Game: NAIRI: Rising Tide
Genre: Adventure, Role-playing, Puzzle
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows))
Developer | Publisher: Home Bear Studio | Hound Picked Games
Age Rating: US Teen | EU 7+
Price: US $14.99 | UK £12.19 | EU € 14,99
Release Date: November 14th, 2024
A review code was used, and many thanks to PR Hound
Dive Back in the First Chapter
The story continues in this second game of the Nairi series, NAIRI: Rising Tide. The first game, NAIRI: Tower of Shirin was set against the vibrant backdrop of Shirin, a desert city steeped in Middle Eastern flair. Tower of Shirin was about young Nairi, whisked from the city’s rich quarters to the grittier ‘poor district’ for her safety after her parents’ mysterious arrest. Once wrapped in luxury, Nairi was thrown into the bustling streets with the city’s more notorious characters.
Alongside Nairi was the unlikely hero Rex, a rat whose knack for history and research made him more of a scholar than a former bandit. With his deep knowledge and connections, Rex aided Nairi in her daring quest to infiltrate the rich district and save her parents.
In this second chapter, NAIRI: Rising Tide we meet up with the friends again to navigate the intricate web of Shirin’s society, where every alley and shadow could hold the key to their success or a door to new mysteries.
Thrown Right in the Middle of Things
The reason I’m briefly telling you about the first game? I never played the Tower of Shirin, and where you are normally okay with missing some background, you can really use it here. Rising Tide starts without much preamble, throwing you right in the middle of things. Confusing for newbies like me, spewing all the names and vague references to what they had done. So I was happy to see that you can get a recap of the Tower of Shirin in the main menu.
The game starts with Shiro and Mahir in the Poor District, not with Nairi as I had expected. As we tried to make our way through the Waterworks, I learned the ropes of how NAIRI: Rising Tide works. This is no standard point-and-click game but rather an adventure game: the story is deep and very well-written. Often in games, the story is thrown in as a sort of hindsight, but not in NAIRI: The Rising Tide. It’s almost the other way around: it feels a bit like the gameplay is there to tell the story.
Wandering with Shiro through the Waterworks is essentially a bit of a warming up. Soon, you shift into the character of Nairi, and the game opens up. Nairi and Rex are staying with Babu in the Bear Bazaar. They worked for him, delivering Bear Buns and making some money. Money they need to get forged passes to cross the Kings Bridge into the Upper Wards. It’s when they take their leave from Babu to find the forger that the adventure starts for real.
Very Helpful Tooling
The motto of NAIRI: Rising Tide is to click on anything and everything. You meet a little chick on wheels, the Hint Chick, that tags along as your hint system. It wants one coin for each hint, and for that, the hints are beautifully drawn in your notebook. Coins are hidden in every scene, a bit like we know from the Professor Layton games.
Nairi gets a toolbelt, with which she can combine items into a new one, which is needed to solve a puzzle. For example, you use it to fix the coffee grinder, with which you can then grind coffee beans, put them in the filter and pour hot water over it. But as the request isn’t for black coffee but chocolate coffee, you have to find some chocolate to put in it as well. When you give the chocolate coffee to someone digging for treasure, he gives you a fragment that you need later on. This is a good example of what the gameplay is about.
The game even has a fast travel system that’s implemented most wonderfully. During one of the requests, you get a whistle. Blow that, and Fadi appears with his wagon and races Nairi and friends to where she wants to go.
Difficult Puzzles
This is a game where you have to have an eye for detail to solve the puzzles. Nothing is plain to see and out in the open, and sometimes you’ll have to visit the same locations several times to be able to solve it. I feel the puzzles are quite hard, or maybe I’m just not a puzzle buff!
I’ve often heard people saying it’s quite a rush when you are finally able to solve a difficult puzzle. I must admit that I often give up long before that. Not in NAIRI: Rising Tide though: I was stuck fairly in the beginning. Had three subquests to solve, but I really needed a hammer for that. Nowhere to be found; I think I searched all the scenes several times. When I finally found it in the basement of Babu’s shop, a basement that had just opened up because I sent the first recruit there, I was suddenly able to solve several in a row and progress with a leap. Sweet!
During one of Nairi’s quests, Nairi gets a stamp of approval, with which you can mark people as possible candidates for the resistance called The RisingThe fact that I was hesitant at first to try the stamp on characters for fear of getting them in trouble tells you something about the atmosphere that’s created. Even though nothing scary happens, you feel the plight of these people. Joining and helping the resistance is dangerous!
Beautiful and Dangerous World
NAIRI: Rising Tide looks beautiful. The hand-drawn world has colourful scenes, and characters that act so very human, even though many of them are anthropomorphic animals. The quirky additions like the Hint-Chick to the normal gameplay of puzzles and point-and-click brought a smile to my face. Extras like the little statues Sayo’s uncle Reza makes,
Somehow, the story and the characters drew me in, making me actually care for Nairi and friends. This is a sure indication of immersive storytelling, which is helped by the great soundtrack and sound effects.
The game runs well on the Nintendo Switch. In handheld mode, you can work with the left stick, but you can also use the touch screen. This comes in very handy, particularly when finding hidden coins.
Conclusion for NAIRI: Rising Tide
It’s been six years since the first game surprised us. Home Bear Studio has been hard at work making the sequel NAIRI: Rising Tide another wonderful entry. So much attention to detail, giving instructions and hints in beautiful drawings. Lovely hand-drawn scenes and relatable characters. Wonderfully intricate puzzles and a storyline that could easily carry the story by itself.
I love this game so much that I decided to buy the first one on Switch at a very attractive price as well. If you love puzzles combined with a great story, go for NAIRI: Rising Tide!
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up
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Such an inspiring review! Makes me really want to try it, not only because of what it describes but also because of how well it is written. As is the case most of the times here 🙂
Thank you Ann, first of all for reading it, and for your kind words!