Review: NAIRI: Rising Tide has potential, but it has one fatal flaw

NAIRI: Rising Tide had big shoes to fill since it’s the second and final installment of the Nairi series. Both games are in the point-and-click genre and both of them play a lot alike. You run around inspecting things, picking up items, and using those items to further your progress.

Sometimes, you’ll combine things to make new items and sometimes you’re just looking for coins. In NAIRI: Rising Tide, you have the addition of finding artwork dotted around and you’re given a little companion that will give you hints on the bigger puzzles. 

NAIRI: Rising Tide has the spirit, but things get worse without a resolution

NAIRI: Rising Tide isn’t exactly a stand-alone game. If you want backstory, you’ll have to play the first one, NAIRI: Tower of Shirin because there is no recap. The good news is that it’s only $4.99, so it’s a cheap game to grab. The bad news is that I’d urge you to finish this review before pulling the trigger.

The first game ends on a cliffhanger, so you can’t really enjoy one without the other.

The first game introduces you to Nairi, the daughter of the Luna Council Master. Her parents are unlawfully imprisoned one night and Nairi must flee for safety. Along her journey, she meets bandits, new friends, and even more enemies.

We learned that she is a Messenger of the ancient Noorian people who warned of a Great Storm coming. Not only are we trying to figure out more about the Noorian people and how Nairi is connected to them, but we’re, also, trying to find her parents.

The first game ends and the second one picks up a few weeks later. It opens with Nairi and Rex, our thief friend from the previous game, working in the middle district.

Shirin is made up of the rich district where Nairi is from, the poor district that we played through in the first game, and now this is the district between the two that we’re playing in.

Only, now we’re learning just a bit more about the Sol Council. In Shirin, the Luna and Sol councils are meant to bring harmony to Shirin. However, the Sol Council Master has schemed to imprison Nairi’s father.

Not only is he triumphant in that regard, but he managed to convince the king to dissolve the Luna Council into his rule.

This is where things take a major downturn into bummerville. 

And, spoiler alert: It doesn’t get better.

With Rex, we’re joined by Shiro who was the antagonist in the previous game who has turned over a new leaf. He’s also the Sol Council Master’s son.

It’s an unlikely alliance, but it seems to work for the most part. They work together with a few of their friends with the aim to sneak Nairi into the rich district and learn what they can about her Messenger status as well as learn more about The Great Storm.

For the most part, you’re looking at intuitive puzzles. However, there are two bigger puzzles that for lack of a better word I’m calling temples. The difficulty level is ramped up heavily in these temples and even the help of your hint system does very little in the way of help.

The hint system is pretty basic, you trade a coin for help with an object. However, it’s not intelligent. It doesn’t matter where you are in the game, so you have to pay coins for things you’ve already completed just to get to the last piece you need.

I exhausted these hints in the second temple. And, it seems that the devs understood that wasn’t enough because you find another item that is meant to give you hints. Personally, I found the second temple hint system to be absolute garbage that didn’t help in the least. This is likely a dual issue. I went back to look at some pictures on Steam and realized that the map was interactable, so that’s my bad. However, the game never prompted me that this was the case.

As far as difficulty in the temples goes, the devs did add in the ability to skip these puzzles, which I ended up having to do both times. When you go to use this bypass, the game tells you that you’ll be dropped back into the story. While I didn’t notice anything weird after skipping the first one, I felt like I missed a huge chunk of the story after the second one.

I have been in contact with the publisher who checked and they reinforced that the lore you learn in these temples is background and unimportant. So, that means everyone is dumped out into a confusing scenario.

Let me just be very clear on this, if you want a game that isn’t going to end on a huge bummer, then this isn’t the game for you. Every single loose end is left untied. Nairi gets no wins across the board.

I’ll be honest, I was left feeling like I wasted 17 hours of my life because I binged the first game leading into this one.

And, as if I needed to be kicked while I was down, none of my achievements that I got throughout the game were saved except for the VERY last one that is related to the end. 

So, did I get angry over nothing?

NAIRI: Rising Tide had an exceptionally confusing and frustrating ending. As I’ve said, every hardship and betrayal gets no resolution. In fact, the bad guys leave with more wins than you do. And, while you can likely infer that there is a third installment coming, there is nothing that says it publicly or at the end of the game. I have been in contact with the publisher and gotten confirmation that there is one, but this doesn’t ease the flames of my ire.

Honestly, I struggle to call NAIRI: Rising Tide a game that ends on a cliffhanger. We see just enough that one can assume it’s an ambiguous ending. And without the game announcing the third installment, you’re left wondering if it was an artsy choice to end on a devastating note.Why not add that to the game? If you’re not going to end on at least ONE hopeful thing, why leave it open-ended? Just pop up that Nairi will return in the third installment. It’s a very little thing that would have made a world of difference.

As far as cliffhangers go, this did not do as it intended. I wasn’t hooked. I didn’t feel rewarded for my time in any way. Cliffhangers that just end on all bad with no hope aren’t gripping and I struggle to trust that I’ll get any resolutions in chapter 3.

All I can say is that it left me wishing I hadn’t sunk nearly 17 hours of my life into this game series. It didn’t feel satisfying in the least. And that sucks.

If we go by the timeframe between Nairi: Tower of Shirin and Nairi: Rising Tide, you see a six-year development gap. Games take time, that’s not the issue. What I’m saying is that’s a long time to leave on a bad note. It’s, also, a long time between games to not put some sort of recap of prudent information into the game.

If you want to give NAIRI: Rising Tide a try, you can get it for $14.99 on Steam and Nintendo Switch. Normally, I link my newest review, but I have to return to my tried and true. If you want a game that will leave you feeling happy, check out the review we did of Smushi Come Home.