Rive Reviews
For me the proposition in Rive is pretty straight-forward, you either enjoy being challenged and wanting to throw your controller or you don’t. With repetition, experience, and some luck you can absolutely master the levels the game throws at you, it just isn’t a game you’ll be conquering too quickly as there are many sections that required some trial and error to understand and the action simply doesn’t often let up. Fortunately the checkpoints seem to be well placed and spaced, though in a few cases the way the checkpoints are essentially a snapshot of what was happening at the time you passed through it didn’t work out so well. All in all it’s very much a game with its own rules and style though and if you just haven’t been feeling pushed with your shooters it will happily fill that role for you.
I hate to dismiss a game as “too difficult”, but RIVE is incredibly demanding without offering any incentive for enduring the frustration. I recognize that for some gamers, the satisfaction of beating such a game is incentive enough, and those people will undoubtedly find enjoyment in this game. Personally, a challenge is not enough to keep me interested, and RIVE fell flat in just about every other respect. While it was fun for a while and the dialogue was occasionally amusing, the lack of depth meant it got old quickly.
I hope it's clear by now that Rive is excellently made, and I had a great time flying through space alongside Roughshot. It's clear that the developers behind it were passionate about making the best experience possible. Rive holds its ground among the best 2D shooters available on PSN – it's a title which I would readily recommend to anyone with a free afternoon and an affinity for twitch gameplay.
Rive is an insanely challenging yet satisfying game that is mostly shoot-'em-up, but tosses in a few genre wrinkles as well. It is an unapologeticlly brutal game however, and it could use a handful tweaks here and there, but the overall experience is still a fantastic one.
One of the best just got even better! RIVE: Wreck, Hack, Die, Retry! was an exhilarating ride for fans of all styles of space shooters to start with, but now even more genre enthusiasts can enjoy this stunning effort thanks to the extra difficulty mode offered. As for those who signed up for the initial release, they also have some fantastic reasons to come back and enjoy the excellence that Two Tribes has delivered. Will this superb shooter be transferred to Nintendo Switch now, rather than staying on the near enough finished Wii U? Given how amazing this update was, the only thing that could possibly better it would be the promise of further tweaks, and maybe even a multiplayer element, all in time for a Switch release! For now, PC and PlayStation 4 gamers are in for a massive treat with this sublime update…
The game might be short, but there’s a lot of replay value in it if you want to get all of its trophies, including what will surely be a very hard Platinum trophy. For the main game, you can expect to be done in 4-6 hours, and since you’ll need to replay it here and there to get the rest of the trophies, you better learn what the game has to throw at you! I loved Rive, and hopefully, you give this one a try!
Outside of a few platforming quirks and walls of death, Rive is a slick 2-D Action-Platformer that will kill you every chance it can get.
RIVE blends twin-stick shooting and platforming exceptionally well. It's full of beautifully crafted levels and enjoyable one-liners. Unfortunately, brutal difficulty accompanies these elements, and it's not the kind of difficulty that makes you feel good about yourself.
While it can be downright frustrating at times, it is very rewarding when you finally get past that difficult section.
It's always a shame to see a company hand in their final game, but Two Tribe's RIVE is a fantastic swan song. Featuring some tight shooting and platforming with difficult and creative fights and some really entertaining and well-acted characters, RIVE shouldn't be missed by anyone looking for a fast-paced explosive romp.
RIVE is a fantastic shoot 'em up game that will push the limits of patience and fortitude. Roughshot, the main character who traverses the stages in a spider tank, dies a lot. Because of this, certain battles may take up to or over thirty minutes of constant dying and trying again before the moment of victory comes. It is extremely satisfying when these moments occur, but it can be hard to be persistent when the game can feel like it is unfair at times.
Any and all gripes related to RIVE are minor, and none should obscure the fact that it’s a solid game filled to the brim with high-impact action. The game’s high points are thrilling enough to melt its flaws into a glowing hunk of molten metal. It’s a great little reference to the arcade shooters of yesteryear, recalling what was great about those games while firmly establishing an identity of its own. RIVE is not a game to miss.
Frust und Spielspaß lagen selten so nah beieinander, dazu kommen nervige Abstürze - aber wenn Rive funktioniert, dann richtig! Ein Patch könnte hier Wunder bewirken.
Review in German | Read full review
I had a ton of fun with the game as I wrote my RIVE review. The campaing is roughly 6-8 hours long and is very dependant on skill – if you choose to drop down to Soft mode you can complete the game a little faster. The game is fun, fast-paced and looks great, and you should all go out and add it to your collection to reward Two Tribes for all of their hard work.
RIVE is a gorgeous game that borrows plenty from its blaster genre predecessors to good effect, but sadly a lack of anything particularly original, and some truly punishing sections make it all too easy to leave behind.
RIVE is, without a doubt, one of the finer action games released this year. It strikes the right balance between focused, but also playful. The player will be thrust into a constant variety of intense scenarios, all more difficult than the last, but only rarely will they even think, "That was a little unfair." There are plenty of ways to approach each situation, and there's room to experiment with weapons or exploit the enemy AI. The difficulty is well balanced, and the campaign is fluff free. Even the water section is good, and those hardly ever work in video games.
While featuring beautiful art, the constant pop culture references and unnecessary punishing gameplay undermine what could've been a classic.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Rive wants to be special and challenging, but for all of its white-knuckled action, there’s little more than bombast. In the modern gaming lexicon, we tend to lump games into one of two categories: either they’re “awesome” or “awful.” Rive is neither. Instead, much like the majority of aging games it serves as a send up to, it’s completely and utterly average.
RIVE is a fun, albeit really challenging blend of space shooter and platformer. The intense challenge early on might turn off less experienced players, but those who want a great challenge should enjoy it. Just get used to having blue-colored drones explode in your face quite a bit.