The more I have grown with video games, the braver I have become. In my younger years, there was a section of my gaming life where I classed myself as a ‘lazy gamer’, if a game threw a tough challenge at me, I stopped playing and moved on to something else. Looking back I regret having that mentality and thankfully in my more mature years, I have grown more patience and determination to complete these more challenging games like Celeste, Horace, and The Messenger. And it’s this amazing feeling of achievement that addicts me to them now, you just can’t replicate that feeling anywhere else and this is where RITE comes in.
Released a couple of years ago on Steam, RITE is celebrating its launch on the Nintendo Switch, being released on the 23rd of August 2022. Developed by Pond Games, a one-man developer based in Australia, David Freer has created a challenging, polished, and engaging game, so I commend him for his achievements in creating RITE.
As I played the game I couldn’t help myself comparing it to Celeste. It shares a lot of similarities in the fast respawn, similar graphic style, and difficult platforming. Unlike Celeste, RITE is light on plot. Nothing is told in-game and I only learned the following through the Pond Games website: you control a character classed as a Nim and every Nim has to complete these trails put in front of them as a rite of passage too…who knows? I guess it’s left to your imagination to decide what prize or title awaits you at the end.
To complete these well-designed trials you have to reach a key located in each one, which will then unlock the next stage. Sometimes these doors are the same as the one you came in; some are in different locations. Also located in each trial are twenty coins to collect, you don’t need to get them all but if you do you earn a ‘perfect’ which is represented by a crown on the level screen. There are multiple dangers in each trial from spikes, to swinging axes and blades and one touch from any risk means you have to restart from the beginning of that trial. Luckily as I mentioned earlier, RITE’s respawning system is practically instant so you’re thrown back into the action without much frustration. And the word frustration is quite apt here as you will get frustrated a lot with RITE, as the trials do get ridiculously hard. The last level of the first zone had me scratching my head for some time, but this is where the beauty of RITE comes in as they are all achievable, you just need to work out the best route to success, even if that means dying twenty times to get there!
RITE is split into five zones, each containing thirty-two levels for a total of a hundred and sixty trials of blood, sweat, and guaranteed tears. Each zone has its own unique theme eg. Forest, fire, etc. You have only two moves at your disposal, a jump, and a wall jump. That’s it, but I appreciated the uncomplicatedness of that and it was interesting to see how challenging the game became from just those two moves. The controls are fast, precise, and fluid with A or B as jump and interestingly X as a respawn button. I can happily report too, like the controls, the game runs really nicely on the Switch with no issues to report on frame rate or other performance problems.
You’re getting a ton of challenge for your buck here at just £5.19 on the e-shop, a bargain for a package that delivers a gorgeous pixel art 2D platformer, lovely soundtrack, speed running abilities, and pure gameplay from start to finish. With only minor niggles to report, like getting sucked into an exit door as you were about to grab the last coins on a particular trial, plus the lack of accessibility options was a shame, especially with this type of game.
A solid start from Pond Games on the Switch, with a lot to like about RITE. If you’re a lover of Celeste or similar games and you are after a new, well-designed platformer that’s going to challenge you then look no further. I highly recommend giving RITE a go, even if you haven’t played a challenging platformer before, you never know, it might be ‘the’ game that makes you realise you can play these types of games, just like what Celeste did for me.