Concrete Genie Review

This indie came up as one of the three games included in February's PS+ lineup. Fresh out of finishing Cyberpunk 2077's main storyline and not having anything else to play, I decided to give this one a try. 

You control Ash who likes hanging out in his old hometown, against his parents' wishes. He likes to draw in his sketchbook, but it gets taken from him. His sketchbook is thrown away, but suddenly the pages come to life thanks to a magic paintbrush. 

The magic brush brings life to creatures that help you. These are the genies. You can determine how they look, with what you have unlocked in the game so far. Different colored genies have their own unique abilities, and a number of which are set in the areas where you can paint them.

Throughout the course of the game, you discover what happened to Denska by reading old newspapers just lying around. With the use of your brush, you bring the light to the darkness that has consumed everything. All while trying to avoid the bullies that also spend their time doing whatever they want in the desolate town. 

Super Paint!

Sometimes the genies request for specific paintings to make them happy, some they can even interact with. When you oblige them, they bestow upon you super paint to help clear out the darkness in some areas. Sometimes though, they just want to have fun, eat, or sit by a campfire. 

This game is super positive. It's the equivalent of the real life heroes who paint over the hate speech on walls. By the game's second half, the shift in gameplay kind of put me off, but it was still fun to play nonetheless. 

Concrete Genie was a pleasant experience which took around 6-8 hours to finish. It was an easy game with super optimistic themes. Grab the game on PS+ while it's still available! 

Believe it or not, this took 3 minutes to achieve