Braid: Anniversary Edition

Braid is a classic, and this edition features beautifully redone art and music, with hours of excellent developer commentary.

Braid Anniversary Edition is a good example of it being very hard to mess up a great thing, which Braid itself already was. Every change or addition in this remake was for the better, as the game itself was not just updated superficially, but also received new content for players old and new to experience. The original Braid still holds up well today as one of the best puzzle-platformers ever made and now Braid Anniversary Edition continues to prove that in this stellar remake.

What makes a must-play game? Is it adding more levels to an already stacked list of platform worlds from which to collect items? Is adding a commentary you can turn on and off at will worth it? How about re-drawn art? All of those things are here, any one of which could be argument enough for the need of a Braid Anniversary Edition. It just happens that Braid Anniversary Edition is a near-perfect way to try out Braid, if you haven't before. As someone who hasn't played before this edition, I think this is a great way to introduce yourself to Braid. Everything looks, sounds, and plays great.

Braid remains a landmark equally for indie game development and puzzle platformers. The time control mechanics are mind-bendingly satisfying to play with and the puzzles are wickedly inventive. This Anniversary Edition is an exquisite expression of the original concept, with everything spruced up to perfection. And, even on top of that, it includes interactive creators’ commentary that sets a high watermark for in-game analysis and represents a new key text for anyone interested in how games are made. In short: this package is an all-timer.

Revisiting Braid: Anniversary Edition has been a nice nostalgic experience for me, having not played the original since I fully completed it back in 2008. I was amazed at how some solutions had been completely forgotten by my aging brain, and it was lovely to get that feeling of being a genius all over again. Equally though, I found the discordant screeching of the audio mix combined when rewinding time to be too loud and more than a little irritating, but it’s a very minor niggle indeed. Maybe I’m just getting old.

It feels oddly surreal to be reviewing a classic like Braid in the year 2024. If one were to rewind back to 2008 when it first released onto Xbox Live Arcade, the video game landscape would look far different than it does today. Braid, alongside other indie classics like Super Meat Boy and Fez, reshaped the entire indie game industry, inspiring hundreds if not thousands of games in the years following its release. It proved that independent creators and their passion products can thrive on digital storefronts while holding their own against AAA releases at the time. In the years following its ...

At only $20, Braid: Anniversary Edition is an easy recommendation for those nostalgic for the original game or anyone that's simply looking for a solid puzzle platformer to play. Braid might not be the industry-shaking revolution that it was when it first released, but it still holds up in 2024, with challenging puzzles and a powerful story. The considerable graphical upgrade would make Braid: Anniversary Edition worth the price of admission alone, but the added content is the cherry on top. If nothing else, it's great to have Braid playable on modern platforms, and hopefully, the game is able...

Back in the day, I used to think that Braid was overrated as hell. The short duration and simplistic gameplay didn’t exactly captivate me back in my teen years, so I had never given the game that much credit, even though it was basically the game that kickstarted the indie scene as we know today. More than fifteen years have passed, another incredibly overrated game by its created dropped a few years ago (and this is one statement I back to this day), and Braid is now back in a completely r...

Grandia II's Anniversary Edition provides those RPGamers who missed it before the chance to try out the Game Arts classic. One such RPGamer is here with his thoughts on the title.