Innovation. On Rusty Trails has none.
Recently I’ve had to make sure to emphasise that lacking innovation is not a bad thing. Hell, Assassin’s Creed has gone through a huge number of iterations and brought no huge new innovations in. But rather than fighting to add innovation it plays to common mechanics and brings some precise execution to them, creating a wonderful world of puzzles and reaction actions to challenge just how smart and quick you are.
You play Elvis, a metallic creature with no relation to the singer in a strange world. His home is destroyed at the start of the game due to chaotic weather. Therefore, with warranty in hand he sets off to get his replacement, travelling through a world of dangerous puzzles and paths in a world divided by various differences.
The key mechanic of the game is Elvis’ ‘Switch Suit.’ Much like costumes in other games each costumes provides benefits when used. Suits allow things such as walking in water but mostly focus on minimising environmental threats and changing between them correctly is paramount to the game experience.
Along with the suits is a lot of environmental play. Elvis is not restricted to where he can walk. Walls, ceilings and through the air are common grounds. This leaves you spending a lot of brainpower thinking laterally to make sure you can move forward. Combining this with the suit makes each stage a healthy trail-and-error experience as well as quite a challenging mental process keeping all possibilities of movement in mind.
So there is nothing new. However these two major mechanics are used remarkably. The controls respond quickly and precisely and with the world reacting to you the game has made use of rather unremarkable tools incredibly well. A rare sight to see. Despite the artful craft in the challenges you never feel like you’re stuck in a hole or being cheated out of success, the way out can be simple and I commonly tried overthinking problems.
To add onto these mechanics is a wonderfully designed world and quite minimalist story elements. Cut scenes are small and brief as well as through pictures, telling the Romeo-and-Juliet story of lovers on different sides of the divided world. However overall the story is minimalist and the focus has been far more on the mechanics than the story.
On Rusty Trails is an effective experience mechanically and a lesson to game developers in one. Rather than being innovative the game has aimed to be good and made simple mechanics work phenomenally well, slightly forsaking story in the path but forgivably given the finesse of the experience. If you fancy yourself an interesting little adventure, this is the game for it, and with No Man’s Sky being pushed back this is an interesting diversion to fill the meantime, earning a respectable 9.
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