When I saw the trailer for Rivage, I was initially intrigued. I love a good puzzle game, and one set in space—on a derelict space station, no less—opens up a world of potential possibilities for painstaking puzzles. But building game centered around puzzles is like a making a souffle—it takes an incredibly delicate hand, and one mistake can set the whole thing off.
I went into Rivage with high hopes and a positive disposition; however, that was steadily chipped away until I was left frustrated and annoyed. While straightforward in its delivery, it squanders its goodwill with substandard puzzles, a gameplay gimmick that quickly becomes annoying, and some dubious development choices. It’s a shame because it does have quite a few good ideas, but it almost goes out of its way not to deliver on them.
Rivage puts players in the role of Miranda Vigneau—the lone crew member on the space station A.R.E.S, after being caught in a strange space phenomenon above an alien planet. Miranda
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