Let’s Talk About Rain on Your Parade
In 2019 a game was released that captivated a lot of gamers. Its name, Untitled Goose Game. And with a name like that it’s no wonder it got so many people curious. The game was one of the best of that year, not only was it charming but it’s unique mechanics and premise made it the closest thing to a comedy yet attempted by the medium.
Untitled Goose Game also served as a public service announcement. The whole game acted as a showcase for the true evil of geese kind. Anyone who has met one of these fuckers can attest to this, they’re the assholes of the waterfowl world. But there is another evil. One that’s gone unnoticed by many of you for years despite it hovering over our heads this entire time. The cloud!
Oh they may look all cute and innocent with their deceitful fluffy pillow look but trust me these things are evil. You know how it is, you’re having a nice sunny day in the garden, weather is just right and wham, there’s a cloud there to block the sun and bring rain to ruin your day.
Rain clouds, thunder clouds, snow clouds, tornadoes, does anything good come out of these things? You could argue that on some days a little cloud cover isn’t so bad, it keeps the sun off you and lets you cool off, except they never show up then. They only ever get there when you’ve gotten used to it to throw off your equilibrium. They’re never there when you need them and only show up when you don’t want them to.
Which is why Rain on Your Parade interested me. Here was a game that would finally show the world that clouds were the ultimate evil. That, and it looked like a fun game. It looked very similar to Untitled Goose Game, a comedy game that got most of its comedy from the mechanics rather than the writing. That's what I thought based on the trailers anyway, but it’s not exactly what I got.
Rain on Your Parade follows a cloud named Cloudy, real original name there, as he tries to make his way to the cloud paradise of Seattle Washington. I don’t get it. This is not a very story driven game. You do run into a cast of different characters and there is a framing device of the game being a story told by a grandpa to his grandson, but it isn’t that interested in telling a good story. It’s more interested in you just having a good time.
The game is split between 50 different levels each containing a number of objectives to complete. Cloudy, being a cloud, can do most of the things you would expect a cloud to do. You can rain on people, snow, use lightning and spin a tornado that sucks everything up. You unlock these moves as you progress, and the game does a good job of introducing them.
The levels are like mini puzzles where you have to use certain abilities to progress. Each of the four moves perform different functions and you’ll have to figure out the intricacies of them to beat all of the challenges. That shouldn’t take you long. Rain on Your Parade isn’t a very complicated game which makes it easy to pick up and play.
Most levels are about trying to cause as much chaos as possible, either raining on everyone, blowing up cars or setting a kids birthday party on fire. You see what I mean people, do you see how evil these things are now? You cause unbridled chao in this game. Granted the game cops out and also gives you an evil scientist to take down, but then your sucking people into a black hole. Guess Cloudy is one of those chaotic neutral types.
It's in the chaotic levels where the game shines brightest. Watching the sheer destructive force and chaos you can unleash can be very satisfying. This was also what made Untitled Goose Game such a blast to play. If the game had leant more heavily into this, it could have been a new indie darling. However, the game also suffers from the most acute case of creative ADHD I’ve ever seen.
Rain on Your Parade is an extremely varied game. One moment your causing chaos on a beach, the next you're protecting a bomb, then you're sneaking through a base in a parody of the Metal Gear series, then you're playing tower defence, then you’re playing bowling, then you’re, ok I think you get the idea.
The game is constantly shaking things up. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, at first the sheer amount of variety is quite endearing. It was fun going through the game and seeing what other zany ideas the designers would throw out. After a while it felt less like the developers were trying to add variety, and more like they were throwing things on the wall and seeing what stuck.
Some of the levels can be enjoyable, but a lot of them feel underdeveloped. Some of the minigame themed levels are the purest definition of filler you can get. Most of the levels have a series of objectives to complete, some mandatory and others that are entirely optional. There are even secret objectives that you’ll need to uncover if you’re going for 100%.
However, many of the score attack or time trial-based stages don’t have these multiple objectives. You're plopped into the level, get as many points as you can, and that’s it. There are no additional challenges or anything. These levels aren’t bad, but they feel like a complete afterthought. A level simply thrown in to boost the level count and nothing more.
Rain on Your Parade doesn’t even seem bothered about the optional objectives anyway. You don’t get anything from completing them other than stars that don’t unlock anything. You don’t unlock levels with the stars as far as I’m aware so what’s the point. Maybe you get an achievement out of it, but the Switch version doesn’t have those. In fact, if you do plan on getting it, I recommend getting the Xbox or PlayStation versions as those have actual achievements. A lot of this game feels designed around them, so I wonder why they didn’t have in game achievements for the Switch version.
This is not a difficult game, at all. The only challenge you’ll get out of it is getting all the achievements or completing all the challenges. This game isn’t trying to be challenging, it just wants to be a fun little comedy game. You know, the kind of game you play to waste a lazy Sunday afternoon or something.
In that regard the game is fine. It’s a perfectly fine little puzzle game that’s easy to pick up and play. But there is one major problem with it. While it tries to be a fun comedy game, it fails to be the one thing every comedy game needs to be, funny.
Let me talk about Untitled Goose Game for a sec. One of the reasons I consider Untitled Goose Game to be the closest thing to a true comedy game is because the comedy came, not from the story or writing, but from the actual gameplay mechanics. There have been funny games in the past but those got their comedy from the writing and cutscenes.
Look at the Ratchet and Clank games for example. Ratchet and Clank is a very funny series of games but gameplay it’s a shooter/platformer affair. While there are plenty of zany weaponry there isn’t anything funny about the gameplay itself. Most of the comedy came from the dialogue, cutscenes and characters. In short, the comedy came from what you saw, not from what you did.
Untitled Goose Game was the complete opposite. The comedy came exclusively from the players own actions. It was a slapstick comedy where the players caused the pratfalls. It's one of the reasons the game captivated so many people. It was the first time you felt like an active participant in the comedy, rather than a mere observer.
Rain on Your Parade doesn’t do this. It can be humorous watching the sheer chaos unfold as a result of your actions, but that isn’t where the bulk of the comedy comes from. No, most of the comedy comes from the writing and dialogue. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the writing was funny, I think you know where this is going.
One of the main problems with the writing is that it tries to be charming and cute, but instead off as irritating and annoying. While some of the jokes did get a little bit of a smile out of me at first, as the game progressed the more cringe inducing the jokes got. And it’s relentless with them too. Even the title screen has a joke in it.
This constant bombardment of bad jokes would be bad enough, but the game also thinks it’s more charming than it is. There's a lot of winking and nodding going on with many jabs at the current state of the gaming industry. Which is fine and certainly warranted given the current state of the industry, but the jokes are some of the most basic takes I’ve ever seen. The satire doesn’t work because there’s no bite to any of it.
Then there are the references. Remember that Metal Gear parody level I mentioned earlier. It isn't the only one like that. There are numerous levels that parody various media from The Legend of Zelda to, of all things, The Office. The problem is that these references don’t do anything other than reference the fact that what it’s referencing exists. It doesn’t actually parody what it’s referencing, the joke is that the game is suddenly Metal Gear because “lol so random”. It's the worst kind of referential humour.
So basically, what we have here is a comedy game where the comedy isn’t funny. Half the appeal of the game is therefore worthless. At least the game part is ok at least. It’s way too varied for its own good, but I will admit that there is still some fun to be had. However, I do not recommend you buy this at full price. There is a decent amount of content here and when you beat it you unlock a new game + mode with some additional missions in each level.
But even with that, the game’s current asking price is too much, and it's only £11.99. The gameplay might be fun but it’s so simple and easy that you’ll probably only play it in short bursts. And even then, it probably won’t you take long to beat. If you must play this game, wait for a sale or get it on Xbox Game Pass.
And if I’m being serious, I don’t really think clouds are evil. I’m not that much of a kook. I mean sure they rain on you, and they keep you up with thunderstorms, and the block the sun to make things colder, oh and those times in movies where they take shapes to mock the protagonists with things they can’t have. You know what, screw it, clouds are bastards, fuck em.