Game Reviews

Ayo: A Rain Tale review - An interesting story wrapped in an okay platformer

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| Ayo: A Rain Tale
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Ayo: A Rain Tale review - An interesting story wrapped in an okay platformer
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| Ayo: A Rain Tale

Ayo: A Rain Tale is an interesting one. It's a soft, casual sort of platformer, with an intriguing and important story at the middle of it.

There's an interesting floatiness to the leaping that grounds the game very much in the real world, and a gorgeous art-style that oozes class.

It's not a perfect experience, but it's still the sort of thing you're going to play all the way through to the end, and you're going to have a good, if not a great, time doing it.

Rainy days

The game tells the story of a young girl on her way to get water for her village. Along the way you'll come across a series of hazards that you need to get past.

To begin with you're jumping over spiky bushes which can do you a decent amount of damage. From there you're avoifing enemies, walking over crumbling rocks, and plenty more besides.

It's interesting that a game that does things so differently narratively relies so heavily on some pretty fundamental tropes of the platforming genre. It's not a huge problem, but it does mean everything is pretty familiar.

Where the game does get things spot on is with its atmosphere. You'll face desert storms, deal with twin deities, and add to your arsenal of moves as you make progress towards the precious water.

In a way it's a coming of age tale, but there's more to it than that. And since the narrative is the main reason you're going to be playing, I don't want to spoil too much of it here.

And the story is good enough that you're going to push through some of the flatter sections of the experience. They don't usually last too long, and solid controls mean seasoned players will breeze through them quite easily.

Water trek

Ayo: A Rain Tale is an excellent story wrapped around a decent game. You might find the lack of real inspiration here a little on the disappointing side, but it's only a small niggle in an otherwise great experience.

Is it as good as it could be? No. But it's still really pretty good. And it's the sort of experience, if not mechanically, that we need to see more of on the App Store.

Ayo: A Rain Tale review - An interesting story wrapped in an okay platformer

There's a great story here, and the platforming is just about good enough to back it up
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.