[b] Emotional Rating: [/b] 10/10 ; [b] Critical Rating: [/b] 9.0/10
[h3] Some Things Time Cannot Take Away [/h3]
I first played [i] Arise: A Simple Story [/i] six years ago, in the middle of a particularly uncertain and difficult period of my life. It was 2020, when the world itself felt unusually heavy, and somehow, [i] Arise [/i] found its way into my life at exactly the right moment.
Six years later, I returned to it.
I expected this replay to be mostly an exercise in nostalgia. Instead, I was surprised by how deeply it affected me all over again. If anything, it hit me harder this time. Six years ago, I was moved to tears. This time, I was simply crying my eyes out.
Perhaps that is one of the most beautiful things a work of art can do.
[b] Time does not always make a memory fade. Sometimes, it gives us enough distance to finally understand why it mattered in the first place [/b].
At its core, [i] Arise [/i] is a very simple story: an old man looks back on his life as he approaches the end of it. The game turns that entire lifetime into ten chapters, each representing a different stage of life and a different emotional state.
Childhood innocence. Separation. Falling in love. The quiet happiness of building a life together. Loss. Grief. The warmth of years spent simply walking alongside someone. And, eventually, old age, farewell, and the peaceful acceptance of a life that has already been lived.
There is no elaborate lore here. No grand mythology. No complicated plot.
Instead, [i] Arise [/i] takes something as ordinary and immeasurable as [b] a human life [/b] and turns it into a journey that you can actually walk through.
And that is where its greatest strength lies.
What makes [i] Arise [/i] so remarkable is the way its music, visual design, environments, and level design all work together as a single piece of art.
Every chapter corresponds not only to a particular period of life, but also to a particular emotion. Seasons, weather, lighting, landscapes, and even the passage of time itself become part of the storytelling.
The game doesn't simply tell you, “[i] This is childhood, [/i]” or “[i] This represents loss. [/i]”
It lets you [b] experience [/b] those things through movement.
You climb. You slide. You fall. You move through changing landscapes while the world around you transforms with the memories being revisited.
The time-manipulation mechanic is particularly clever in this regard. Time isn't merely a theme in [i] Arise [/i]; it becomes something you physically interact with. The game turns memory from an abstract idea into an actual gameplay mechanic.
And then there is the music.
Some of the game's strongest emotional moments come from the way its soundtrack and environments meet at exactly the right moment. Combined with its beautiful, storybook-like art direction, [i] Arise [/i] often feels less like it is telling you a story and more like it is asking you to [b] experience a memory [/b].
That is also why I find one aspect of the game particularly unfortunate: its [b] Memories [/b] collectibles.
There are 59 of them, presented as beautiful storybook illustrations that gradually piece together the couple's entire life—from childhood and their first meeting, through falling in love, growing old together, and eventually saying goodbye.
These aren't ordinary collectibles.
They are, in many ways, fragments of the very life the game is trying to tell you about.
And yet, some of them are surprisingly well hidden.
That means it is entirely possible to finish a chapter without finding all of its Memories, and I actually failed to collect every single one in a single playthrough both six years ago and this time around.
For a game so deeply concerned with memory, that feels like a missed opportunity.
[b] The Memories are not just bonus content. They complete the story [/b].
And because some players may never see them on their first playthrough, they may end up missing pieces of the very experience [i] Arise [/i] is trying to preserve.
The other issue is much smaller: the camera can occasionally make platforming and spatial judgment unnecessarily awkward. There are moments when it is difficult to judge distances or the position of a landing because of the camera angle, leading to an occasional and rather frustrating death.
It is something you can get used to, but better camera handling would certainly have made the experience smoother.
Beyond those two issues, however, I have very little to complain about.
But even then, none of this really explains why [i] Arise [/i] remains a [b] 10/10 game for me emotionally [/b].
Because what moves me most about [i] Arise [/i] isn't any individual level, musical piece, or even the love story itself.
It is what the game ultimately says about [b] having lived [/b].
We meet people. We fall in love. We lose people. We grow older. We experience things that seem ordinary while they are happening, only to realize years later that those moments were precious precisely because they could never happen again.
And [i] Arise [/i] never tries to give any of this some grand, universal meaning.
It simply says:
[b] It happened [/b].
You were there.
You loved someone.
You were loved.
You shared a life.
And for a moment, that was enough.
Six years ago, I walked through this journey for the first time.
Six years later, I walked through it again.
The old man in the game is looking back on his life. And, without quite realizing it, I was looking back on my own life as well—at least the six years that separated those two playthroughs.
A lot has changed since then.
But somehow, the things that moved me back then were still there.
If anything, they reached me even more deeply.
So perhaps this replay wasn't really about revisiting [i] Arise [/i].
Perhaps it was about [b] coming full circle [/b].
A quiet confirmation that, despite everything that has changed, there are still things capable of moving me in exactly the same way.
Maybe even more than before.
And honestly?
I'm glad.
I'm glad that some feelings survive the passage of time.
I'm glad that something I loved six years ago can still make me cry today.
And I'm glad that, after all these years, I can still recognize that same light.
Thank you, [i] Arise [/i].
[b] Six years ago, thank you for being there when I needed you [/b].
[b] Six years later, thank you for reminding me that some lights never really go out [/b].
