Hello again Time Wasters!
This week I’ve got a game for you that, although simple and short, I really enjoyed. It’s a game called Persist, and it’s a little platformer that has you take control of a spirit who must jump (or just move) around different obstacles depending on what’s left of him. It’s a game that will take you roughly half an hour to complete (or at least that’s how long it took me), so let me tell you a little more about what you’re going to be doing.
In the story of Persist, as I said before, you are a spirit, and as a spirit you find yourself looking for redemption. Well, not really redemption so much as just forgiveness. This forgiveness you seek from the goddess whose sanctuary you keep trying to get into. Every time you do though, she refuses to give it to you, saying that there is no forgiveness for what you’ve done. You aren’t told what your crime is until the very end of the game, so I’m not going to spoil it for you. I will warn you though that each time you are cast out, still not yet forgiven, the game gets harder as the goddess takes something from you as she tries to keep you from reaching her again. But what would a game called Persist be if you just gave up after losing say’your arms? Losing your arms is the least of your worries at first, and as the name suggests, you just keep going.
That’s one thing I really liked about Persist: each time something was taken from you it was something that had to do with your mobility, making the game more challenging through lack of ability rather than just harder levels. Not that I’m saying that the levels didn’t get harder, because they do, but most of the challenge lied in limiting what you could do rather than just adding in more elements. Plus these limitations all added to the story.
Since I’ve brought up the story again, I will mention that I really did like it even if it was simple, but there was one thing that I think could have made it better. Certain key parts of the story were repeated more often than they should have been, and I think a little variation in text could have helped the story telling aspect of it. After all, I can only be ‘thrown into the abyss’ so many times before saying ‘here we go again’. But this is really only a small complaint, and actually the only thing I can complain about at all.
The graphics of this game I would dare to call cute, and the sprites are clean and easily read in every level. That said, I’ve got no faults to give the game there. The music, although not exactly mood-setting, matched to its graphics and was nice to listen to, so, again, I can’t complain.
All that said, Persist is actually pretty well polished and obviously enjoyable. And for a game that was made in 48 hours, I think it deserves some attention.
Persist earns 4 GiN Gems out of 5.