Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Flower, Sun and Rain is a DS port of a PS2 game that Suda 51 and his development studio Grasshopper created. The game was never released in North America, until now. You play a "Searcher," Sumio who is summoned to a mystery island where the resort Flower, Sun and Rain is the only place to stay. Once you get to the island, you use your "partner" Catherine (a decoding device) to solve a much larger puzzle than you originally anticipated through a series of numerical puzzles.

What's Hot
Suda 51 is all about style and telling the story of a video game like none of his other contemporaries can. Flower, Sun and Rain is no different. With a highly stylized world that you explore for clues, the game is created with an artist's eye for design and concept. The lengthy cut-scenes all emit a post modern vibe that is sure to resonate with gamers looking for an artsy game.

The game resembles a classic point and click adventure. You interact with all sorts of people and object, collecting clues and solving riddles. These games don't come around all too often and it is great to see that Flower, Sun and Rain keeps the tradition of problem solving alive with the many numerical mysteries. The unfortunate thing is that most of the game, you'll be wandering around looking for what to do.



What's Not
Flower, Sun and Rain is a huge on style and nonexistent on coherent gameplay. You are given the task to solve puzzles using numbers but where those numbers come from, you'll never be able to tell. Sometimes they'll be in plain sight and other times, you'll need to tap into the logic part of your brain to crunch some numbers. You are never given instruction or even sufficient clues to know what you are doing. The best you can do is fumble around and try out different things but since the interface to solve all puzzles is your "partner" Catherine, you aren't even given so much as some visual context on how to solve problems.

Even when you are running around the resort, the visuals aren't that appealing. The port from PS2 to DS wasn't done with careful consideration. The textures are incredibly muddy. It kills some of the style aesthetic of the game. It wouldn't be as bad if you didn't backtrack as much as you had to but when you look at the same corridor time and time again, you'll notice more things to criticize. What doesn't help the visual efforts are the horrendous camera angles you have to suffer through. Flower, Sun and Rain makes use of fixed camera points and the system can cause more problems than it solves.

Final Word
Suda 51 clearly thinks on another level than the vast majority of developers in the business. Sometimes that is a good thing. In Flower, Sun and Rain's case, something is missing that even Catherine can't solve. To the game's credit, it isn't too often that you see a game that is both right brain and left brain. Unfortunately, those two drastically different approaches to game design never find a meeting point. It just goes to show that high concept ideas don't always materialize the way they look on paper. If you have a thing for games barely sewn together at the seams, inner monologues and lots of filler you might be able enjoy Flower, Sun and Rain. Might.