Memories 

GRIS is one of those games that will not give you a clear or explicit story. The game's narrative is based on your perception and feelings, which happen according to how you understand the scenes that are played and seek to bring your thoughts to the work. 

As it is a game that has no dubbing or subtitles, there is no narration. The story is presented only visually, with various elements, colors, and beautiful effects. We control a character who seems to be going through a difficult time, apparently in mourning and attempting to recover in various ways. 

The game takes place in four scenarios: red, green, blue, and yellow. Gris, the only character in the game, goes through all these phases with a very strong emotionalism, expressing anger, sadness, anguish, and even happiness at certain moments. 

And it is distressing not to know why this girl feels this way or what happened for her life to decline in such a way. At one point, when I earned the trophy entitled "Depression", it was a very strong episode because the whole screen went dark and took a long time to come back with some color and some movement that would indicate that the gameplay did not end there. 

This is why I consider GRIS an extremely strong and sentimental game. You have to pay attention to the details and, of course, to the beautiful artwork that is displayed as each stage goes by. Many important points often go unnoticed, but they help bring context to the game. 



The stages of mourning 

Something that caught my attention in this game was the statue's design. In each phase, for each color, there is a multitude of magnificent works of art, each with a different design that seems to express several feelings, almost all at the same time. 

In my perception, GRIS tells the story of experiencing grief. The protagonist, Gris, goes through very difficult moments, which are shown by short and very well-animated cutscenes (a detail I like and appreciate in games). They depict everything from the moment of loss to the girl's overcoming the challenges. 

The important thing, for me, is to enjoy the game and incorporate your observations into the narrative. In other words, try to be perceptive, attend to the details, and try to understand the real story behind this work. That is the magic of games without narration! 



So, with a charming setting that expresses strong sentimentality, GRIS is a great game to reflect on. Having only a few hours of gameplay (on average 4), it's very quick to beat, and, between you and me, it will go by so quickly that you won't even notice. 

And it's so quiet, weightless, and comfortable to play that, depending on the stage you're on, you can even play it one-handed. But while GRIS has few controls (which are very easy), you can't rush the game. Jumping the wrong way can be deadly, and you will need to go back to regain your progress. 

But the good news is that it has auto-saving. So, after a difficult stage, the game is saved, and you can continue where you left off. 



One thing I liked about GRIS is that it is not one of those games where you die a lot. It is impossible to die in this game. There is no possibility of going back to a certain point because you have died several times. This way, it does not have a slow gameplay style and is much less tiring. 

What struck me most about GRIS is that everything is very illustrated, making the game unique. The icon to save the game, for example, is the same design as an achievement on Steam, which is called "Memories" (a mechanic for capturing memories in stages). 

And with that, I can say that besides being a fun game to play, it is also very beautiful. It is one of those works that you spend hours admiring and paying attention to everything, from small elements on the maps to backgrounds, animal designs, platforms, constellations, animations, etc. 



Acceptance 

Within all these aspects, my biggest praise goes to the artwork. GRIS is certainly a very polished game that has been very well crafted and extremely detailed. I appreciate titles that prioritize art, as it involves several factors such as drawings, unique traces, music, animations, design, and different sounds. 

So the game's unique artistic style completely won me over. Throughout the gameplay, I observed how the artist used dark colors to deal with bad feelings (such as bright red, which started the mourning process) and light colors for more peaceful moments (for example, green and light blue, which indicated that Gris was managing to shake off the bad feelings for a while). 

The color palette is unlimited, using various colors and shades to illustrate emotions, desires, and memories. Just something that I thought was curious was the fact that the character's color changed only in one moment of the game when we need to destroy three statues and everything becomes black and white, even her hair, which is a striking element of the game. 



Something else that caught my attention was the ambient sound. The sounds of water, wind, footsteps, and animals (such as birds, spiders, and other creatures from the game) were a differential and a positive point for the sound design. 

The soundtrack, with cozy and sad songs, caused anguish and tremendous anxiety to pass the stage, and that sound ended. Overall, the songs are very strong and often sad, but they still express strong feelings. 

When it comes to audio, I have to point out that in a very few moments, the sound stopped, which were specific moments when a scene would change. A cutscene would start, and when the design switched, the audio would pause for seconds and then immediately return. It is not a matter of hindering the game in any way, but it may be some small bug in the optimization of the game. 



Also, at some moments the screen has a black border, which is when the cutscenes come in. This was something that bothered me a little since GRIS is filled with scenes, and every time the scene is zoomed in, these margins appear, making the game shots look different. 

Taking into account that the game asks for minimum requirements of 4 GB of RAM, an Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 processor, and a Geforce GT 430 video card, I played on a PC with 16GB of RAM, an Intel Core i5-9400F processor, and a GTX 1050 Ti video card. I did not suffer any significant bugs or glitches, and the game ran well.