Review | Rain On Your Parade

LifeisXbox’s Rain On Your Parade review | This type of game, where you play as a malevolent yet kind of cute being, is seemingly becoming an indie favourite in recent years. Where Untitled Goose Game let us honk at people, Unbound Creation’s Rain On Your Parade gives us control over a jerk cloud who seems to take pleasure in ruining people’s lives. Rain in the bride on her wedding day, blow up some kids’ science experiment, or poison a farmer’s crop. When this cloud has been through town, it leaves a wake of destruction. If you take joy in the misfortune of others, or if you secretly have a little bully inside of you that needs to come out to play every now and then, this may be your type of game.

We played Rain On Your Parade 4 hours on Xbox Series X. This game is also available on PC & Nintendo Switch

What we liked!

• Easy to grasp controls | The controls couldn’t be simpler: simply use the analog stick to move the cloud around and press A to rain on all kinds of things and just see what happens. You’ll unlock more skills later on, like lightning bolts, but they’re introduced step by step and make this the perfect game for younger players to have some fun with (although the adult humour might fly over their heads).
• Experimentation required | Even though most of the interactions are absolutely required to beat a level, it still feels like you’re naturally discovering these by yourself. Need to set something on fire as a cloud? Then first absorb some black smoke so you rain down a flammable material and then form a path from the nearest fire to whatever you need to burn.
• Variety is the name of the game | Where Untitled Goose Game felt boring to me after the first few areas, Rain on Your Parade keeps introducing fresh elements to keep things interesting. Levels where you have a set amount of time to get a highscore, levels where you play as Solid Cloud and sneak around as if you’re in a Metal Gear Solid game, levels where you need to herd kids or scare people with a thunderbolt behind their backs. It kept introducing new and fun ways to interact with the world. Heck, you can even play a fully-working bowling game or play through a Zelda-like level!
• Customize your cloud | For each level that you complete (get all the required tasks checked), you earn a new item to customize your cloud with. Give him a silly hat, a cool accessory or, if you’re feeling creative, draw a face yourself.
• Humour | Rain on your Parade is full of cheeky references to other games, tropes from popular movies, and cursing without actually cursing (they’ll always give you the first letter of the curseword and then replace it with a kid-friendly alternative). It’s never of the laugh-out-loud variety, but it has put a smile on my face.

Somewhere between

• The overworld | While such a map gives Rain on your Parade extra visual appeal and forms a logical (mostly) linear path to follow, it makes it harder to easily see where you forgot to score a star and if a particular level is giving you some issues, you’ll still need to beat it before continuing, forming a potential roadblock to your enjoyment.
• Difference in Quality | While most of the levels are fantastic and show you brand new ways to interact with the world or reference a game you know, making you go all Captain America with “I understood that reference”. There are a few bland levels where you simply have to rain on a few people. It’s not a very long game and I understand they felt the need to pad the length a bit with these missions, it doesn’t really help the overall quality of the game.
• Rain meter | I understand that this is a necessary gameplay element for a game titled “Rain on your Parade”, but I usually dislike resource management and this is no different. There are a few levels where you have unlimited rain and also a few where it’s easy enough to replenish your meter, but even in those it’s a hassle and an unwanted speedbump. I’d much rather rain away in all levels without having to worry about that meter.

What we disliked

• Human character models | While the cloud and props all look fine, the human characters are far from petty (and not pretty from afar). You can mostly ignore this as you’ll be looking at them top-down and from a distance most of the time, but there are moments Rain on your Parade zooms in on them and their simple shapes and low quality textures become visible. It’s a minor hindrance, but we did notice.

CONCLUSION

LifeisXbox.eu is the largest Belgian Xbox centered website, your reading time is greatly appreciated! Please consider sharing this review with your friends on social media, that means a lot for us! If you are Dutch speaking also consider joining our Dutch exclusive Facebook group Xbox Gamers Belgium. Feel free to use quotes for PR purposes.