First Impression: RITE

By Chris Picone, 24 August 2022

Apparently RITE first released way back in Jul 2020 but I only heard of it for the first time yesterday, in line with its Switch release. I’m not very good at precision platformers but I love playing them, and I’m always a sucker for anything retro, so I jumped right in. The art’s minimalistic but very polished and the soundtrack’s suitably retro and well-presented. My young fella (who owns the Switch I was reviewing the game on) also loves retro games and platformers, so we played together taking turns.

RITE kicks off with a much gentler learning curve than I was expecting, so I’ve so far found it much easier than I’d anticipated, but it also means it’s been really accessible for the young lad to get the hang of it. Gameplay’s very simple: Collect the coins and get to the exit. Staying alive’s the difficult part - and it does get harder; every level some new trap or combination of traps is introduced. So far I’m around 40 levels into the game, which probably sounds like a lot but this beast has 160 levels and the reality is that we’ve only made it a short way into the second “world.” The levels are very short but you can expect to die plenty of times before you successfully make it to the exit, particularly as you progress further into the game.

The controls are smooth, the traps challenging, and both the young fella and I are having a blast playing RITE, but I would love to see the developer include a couple of “value add” features to the game. First, I’d like it to pretend to have a story. The Steam page talks the levels as being trials, and part of a “rite of passage for every Nim,” but there doesn’t seem to be anything in game. The other thing is, RITE is very well built to be a speed-running game, and includes a timer, but your completion times don’t seem to actually matter. I’d love to see something like an unlock system in place where you have to collect X coins or beat Y time to rack up points used to unlock either future levels or secret levels. It just seems like a real lost opportunity.

The verdict? RITE is challenging and fun, I can’t think of any reason why every speed-running precision platformer fan shouldn’t go out and buy it. I think it’s also particularly valuable as a friendly entry-level game for younger players.

Links: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1322650/RITE/