Review / GRIS: a magnificent and melancholy introspective journey

I dove into my backlog for the release of Neva, Nomada Studio’s second title. What better way to capture the style of play offered by this small, unpretentious studio than with the launch of GRIS, their first nugget?

Praised many times over for its visual style and sound universe, I’ve just made up for a few years by embarking on this narrative adventure without text or guide.

Lore

GRIS takes us into an original world with a style recognizable at first glance. A mix of ink and pencil strokes that give us the impression of moving on an almost blank canvas. Our world comes to life as the story unfolds, both visually and musically.

The minimalist nature of the environment allows our eye to pay close attention to all the details to be found here and there in the chapters we pass through.

Game

The game puts us in command of a young girl who finds herself alone in a colorless, lifeless world. We begin by falling into the middle of a desert, without landmarks or direction. GRIS will tell us a story, or several. There’s no text to tell us where we’ve come from, where we’re going or what we’re supposed to do.

Our protagonist moves through a two-dimensional world where life takes over as our adventures unfold. GRIS is a simple platformer with basic but beautifully realized gameplay. Our character will unlock abilities during his adventure, and these will enable us to advance in the face of the challenges we encounter.

We’re not talking about magical powers, but rather pictorial ways of expressing the qualities and emotions our heroine will need to demonstrate. GRIS is not a speed game, nor is it an experiment that will require superhuman skills or a lot of training to complete. It’s a medium that can be used to tell a story, make us feel emotions and make us think about a complex subject in a playful way.

The platform games are simple enough, with a well-thought-out learning curve, very light puzzles and, above all, a constantly evolving visual universe. We want to see a little more with every step. The game gains in color during our adventure, and we’re always a little more amazed by what GRIS has to offer.

The developers have thought of just about everything in order to captivate us, and it’s undoubtedly these little details that make all the difference. In GRIS, there is no life gauge. You can’t die, you can only repeat a failed jump, but no failure is final. It’s a game mode that corresponds to the pilgrimage we’re making and the message the game wishes to convey.

GRIS has a style all its own, but if we had to compare it to other monuments of our “pop culture”, I’d venture to say that it’s a magnificent blend of several works that have also left their mark on us through their history and artistic direction: Studio Ghibli, Ori and the Blind Forest, Ico and Journey.

These powerful stories help us understand our emotions by sharing the stories of people like you and me.

Atmosphere

Like our heroine, the universe in which we move evolves. We move from a desolate, monochrome world to a place full of life, color and music. It doesn’t all happen in a matter of minutes, but rather in stages. Necessary steps that allow us to grow, to find ourselves and to meet challenges.

Lifetime

GRIS takes around three hours to complete. The game doesn’t rely on its difficulty, but on its universe to make you want to dive right back in. Once you’ve finished, you can select the chapter you’d like to play again, and set off in search of souvenirs scattered here and there.