So what's this Born Under the Rain thing all about anyway? (Story)
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The game starts out pretty simply: Masud, a tomb robber, has robbed one tomb too many as he tries to rob an old pharoah named Odion. It doesn't end well, and Masud ends up trapped in Odion's mummified body, unable to speak. He embarks upon a treasure-hunting adventure with Odion's spirit, which has taken the form of a flaming, talking skull, to find and smash Anuket's Tear, an artifact which will reverse the curse and return Masud to his own body, which is slowly dying in Odion's tomb.

Matters are complicated slightly early on by a chance meeting with two other would-be treasure hunters, Rashida and Masika, who are also searching for Anuket's Tear; 14 years ago, when Masika was born, was the last time it rained. She seeks the tear because she can use it to bring rain back to the land.

Joined together by their mutual quest (though for differing reasons) the four face the twists, passages and puzzles of the pyramid.

As a spoiler-free review, this is about as much detail as I can go into with the story, but suffice to say that there are twists aplenty to be had, least of all Masud's true identity. Several plot points aren't so much outright stated as heavily implied, and I must say I'm quite a big fan of the exposition-without-expositing approach. This is a great example of how to tell a simple, engaging story without needing hours' worth of cutscenes to convey it.

The only thing preventing a perfect score here is that the game is quite short. I really would have liked more backstory on Masud and the ending, while, poignant and touching, wasn't enormously satisfying given the time I had invested. 4 out of 5, guys!

So Dogface, Morte, Thick one and Rain Woman walk into a bar... (Characters)
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I love the characters in this game. Masud has more personality than a large percentage of characters in RM games and he doesn't have a single line of dialogue. Odion is abrasive and sarcastic as only the flaming skull-spirit of an ancient Egyptian pharoah can be. Rashida and Masika are the ultimate tomb-raiding dysfunctional family you never had. Every cutscene (and there aren't many; usually a short scene after each puzzle/exploration section) is relevant to the overall plot and fleshes out the characters a little more.

Keeping the main cast small is a good move, as it allows more time to be spent on each individually. I finished the game in 4 hours and 10 minutes, but that was enough for me to be able to tell you each character's basic personality, desires and fears. It's a testament to the quality of the dialogue and even the small movements the characters make that I can connect so well with them after so short a time.

Aside from the main cast, each NPC in the town has a very distinct personality of their own, from the merchant who never shuts up to the little guy who wants the scarabs you collect because...he just wants them, okay?

I can't in good conscience give anything less than a 5.

Where are we going and how do we get there? (Mapping)
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Where we're going is the pyramid. How we get there is a helpful dude with a camel. But what's important is how effective the mapping is, and my god I've never seen such beautiful maps in an RM game.

I don't know what's custom and what's RTP, and frankly I don't care. The caves feel like caves, the pyramid feels like a pyramid, the tombs feel like tombs. It was a good move to split the pyramid up into several interconnected rooms as it helps compartmentalise the puzzles and gives a claustrophobic feel to the place.

Given that there is so much treasure to collect, you'll be doing a fair bit of backtracking in this game, so the fact that everything looks so nice is definitely handy.

Once again I have to give a full 5 out of 5. I can't think of anything about the maps I didn't like.

The best defence is having no attack command. (Gameplay)
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Reviewing the gameplay obviously consists of two factors: puzzles/exploration and the battles. Unlike some other games, the first aspect indirectly influences the second, as I'll explain.

In terms of exploration and puzzles, Born Under the Rain is top notch. There are plenty of puzzles and even a few riddles to be had. Not every puzzle is mandatory, but most will reward you with one or more jade scarabs or relics, which you can equip on one of the four characters to give them new abilities in battle. Some relics even give you new abilities, like being able to enter mirrors or break down walls. When you get a new relic and read "now you can break down walls!" in the description, all of a sudden you remember that one wall you saw back at the beginning when you thought "I wonder if I can break this down?" and got really disappointed when you couldn't. There are a few such items dotted around, at least one of which is given to you by the scarab collector, so there's a natural progression to exploring. Exploring in ths game is just plain fun: I quite happily went back over every inch of the pyramid at least four times trying to find things I might have missed, and never got bored.

Now, battles. I've seen reviews of the game from before the battles were retooled, and given my own experience I'm glad I didn't play it before. First of all, I love that there's no basic attack command. Only being able to use skills made me actually think about what I was using and when, at least until I settled into my usual approach of having Rashida use Backstab, then have either Masud or Odion stun an enemy before Masika used Nightmare on it, rinse and repeat for other enemies (since all my characters had at least one stun via relics I was able to lock down enemies for many consecutive turns). A lot of the relics I didn't even try, so it's entirely possible that an even better battle strategy was available to me all along and I just didn't know it, but I was able to take down most foes with this approach in the end so I didn't feel much need to switch things up.

That said, after a while, although I was still enjoying the system itself battles did start to drag on a little (and I was playing on easy). It just became a bit of a cluster of icons and status effects, to the point where it didn't seem to matter that I'd just lowered the enemy's physical defence, they still either took little damage or a lot of it. Backstab was probably the handiest tool in my arsenal by a longshot, which made using AoE attacks a bad choice more often than not. This wasn't too much of an issue in standard battles, but really came to the fore in boss battles. After using my once-per-battle abilities, a couple of the boss fights devolved into a "use basic skills until you run out of MP, meditate, repeat" battle of attrition.

I give gameplay 4/5; it loses a point because the battles were fun but even with the customisation afforded by the relics it still got a bit samey after a while.

Walk like an Egyptian, talk like an Egyptian, sound like an Egyptian. (Music and sound)
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I can't say I've ever played an RM game where the battle music actually complemented the game's main theme, until now. Every piece of music here from the battle theme to the boss theme to the town theme screamed "YOU ARE IN EGYPT NOW" and I have to give major props to Housekeeping for the soundtrack. I do agree somewhat with Liberty's assessment that the boss theme doesn't quite convey the feeling of epic danger that boss themes typically do, but it wasn't bad to listen to. Overall, I really liked the music. Sound effects used were fine, nothing particularly special but nothing out of place either.

Music and sound gets a solid 4 out of 5.

So what you're saying is... (Overall comments)
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If I hadn't specifically read that Born Under the Rain was made for a game jam I would never have thought it. It seems very well made, polished and is honestly the second-best RM game I've ever played. (unfortunately you can't beat Master of the Wind guys).

Averaging out the scores, the game scores 4.4, rounded to 4.5. At less than 5 hours long, there is really no excuse for anyone not to play this gem.