Braid is probably one of the hardest games to pin down in a long, long time. In short, it's a 2D-side scrolling platformer, except that it isn't. It's actually a fiendishly intricate puzzle game, a series of self-contained challenges. A puzzle game that is, however, themed around a fairy tale search for a princess, in the best traditions of an epic quest. But that seemingly simple story is in fact an allegory for the fleetingness of time, the contradictory nature of love and the creation of the atomic bomb. Then again, everything I've said may just have been total bollocks.
All of those statements are open to debate to a certain degree, and this is the fascinating and yet frustrating thing about Braid. It is maddeningly ambiguous, from it's play style to it's story and it's themes.
Let's start simple then. What is undeniable is that Braid is a very pretty game. It's drawn from a traditional 2D perspective, but uses a thickly daubed lineart style, with the backgrounds being washed out watercolours. Rendered in HD it's utterly gorgeous, and is complemented perfectly by the music, a selection of classical string quartet pieces.
Things only start to get difficult when you try and describe the gameplay. At it's root it's pure Mario, move from left to right and jump on things to kill them. The only major difference here is that you have a 'rewind' button, allowing you to turn back time Prince of Persia style. That's where the similarities end however. The first major difference here is that your rewind power is infinite and unlimited. Death therefore becomes simply a minor inconvenience. This in turn leads to the major point of the game. 'Completing' the levels is not difficult, but the point of playing is to collect the jigsaw puzzle pieces that lay scattered around the environments, and these often lie in seemingly inaccessible locations. the only way to obtain them is to use your time-bending powers to manipulate the environment to your advantage.
This then, is where the puzzle aspect lies. The game introduces several ideas that alter the game's timeflow, but the most basic is the idea that objects outlined in green are unaffected by your rewinding power. So in a very basic example, you can use a key to open a green outlined door, then rewind so that the key is in your hand again, but the door remains open. From this basic concept the game spins some of the most astonishing puzzles ever imagined, with concepts so insane you'll have to wring your brain out to solve them. These are often accompanied by changes in the world in which you're in, for example the world in which time stands still when you do, advances when you move right and rewinds when you move left. It's important not to understate the ferocity and brilliance of the puzzles, they really are amazing and had they been incorporated into any other game they would have been the standout feature. But not here.
Braid has been much compared to Portal, and the comparison is extremely valid, not only because they are both extremely clever puzzle games that used a dimension (space and time) in a new way, but because both offered more than that - namely a tangible narrative that connected players to the experience beyond the technical. Braid's is told through a series of textual excerpts at the beginning of levels. These are long, and use clever and elaborate language, often asking interesting questions and raising valid ideas, but they are also clunky and come off as rather pretentious. Much more effective is the gradual tonal shift throughout the levels, as they gradually become darker and more gothic, and the subtle hints given through the narrative that all may not be as it seems. These ideas only really pull together in the final hour, leading to one of the best final levels ever seen in games, and that is not an exaggeration. The elaborate dialogue is junked in favour of a chapter told entirely through the gameplay, with a shocking twist leading to an impossibly tragic conclusion. It's a mark of Braid's mastery that it not only manages this bravura slice of innovation but also manages to evoke more powerful emotions from a 2D platformer than from almost every 'cinematic' game ever made.
What follows this incredible ending is a beautifully baffling conclusion that fails to provide any sort of closure or any answers at all, ultimately leaving you (literally) right back where you started. In many ways this seems to be the point. The game deliberately makes it's point vague and non-specific, and it's unclear whether the story is genuine, partly imagined or entirely allegorical. It's a story which leads and captivates through intangibles such as mood, curiosity and emotion. And despite it's great technical and aesthetic achievements, that is perhaps what is the most amazing thing about this wholly remarkable game.
9/10
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