Mostly, the feeling I have come away with is frustration. The philosophy here isn’t “we refuse to hold your hand”. It’s more like: “we are going to cover your hands with lubricant and task you with climbing a fireman’s pole”. The game doesn’t seem to realise that it’s strength isn’t in difficulty, or repeating areas again and again, but in discovery and wandering, in exploration and a sense of wonder.
At 20 hours, having discovered just 8 of the regions, I threw the gamepad aside with a mixture of exasperation and disappointment. There are those who will relish the challenge but I never found the slugcat’s family, and not just because there were no clues or direction as to their whereabouts. There was a big part of me that didn’t want to stop playing and maybe I’ll pick it up again some day, because there is so much to love about discovering the laws of nature behind this huge, ruined ecosystem. But with each random death, each accidental roll off a cliffside, each checkpoint drought, that love turned to ash. There is so much beauty and intrigue and diversity of life in Rain World. It’s a pity the game doesn’t want you to see any of it.