Ranadok …doesn't have much better to do

Braid is Merely Okay

Braid is one of those games that seems to be talked about in online gaming circles with near unanimous approval, often approaching a reverence. Even after it has been out for a while, and the usual launch hysteria has cooled, everyone seems to love it; there are few people that think it merely okay, and even fewer that think it bad. There are not many games that get this sort of reaction these days. Bioshock is one, as are Portal and Mario Galaxy. However, it seems like whenever I play one of these games, I can't help but find it merely alright. I can see what everybody loved, but it just doesn't click for me. I loved Bioshock's atmosphere, but the controls and weapons felt oddly detached from my actual movement. Mario Galaxy had some great levels and was a lot of fun, but the overall design was too limiting, and the low default health discouraged the exploration and experimentation that I loved in the N64 iteration. Portal was just incredible and anyone that says otherwise has no soul.

So why is it that I keep finding these universally acclaimed games to be such a disappointment? Is it because I usually play them after the hype has been bubbling away for a while in my mind and the real thing can't come close to what I expect, as with Bioshock? Is it perhaps because I can't help but compare and find them wanting next to other games from my youth that have the advantage of being looked back at through rose colored glasses, as with Mario Galaxy? Or is it because the game just isn't my cup of tea?

For Braid, I think it was a bit of all three. I'd been hearing for quite some time how great it is, how deep it is, and how earthshatteringly original and mind-bending it is, and while it was good, I don't think it was significantly better than the dozens of other games that I have played and enjoyed over the years. Braid is also quite weak on the platforming side of things, especially compared to the gold standard Mario games. The jumps aren't high enough, the timing doesn't feel right, and the whole thing seems a bit like a flash game in the way it controls, not nearly as solid as a platformer needs. The puzzles (which are much more important to Braid than the platforming) were, for the most part, fairly inventive and used the time twisting gameplay variants quite well. Some of the solutions were a little too obscure, but it never really felt cheap once you figured them out. The rewinding aspect seemed ripped straight from The Sands of Time, but the other level gimmicks were new and fun to play around with.

By far, the biggest problem that I had with Braid, and the reason I think I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected, was the story and narration. The story, like the gameplay itself, played around with time, putting the beginning at the end and letting you figure out how it started once you finished. This could have been a neat concept if executed correctly, but I found that Braid overplayed it, like it was the game's giant gift to originality. The written narration sprinkled throughout also drip with this sense of trying to be 'deep and adult' like a poorly written film noir detective narration;  Max Payne without the wink and the nudge that makes it bearable.  It gets particularly bad during the epilogue, where the text seems to hint at and refer to things that have little significance to the game itself, but seemed bolted on after the fact to make the game 'mature'. The fact that there is almost no connection between the dark and somber themes of the story and the bright and colorful tone of the actual game may have been intentional, but I think it was a mistake.

Now, I don't feel that Braid is a bad game by any stretch.  I had fun playing it and don't at all think it a waste of the time or money I put into it. I also absolutely loved the music and the visual style. It just doesn't seem to have that extra something that makes it a great game, even though it certainly thinks it does.