Secrets of Rætikon Preview

OH MY GOD THIS IS BEAUTIFUL.  I shout - possibly out loud - as I hit start and the bird I'm about to control plummets gracelessly out of the sky and smacks into a tree. The bird hits every branch on the way down but unlike the classic insult, these branches don't belong to the ugly tree, because this game is beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. Beautifuuuullll. I didn't study art at school, I can't compare this game’s visuals to a certain style or a certain movement but I do watch cartoons though and the thick bold colours and stylised character models makes me think of Samurai Jack having a beautiful game baby with The Secret of Kells, with Okami as a close nephew. If none of this is helping then there's some pictures below. Use your eyes, you tell me.

What the pictures don't show however is the movement, the animation, the physics of trees and rocks as you brush them or grab and tug. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It isn't. Beauty is in the eye of the guy that made this game. I may marry it.

So skip back to the start for second: my bird plummeted and smacked a tree, remember? Don't let this throw you however, that section is scripted and from there onwards the flight mechanic is fluid, silken, smoooooooth (beautiful?). Secrets of Rætikon is a side-scrolling, exploration puzzle game where flight is the main mechanic and it is a joy. Do yourself a favour and use a gamepad with this - because using the analogue stick allows you to swoop, dive, soar and switch direction mid-air like a pro. It seems so odd that this type of control isn't more common in games; the sense of satisfaction in catching the perfect air current or dropping out the sky like a stone only to catch a falling object with pin-point accuracy, before it smacks into the floor, is immensely satisfying. Alongside flying, your main action is grabbing and pulling to dislodge rocks, uproot trees and flip switches. You use these simple controls to explore a deceptively large world, solving puzzles in order to collect shards with which to open up more of the level. You'll come across a number of enemies, some of which can be combated with roots (roots are the one weakness of all birds because they're spiky... or so Secrets would have me believe) but most simply need to be avoided, either with mad swoop skills or by throwing poor, innocent birds at big angry eagles as bait. Along the way you'll also find a number of runes that will help translate the in-game alphabet. Ooooo, mysterious.

So that was my experience: I flew, I glided, I dived into pools of water to avoid bees and threw unsuspecting robins as bait at birds of prey to avoid them. I picked up rocks and let go on purpose, just so I could drop and catch them again mid-air and I then dropped the rocks on rabbits because it was funny. I pulled up roots to find ruins and dislodged piles of rubble to find shards. I soared and soared and soared. And then I died.

A word on perma-death: in general, I love perma-death as a mechanic. In the midst of complaints that games are made too easy these days in order to appeal to the mainstream, I find that permanent death adds a palpable sense of tension that makes the stakes when gaming high, high, high. I love roguelikes that employ this mechanic so that each time you make that little bit more progress you feel immensely satisfied. Thing is, roguelikes tend to randomly generate their content, meaning that as you slog through a second time it plays differently, preventing boredom, repetition and frustration. Permanent death, however, is not for every game and it seems insane that Secrets of Rætikon includes it. On dying three times (you can increase your lives) the game resets - smack, right back to the start, hitting that tree and everything -  and let me tell  you - there is nothing fun about re-solving puzzles you've already fixed, and collecting a hundred little shards you already grabbed. Add to this the fact that the game world is insanely convoluted and hard to navigate (no map yet)  - it just seems like an odd design choice.  

Frustration at repetition aside I enjoyed my playthough - that's why I'm babbling effusively about it. It's beautiful to look at and beautiful to control (no - I will not use a thesaurus. You can't make me). The presence of codes, secrets and hidden items hints at some satisfying rewards for your rooting around and the promo text promises a 'mind blowing ending'. Aside from a questionable death mechanic, this is a game you need to get your hands on, because when it hits full release, this baby is going to soar.