Review

By Yanai Levy, Mar 16th, 2026

A slightly rambly, incomplete review.

Hello world.

Been a while.

I tend to be what my friends call a "high octane gamer", someone who likes the fast paced shooters, drivers, and frenetic platformers of the gaming world. In fact recently I was told I resemble Apex Legend's Octane in spirit if not in body (thankfully, I rather like my legs attached). 

However, every once in a while a title comes along that pulls me out of the hot seat and right into the lotus position. Historically titles like ABZÛ, Sable, and Chants of Sennaar have seized my attention and held it, and I can now add GRIS to the list.

It's hard to draw a line in the sand when it comes to video games as an art form. Almost all games involve art, visually, sonically, or otherwise, but there's certainly a spectrum. Few would call CS:GO an artistically centered experience, but the argument could be made. 

GRIS is on the far art side of that spectrum, the experience more akin to playable art than artistic play. The controls are simple, the timing of even the advanced puzzles forgiving. This is no Celeste style platformer, even the A-sides. The music cradles you throughout, swelling and falling gently as you discover the world, its specifics and colors as you retrieve them. 

At times your blue-haired girl is shooting through deep water in the shape of a manta ray, others she glides through the air. While each area in the game has its own identity in gameplay and color palette, the consistency of quality and incredible visuals never abandons you. As with many great games, the small flourishes and level of polish are the parts seen out of the corner of your eye, but make it feel like a real masterpiece. Your steps sound out tritones as you walk on starlight, the music is hushed when you fall underwater. Every leaf of a flower you might regrow unfolds on its own, when its full existence is to be a half-second platform you see once. It's hard not to see the care and time in this game.

GRIS will not get your heart pumping, it may even cause your mind to wander as you play. It's not a flow state game, it's a deep breath in a forest kind of game. You are to inhale its colors and the sounds of its harps and violins, and finally reach some kind of roughly uplifting ending, all in the space of a couple of hours. 

It's when you put the game down that you realise maybe the tension in your shoulders has diminished. Maybe it did its subtle work while you listened to it sing to you.