by Well, what better way to follow up Lepcis’s Prince of Persia review than with…
Braid is a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It also has nothing in it that I thought there would be. Braid is a platforming game where you can rewind time to fix any mistake you make. In fact, the game won’t even let you die, as the moment you’ll leave the screen from death, the game pauses and won’t proceed until time is rewound. Lined up with this theme, the game sports a philosophical story exploring the concept of a never making a mistake, especially when concerned with a relationship. The word “Braid” actually seems to be in reference to the way a person’s hair will whip behind them when they spin away from someone quickly, “lashing […] with contempt.” As my wife used to have hair down to her waist that she wore in a braid, I can tell you that a person’s hair really does do this when they angrily turn away.
Aside from that, it’s your usual time-rewinding shenanigans mixed with stale Mario-stale platforming. Admittedly, it’s pretty solid (impressive to me is that there is no limit to how far back in time you can go) but near the end of the hour the gameplay became stale and really I was only interested in what the game’s writer had to say about relationships.
The game is relatively “pretty” but not particularly meaningful visually. That being said, it’s certainly playable and I would be willing to suffer the platforming in order to see more of what this Tier 2 pseudo-mood piece is all about. It may be a bit melodramatic, but the screenshot below I feel encapsulates something very true about relationships that is never adequately explored in any love story. It portrays an obstacle that is easily missed, forgotten or ignored. An obstacle that has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of love and affects both parties equally. Something that must be understood for both parties to survive.
