Rise & Shine is a comedic 2d shooter puzzler made by Adult Swim. So yeah a lot of jokes here.

Rise & Shine follows Rise and his gun Shine who talks to you. The world is filled with subtle and in your face video game references literally everywhere and plays off of a lot of classic video game tropes. The story is a very unoriginal one but that is on purpose as it jokes about itself. It is self aware which makes the comedic value so much better.

The gun combat is nicely controlled but it doesn’t let you off easily with it’s easy aiming. The difficulty of Rise & Shine is somewhat a little over the top. The first boss of the game I found stupidly hard with it’s lines of missiles that are almost impossible to dodge. The puzzle part of Rise & Shine is very unique and well done through remote controlled bullets. Guiding bullets through mazes to hit switches to progress through the level is quite fun comparative to the hard boss fights.

The gun combat is also very cover based shooting. There are small pieces of debris you can take cover behind and you wait for the enemies to come into range before trading bullets with the them. I think it has a nice bit of rhythm to it although some people may find it repetitive or boring.

In some way the difficulty of the game is to hide how short it is, through the fact your going to retry a boss multiple times. This is evident through the health bar that Rise has, yet almost every attack is a one hit kill on you. The story is around 3 hours long and there are only 2 types of bullet and 2 modifications through the whole game which is quite the let down in terms of how quick you get them.

On the other hand Rise and Shine is absolutely beautiful. The well made sleek and bright and colourful art style does not disappoint at all and is one of the best looking 2d games I’ve ever played. The way they have put the references into the map and comic like cut scenes suit the art style very well.

In conclusion I do love Rise & Shine for it’s quirky comedic value and its gorgeous art style, it’s just that it is very lacking in game. Add a few more hours of content and it could of been one of the best 2D shooters. But it’s unnecessary difficult, even though it can be beaten with good old classic trial and error but as well as that, the lack of choice of bullets and modifications do make it a bit of a let down. All in all it is worth the £11 price tag but it is far from a perfect 2D shooter. But it is a good 3-4 hour laugh for the long standing gaming nerds who will appreciate the old and new references.