Rising Islands Review (PC)

Everyone loves a good platformer. Not only do they feed into our nostalgia, but they’re just fun to play. Lone Hero’s Rising Islands is a fast paced, multidimensional, 3D platformer that I had high hopes for after seeing the trailer, but it just doesn’t deliver. 

Title: Rising Islands
Platforms: PC (Steam)
Developer: Lone Hero Studios
Publisher: SOEDESCO
Price: $9.99
Release Date: August 2nd 
Copy provided for review.

My Hands Hurt

Before I even touch on the story, I have to talk about the controls. This game relies very heavily on speed running, parkour, grinding, and dashing through levels. With how quickly your character moves, you HAVE to have a reliable camera system and it just isn’t there. I died and lost my place numerous times due to a glitchy camera system that just couldn’t keep up with the game. 

I also had to switch to playing with an Xbox controller (which I would highly suggest) due to how difficult it was to control everything with the mouse and keyboard. My hands started to hurt after playing for 15 minutes on the keyboard due to the awkward position. This game just didn’t lend itself well to keyboard controls, and playing with a controller really made the experience way more enjoyable. 

So What Am I Doing Again?

Risings Islands focuses on our heroine, Hairo (Get it?). As she is randomly chosen to protect the world from Chaos. This game provides the never ending story of Evil and Chaos being locked away to only escape and wreak havoc. As stated before, Hairo is literally chosen at random by guardians, Red and Blue to yet again lock Chaos away. This, however, is where the story ends. The story is incomplete and throughout the game, I really had no idea what was going on. The ending is so underwhelming and upsetting after all the frustrating, controller smashing worthy levels you completed to “Defeat Chaos”. 

There are three portals with a few levels each and you must collect crystals in each level to advance to the next portal. So, basically a poor Crash Bandicoot knock off. The number of levels in each portal decreases to create a total of 13 levels. And with how quickly you can jet through these levels, it only provides about 3 or 4 hours of gameplay. Unlike Crash, the supposed “Fast paced boss battles” promised on the Steam page are non existent. The “boss battles” are no different from any other level and require no combat. The only thing that sets these levels apart is the presence of Chaos. 

All In All 

Despite my complaints, I’d be lying if I said the game wasn’t fun. The ability to switch between dimensions to make it through each level is a really cool mechanic that is done really well. While there is no story to really keep you interested, the levels are pretty challenging and really keep you striving for completion. I think if the developers had just spent a little more time with Rising Islands, it could have been something really great. 

*The copy of Rising Islands was provided by a PR firm.