It's time to put on your thinking cap.
From the game's title screen all the way up to its clever ending, Braid is all about style and subtle suggestion. This bite-sized platform adventure is certainly one of the most unique games ever made and one that is serious about presenting itself as being more than just a video game.
There are objects that are not affected by the flow of time.
You play as Tim who is searching for his "Princess" and this journey will take place across 6 cleverly designed worlds. Besides the usual jump and climb mechanics, what separate Braid from the rest is its time-manipulation gameplay. By pressing the X button, all of the things that happened onscreen is reversed as far back as the player wants - thus Tim can never die in the game. Just like what Treasure has done to Ikaruga's polarity-switch concept, this simple rule is then heavily extracted into numerous madly-genius situations and combinations. For example, in one of the worlds, time only moves forward in sync with Tim moving right but when he turns to move left, time itself is moving backwards with him. Within a stage, Tim must collect devilishly-placed puzzle pieces to complete a painting that is assigned to each world. It is not mandatory to collect all the puzzle pieces to proceed to the end of the game - a good thing for those easily frustrated because getting them all is no easy task.
Braid redefines precision jumping in platform games.
The game looks like a classical painting and it is easy to forgive the stiffness of the character animations. The soundtrack is filled with slow moving tunes and they react accordingly to the flow of time. There are numerous homages to classic gaming icons that seem to work nicely with the game's overall sensibility. If you are interested in this game, do yourself a favor and avoid reading the heavily discussed story analyses found in the forums across the internet. Braid's disturbing storyline is meant to be discovered personally by its player. Only after you have finished the game should you discuss the story content with others who have also completed the journey. The only unfortunate thing about Braid is that it has almost no replay value so you should fully embrace the game to its fullest while you are playing it.
RATING: 4 out of 5
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