A fantastic experience
Okay so, I like to tell myself that I'm a big fan of puzzle games. But most traditional ones can never hold my interest for long. But a game like Braid comes along that has such character and challenge that I felt I had to see it through to the end. In a good way, I mean.
Braid can most easily be described as an arthouse type of game, but one that's actually fun to play. And doesn't beat you over the head with its message. Hell, you can completely skip the story all together if you want, though I wouldn't recommend it. The story here, although kept intentionally vague and somewhat confusing, is really fun to go through, and will probably be talked about and debated for a long time.
However, this is a video game, so the storyline would pretty much be destroyed if the gameplay wasn't fun. Fortuntely, Braid holds the gameplay end of the deal up perfectly. You play as a sharply dressed guy named Tim, who has lost a princess because of a mistake that he made, and that's about all you get at the beginning. You'll guide Tim through roughly 20 stages. All of which have puzzle peices strewn about. You can just run through the levels straigt to the exit if you wanted, ignoring the puzzle peices. But doing so would leave the true ending of the game way out of your reach. As you need all the puzzle peices to get to it.
Most of the time, getting these puzzle peices require you to use Tim's time manipulation ability. At the start, Tim is only able to rewind time as far as he wants (which makes PoP games seem ameatureish). But once you get to the next "zone", you'll find a new addition, or exception, to Tim's ability. Such as items and enemies that aren't affected by the flow of time, and plenty of others. These additions and exceptions add a new set of rules to each puzzle, that you'll have to master if you intend on finishing the game.
That being said, the vast majority of the time manipulation puzzles in Braid are absolutely brutal, and you're going to have to really think outside the box to solve most of them. Imagine a trick question that has a simple answer, but you think so hard about it that it seems impossible, and that's pretty much how the puzzles in Braid work. As soon as you figure out a section of the game that's been giving you a lot of trouble, you'll wish that there was a replay option so you can show other people how smart you are. It's that satisfying.
All in all, Braid is a game that you really owe it to yourself to play, even if you're not really into puzzle games. Sure, there's not much replay value, but once you finish the game, you'll definitely feel like you've gotten your money's worth.
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