Arise: A Simple Story is a game in a class of its own. Gentle and melancholy, it's a touching tale developed by Bareclona studio, Piccolo. It’s said that when we die, our life flashes before our eyes. Arise: A Simple Story takes this idea and runs with it in an extraordinarily poetic game. You’ll set off on a journey through the major events in the life of our heroes: their joys and their suffering, happiness and pain. The path to the great beyond seems to be a soothing one. Our hero, a burly bearded sage, soon finds himself atop a snowy summit, where he is invited to touch a dozen or so light-filled orbs that will transport him back to the major moments of his past life. Each environment represents an important moment in his life, right up until his final days. Your job is to travel through this enchanting world with your keyboard or right joystick, and catch the orbs to bring back memories that may be happy or sad. The good news is that you can play this 3D platformer in two-player. One player moves the character, the other manipulates time to open up new paths through the game environments. You're guaranteed wonderful moments with your partner, no matter your age. The ability to control time means you can influence the level of a river or the size of a bank of snow to reach higher locations, or even the flight of a bee that you can latch on to, or the direction a flower is facing. Then there's the progress of a fire of the location of a rock carried off by a landslide. It's all very simple to get to grips with, and the puzzles are straightforward. The main strength of Arise: A Simple Story lies not in the challenge, but rather in the game's serene ambience. It immerses you in environments that are the perfect expression of the emotion experienced by the main character. It's a real wonder of a game, with artistic direction that is simply fantastic and does a beautiful job of recounting this touching tale that whisks you away to a dreamlike world. And all with a masterful soundtrack from composer David García Diaz, who also made the music for Hellblade and RiME. It's impossible to remain unmoved by such beautiful music. Plenty of gamers, kids and adults alike, will shed a tear when this unique adventure concludes. We loved it!