Game: A Rite from the Stars: Remaster Edition
Genre: Puzzle, Platformer, Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam (Windows), Xbox, and PlayStation)
Developer|Publisher: Flying Beast Labs | Artax Games
Age Rating: EU 12+ | US Teen
Price: US $11.99 | UK £10.99 | EU € 11,99
Release Date: February 3rd, 2025
A review code was provided, and many thanks to Artax Games.
A Rite from the Stars: Remaster Edition is a puzzle game that has been remastered for modern consoles. It was beloved by a small number of devoted fans, so the developers thought it could use a new coat of paint.
How Does the Remaster Hold Up?
When comparing the remaster to the original A Rite from the Stars, it looks like the developers should not have bothered. The graphics don’t look much better, and they are much, much darker than the original, making it hard to see anything. The puzzles are still the same, as far as I could tell, and nothing is different enough that it seemed worth the update. It was originally made in 2018 with cartoonish graphics that still look fine.
The worst part of the remake, at least on Switch, was that the sound didn’t work. I tried the game on both of my Switches (my husband and I each have one), and the sound never worked. I tried it both handheld and on my TV, and not a peep was heard from the Switch. I even double-checked my Switches by playing other games, restarting them, and trying everything I could to make it work.
It never did.
What is A Rite from the Stars Like to Play?
In all honesty, A Rite from the Stars is not great to play. One of the first puzzles I came across was one that required that I burn the dried mud off of a statue. Dirt, clay, mud, and all other forms of caked-on dirt are not flammable in any way, shape or form, and I don’t think humans would have survived if the earth below them was able to be set aflame.
It took me almost 30 minutes to figure this puzzle out because it was so out of touch with any reality I had ever considered. I ran around in circles, poking things in the little Wisdom starting area forever, looking for anything that made any sense. The only reason I figured it out was because I brought a lit branch to the statue in hopes that the lighting would give me a better hint.
Speaking of hints, the hint system is absolutely useless. It tells you very little about what you are supposed to do, and there is only one hint per puzzle. So, if you don’t understand it off of that one puzzle, good luck, I guess?
The only thing worse than hints was the platforming. My husband and I have a thing we say over and over again: platforming in non-platforming games isn’t fun. I think we’ve said it when talking about everything from Raft to Destiny. If your game isn’t a platformer, why are we platforming? If you don’t have precise movement in your game, we should not be platforming.
Overall, I liked the way they did interact and picking items up, but that was the only thing I liked about A Rite from the Stars: Remaster Edition.
Conclusion
Some of the puzzles were really clever, but others were, as stated above, unintuitive. This was a remaster, yet there were still grammar mistakes. The graphics were so dark as to make playing A Rite from the Stars: Remaster Edition difficult. The only thing that the new one has better over the old appears to just be the price, which is a couple of bucks cheaper.
I didn’t get very far in A Rite from the Stars: Remaster Edition, because it was almost unbearable to play. I think this is a game that could have been left in 2018.
Final Verdict: I Don’t Like It.Â
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