So if you are like me, a 20 something gamer who grew up watching Cartoon Network's Adult Swim late night cartoons, you have probably heard about and been excited to hear that Adult Swim is publishing a game for Xbox One, this is not the first title from them, we recently have seen games like Westerodo and HeadLander release for Xbox, but Rise & Shine game is hands down the best we have seen so far. The game is not based off any particular shows on AS, but it follows the path of other AS games, classic gameplay that also pokes fun and teases popular video games, and does a good job of it.

 

Released on Jan 13th 2017 for Xbox, Rise & Shine follows the story of Rise and his sidekick gun Shine.  Rise is a young boy tasked with the mission of saving the world, with nothing more than his handy pistol that can talk, yes he can talk. You will be told the story of Rise through absolutely beautiful visuals that take your breath away. No these are not highly advanced computer generated graphics, they are beautiful drawn comic book style scenes where every object looks almost hand drawn with great attention to detail in just about every object you see. Every environment is vastly different and even the little things like the visuals of bullet spray are gorgeous.

During your gameplay you will see classic run-n-gun style levels with platformer gameplay mixed in well. When you are not shooting down dozens of enemies  you will be solving unique puzzles with the help of Shine, guides puzzles to hit a target is a fun aspect here.  After some fun puzzles you will experience bullet hell style boss fights which are not easy in the least bit. While its not impossible to beat the bosses, you will need to use your head on some of these combat situations, once you figure out the mechanics you will feel a sense of accomplishment which we all love.

 

One of my favorite parts of the game is the fun it pokes at classic and popular titles like Mario, Zelda, Gears of War etc. The games doesn’t necessarily make fun of them or talk bad, but just makes harmless jokes, jokes which most will find funny, jokes that we have probably discussed with friends before. That’s something I've always liked from games like these. Games that sort of break out of the story and pay respect to games we all love.

 

Now on to the bad, Rise & Shine is not perfect, well not many games are. A few things that I wasn’t a fan of are the following,

The game sometimes feels like it’s a bit too overwhelming difficult just for the sake of being difficult. What I mean is that some parts of the game are hard when it really shouldn’t be, while I don’t think games should hold your hand as you play, I also don’t think games should be overly hard for no reason. A problem with some games these days is that developers get some nostalgia and think back to classic games they think were hard then make their game as hard as some of those classics. Problem is im fact some of those classics were never as hard to begin with. Which makes for some frustrating moment in the game. Now this game isn't gonna make you break your controller against the wall but you will feel some unnecessary frustration at some point. My second issue with the game is length. You can expect about 8-10 hours of gameplay from this game, at least 3-4 from your initial run then another 5-6 from the mini games and Iron Man mode, which is the story mode but you only have one life.

 

Besides those mentioned points there is nothing else in the game that I didn’t like.

Now onto the Achievements,

Total Gamerscore of 1000 will task you with completing the game on normal and IronMan mode while also having you do things such as beating a boss without taking damage, completing certain puzzles without dying and playing the various mini games that are available. IronMan mode will be the most difficult as only 2 people registered on TA have that achievement right now, im not sure of the numbers on Steam. Don’t let the hard completion steer you away though, the experience alone is worth your time.

 

Rise and Shine is a overall fun experience that gives some AAA games a run for their money. Beautiful visuals, fun gameplay and good humor definitely make this game worth checking out. If you don’t own a Xbox you can also find this game on Steam. Retailing for a price of just $14.99 USD, Rise & Shine is available now.

 

Final Score - 7/10

 

 Written by John S, aka YoDz

John@nastymastadaddy.com

Twitter: @akayodz  Xbox:YoDz

 

A code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review

 

You can purchase Rise and Shine on the Xbox Store Here

 

Release Date - Friday‎, ‎January‎ ‎13‎, ‎2017

Price - $14.99

Download Size - 4.17 GB

 

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