Concrete Genie

It’s hard to play Concrete Genie and not be charmed by it. You can just tell that a whole lot of love has been put into making it. It may not be complex in terms of gameplay, and many of its mechanics feel appropriated from other games, but it’s surprising and unique in numerous ways. As soon as you’ve created your first genie and witnessed it joyously spring to life, you’ll fall in love with it. After that, the time flies by like you’re having fun with a friend. Concrete Genie is all about bringing light into a world that has grown dark. I think we could all do with a bit of that, couldn’t we...

Imagine if your best friends lived on the pages of a sketchbook or the walls of an abandoned coastal town. Imagine drawing your brush across a surface, and not just bringing the image into existence, but actually bringing it to life. Imagine being able to quite literally push back darkness and negativity with light, positivity, and friendship. Concrete Genie is all of those things and more packed into a game that initially feels small, yet bursts at the seams with a mountain of heart and themes, both obvious and subtle.

Every child has a moment where they wish their art could come to life. Be it in times of struggle, idle escapism, or even loneliness, that brief “I wish you were real” is achingly familiar. Concrete Genie is your chance to realize that childhood dream, even if it’s under somewhat bleak circumstances. This game also drives home that art, no matter one’s skill level, can be a powerful ally.

Tech-wise there were a few frame drops, and I played on a PlayStation 4 Pro. These drops weren't enough to mess with the gameplay, but they were noticeable a couple of times. I didn't run into any crashes or bugs during my playthrough. There is a VR mode, which isn't the campaign mode. It is separate, but I don't have VR, so I can't speak to it.

Concrete Genie is held back slightly by its reluctance to trust us with more freedom of creation, and its third act combat feels somewhat out of place. Still, it still manages to do a wonderful job of giving players a reason to explore its eerie and beautiful town and interact with its colorful genies, and its narrative is successful in merging two very different tones to tell a tale that bounces admirably between somber and lighthearted.

Success in Concrete Genie comes easily – probably too easily for some – but that ease lets its best moments breathe. It’s less about challenging you to get through traditional video game obstacles than it is about letting you challenge yourself to keep coming up with new and creative ideas, new designs, and new places to put them around this dilapidated city. At heart, it’s an exercise in the pleasure of the artistic process – just like Concrete Genie’s core idea, you never really have to paint, but I absolutely wanted to.

Concrete Genie has a great score and impressive art direction which leave you absolutely jaw-dropped at times. It’s a short game though, and that feels even more so when the game goes away from its core strengths and barrels towards the finish line with lackluster combat sequences.

Concrete Genie is one of those rare titles that tries to do something new, embracing new concepts and bringing them to the forefront for moments of true brilliance. Or at least, it does when it knows what it wants to be.

Republished on Wednesday 27th January, 2021: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of February 2021's PS Plus lineup. The original text follows.

At times, Concrete Genie can be a little too pleasant, which makes the action-packed conclusion really jarring. Still, the contrast between Ash's fantasy and his reality is truly stunning.

Overall, Concrete Genie feels like a satisfying story, even if it does clock in at only four or five hours for the main story. For a value-priced game, that still feels rather short. However, between all of the pages that Ash can grab to add to his sketchbook, there are hundreds of different artistic combinations to bring out. And I will say that Pixelopus largely makes the most of the time given, with multiple art styles and a relatable lead character in Ash. It's not a masterpiece, but Concrete Genie is still a fine piece of art.

A peculiarly underdeveloped riff on Jet Set Radio that never manages to find anything interesting to do with any of its many gameplay mechanics and story ideas.