Braid Critic Reviews

Braid is beautiful, entertaining and inspiring. It stretches both intellect and emotion, and these elements dovetail beautifully rather than chaffing against each other. Still wondering if games can be art? Here's your answer.

Amazing ideas, achievement, logic, pride, beauty, and a game so good it makes every other Xbox World five-star game look a little silly. In a world without Mario and Valve and the Bethesda hit factory Braid is indeed the best game ever made; in this world, it's among the best games of the generation, and is unquestionably and immediately the best game ever to have been released on Xbox Live Arcade.

Excellent but intellectually limited as a puzzle-platformer, Braid is made truly divine with emotional depth and a bittersweet humanity -- a monumentally relevant game that speaks highly of its creators and their potential audience's tolerance for new ideas. To say nothing of an absolutely brilliant, emotionally devastating "ending" that proves that time isn't really that malleable after all.

Braid is a game cut from the same cloth as "BioShock" and "Portal," erasing videogame norms and reimagining the way we look at the medium. It does things with gaming that are usually reserved for novels and films, while also adding elements that would be impossible in any other form. It’s is a game that makes you think about your own life as much as it does about gaming.

Braid is an absolute masterpiece, from beginning to end.

I was initially pretty skeptical about Braid, and it took me some time to get past the game's severe melancholy. I eventually found the game's story and the way it plays against the gameplay to be academically interesting, and the game's final payoff is terrific, but it's the ingenuity of the mechanics that makes Braid so engaging.

The fact is, Braid is art. There, I said it. Not only can it be appreciated aesthetically, but it was clearly created with the intention of the finished product being a work of art.

Braid is one of the best, if not the best, games I have ever played.

This isn't a game about time, it's about memories, and how they can be repeated and eventually rewritten.

Braid is a beautiful game and an amazing experience, and whether or not you think games can be considered works of art – or if it even matters – you simply owe it to yourself to play Braid.

The story of Braid is definitely open for interpretation, and there's subtext aplenty for players who want to debate what the story could possibly mean. It's definitely ahead of the curve for most videogame plots, but it's not integral to actually enjoying the game either.

Beautifully crafted and wonderfully realized, it is a shining example of the intersection between art and technology, love and loss, desire and despondence. It is, in one word, beautiful.

Braid is an innovative hybrid of puzzles and platforming that uses manipulation of time in a great way. It's all too rare to see a unique and equally fantastic game like this and it's worth every penny. It's beautiful, captivating and filled to the brim with pure fun. That is why it only deserves the highest of grades.

A visual aural and spiritual delight – that’s Braid's explicit answer to all skeptics who proclaim games can only evolve in technical issues. Tens of completely different puzzles action-based or logical all connected to time-tampering created small but still one of the best games of all times.

A game that's every bit as original as Super Mario Galaxy and Portal, Braid is a short-lived gem.

Every single genre of games could learn a thing or two from Braid’s design, and I can’t think of any type of gamer who would scoff at the title. Braid is my ruler for measuring quality in other games. Nothing anyone could say would change my mind: all the pieces fit.

Story is excellent.

As the first full-length art game ever made, and one of the most ingenious puzzle-based games ever devised, you owe it to yourself to buy Braid. It's worth fifteen dollars. It's worth fifty dollars. It's got too much new and intelligent and thoughtful stuff to be ignored simply because of a few hundred extra MS Points.

Braid is a stunning title which provides an experience which flows fluently from start to end. The simple concept, the complex puzzles, the beautiful presentation or the magical story.

A moving story, serene visuals, and brilliant puzzles make Braid an adventure that you absolutely should experience.