Product Description

Flower, Sun And Rain is an intriguing mystery adventure very much in the vein of Groundhog Day.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3710 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Rising Star
• Released on: 2008-11-14
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Customer Reviews

A surreal gem that slowly reveals its mysteries
Sumio Mondo is a 'searcher' who arrives on the island of 'Lospass' when he is hired by the manager of the only hotel on the island- hotel Flower, Sun and Rain. We quickly learn Sumio is tasked with neutralising a 'terrorist' on the island who has planted a bomb at the airport, seems like a typical empty-headed yarn that we expect from a video-game... yet things soon take on the surreal, dream-like character we would expect from the developer of gaming landmarks like Killer7.

Lospass is stuck in a recurring 'groundhog day' style loop where the same day seemingly repeats itself in varying ways, each 'day' Sumio attempts to get to the airport only to be held up and distracted by the ludicrous and endearing cast Grasshopper Manufacture have created, leaving the plane to explode and the 'day' to begin anew.

What follows is a surreal exploration of themes such as alienation, fate, utopia (paradise), sexuality and the need to 'kill the past'- the tug of war between generations. All told in the inimitable style of Suda51, knee-deep in metaphor, symbolism, dream-logic and black humour, and delivered in a way unique to the medium of video-games. Mention must go to the soundtrack which is typically wonderful as you would expect from a Grasshopper title, even when the bulk of it consists of remixes of classical compositions by the likes of Debussy and Satie.

Flower, Sun and Rain is a game that tests the player with its math-book style gameplay, or the pixellated textures and abstract dialogue, but if you approach it with an open mind and really delve into the story and characters you will find a deep, rewarding and touching experience that is rare in video-games.

This DS version is a port of the Japan-only PS2 original and there are plans to follow it up with two more past Grasshopper titles- the Silver Case and Silver Case: 25 Ward. Personally I can't wait!

Poor, badly made game.
I bought this based on the first review on Amazon and the fact that it is one of the very few 'point-and-click' style games available on the DS. I had high hopes for this, but I was disappointed.

The graphics are awful. They are blocky and remind me of the first 3D graphics introduced on the old Atari ST. There is no fine detail on anything and the movements are blocky. The music is grating, and the garbled speech annoying. I played with sound always off.

As for game play - the whole concept revolves around finding codes to input to a machine to reveal something. Very repetitive, and involving a lot of walking to-and-fro and talking to people. None of which was interesting. It is also impossible to look at everything, you can only touch/use things connected to the plot at that moment in time. So there is no mystery in finding items, you just wait for it to flash.

I really really wanted to like this game. The premise for it is really interesting, and some bits I found vaguely interesting but the presentation is so poor. The graphics themselves are so poor that it takes a lot of interest in the game to even start playing it.

Overall - there are much better games out there, this is playable (barely) but I wouldn't recommend it. If you want a game of this genre and plot - buy ''Hotel Dusk'', if you've already bought that and played it - play it again. You'll get more enjoyment that way, than buying and playing this!

Nice and complicated!
Just had to put in a review in defence of this game. Although the graphics aren't brilliant, that is done on purpose and doesn't detract from game play. The story line is nice and convoluted and kept me thinking right to the end. There are lots of items to collect as well as the main story quests which are played a day at a time. At the end you can go back through and complete any missed parts. If you like the much more linear adventure games that tend to come out now and are quickly completed this isn't the game for you but if you miss the days of wandering about trying to solve totally random puzzles (like me) then this is worth a look.