting space station meant to serve as a hub for the settling effort, with a severe lack of resources, numerous people still frozen due to a lack of resources, and enough problems that there have already been fractions that have left the group as renegades. To top it all off, the human’s ark has been the only one to reach the Nexus so far with the fate of the Turian, Salarian, and Asari arks unknown.
Mass Effect: Andromeda is quick to move away from the familiar aspects of the series by leaving almost every trace of the original trilogy behind. Outside of the rare mention of an element of the past games and of course the fact that the alien races traveling from the Milky Way remain the same, almost every aspect of the game delivers a new storyline that is completely unattached to the original trilogy meaning it is highly inviting to newcomers.
Most of the conversation choices during interactions end up being between two of these categories with there being almost no difference between the outcomes. In fact when what appeared to be a pivotal moment in the game’s story that starts with outrage from a crewmember quickly dwindles to nothing as if he didn’t care at all. Moments where these tonal shifts happen are far too frequent throughout the storyline and it leads to many characters falling flat. In fact, even the relationship elements are lackluster as players are literally shown options to immediately try and romance certain characters right off the bat and sure while it doesn’t end up being that easy, the way it is handled is as generic as the rest of the dialogue elements in the game.
Through this upgraded customization system players will also find that combat is also far faster paced and fluid than before. Part of this is due to the fact that players are now equipped with a jetpack that Ryder to dodge enemy attacks and duck behind cover faster, double jump around an environment to find a useful vantage point, and even hover while aiming to target a stubborn AI that won’t leave its cover. The only downside to the jetpack is the fact that the game does feature a number of platforming areas that tend to slow things down more than anything else and there are more than a few areas that can leave the player stuck in the level geometry if they try to get too adventurous while exploring a planet.
This does mean that there are quite a lot of side-quests to take on but very rarely do these tasks feel overwhelming in nature despite how many there are to take on. This wealth of side content is surprisingly well varied with various bits of lore about the core planets also being revealed as you explore and complete certain missions, some of which can be rather surprising in nature since a few tend to rely on the player’s scanning ability to track down hidden parts of a quest.
While the combat and exploration mechanics in Mass Effect: Andromeda have been improved, there is an unfortunately high number of bugs accompanying both features. As mentioned briefly, exploring on foot can be troublesome with various glitches either sticking Ryder into a level or falling entirely through the floor and needing to be respawned. Even the Nomad, as nimble as it can be at times, has a tendency to get spawned inside of the ground or an object if you happen to drive off a cliff with it, forcing the player to leave the planet. As for the combat, the main issue tends to be ally AI as they tend to be incredible dull when certain skills are used. While certain ally skills can easily be seen as working in combat, the number of times I witnessed an ally firing a special move directly into their own cover or a random rock nowhere near an enemy made me lose count.
While a few animations did improve post-release these issues appear far too often and considering the number of times I’ve ran into characters in default T style poses, there are various load issues with crew models as well. The voice work for the characters in this entry does stand out as being quite exceptional which is a nice touch even though some of the actual characters fall a bit flat in the development department.
