I've always thought of myself as being somewhat of a snob when it comes to this genre of game, one that I've claimed multiple times is my favorite. For that reason, I went into A Hat in Time expecting to have fun, but not be majorly impressed. But as soon as the game started I realized just how fun the movement and controls are here.
It's fairly simple, you have a jump, double jump, and a dive. You can cancel out of the dive, and a combination of these three moves make up the foundation of this game. On one hand, it makes a lot of platforming fairly easy for experienced players, even the later game challenges. But it's also incredibly fun to move and traverse levels with. This game understands that a lot of the joy of these kinds of games is in simply how fun moving from place to place is. I loved exploring these levels with this moveset, and it makes the idea of user-created levels through steam workshop incredibly exciting.
At first, the look, story, and general atmosphere didn't do much for me and I found it a bit generic. I mean, I liked the look of the main character and found the first chapter charming, but I wasn't expecting any big surprises, and then I reached chapter 2, where the game really shows its hand when it comes to the right kind of variety in this genre. Too many platformers of the past get bogged down by unnecessary mini-games or vehicle levels that aren't as fun as just jumping around, but this game gets that the right kind of variety can really make these games great. This game manages to have a lot of different kinds of levels, in very different kinds of environment, all while still involving platforming, and any strong deviations from platforming don't overstay their welcome. I loved just how often the game surprised and impressed me in this area. Stuff like the parade leader level, the murder mystery, the haunted manor, the structure of the 4th chapter, the actually fun boss fights, it just felt like this game had so many ideas and executed incredibly on all of them
As the game went on, I also found myself being a lot more charmed by its visuals, writing, and characters. While the jokes don't always land, they're never grating or annoying, and really when it comes to jokes in video games that's all I ask for. The music, while never really sticking out as exceptional in my mind, also got a lot more varied and surprising. In general the amount of stages that had a unique presentation that never got reused somewhere else was really impressive, and as I said before, was incredibly delightful.
Four worlds does sound like not much, but this game really gets a lot out of them, and by the end I was wholly satisfied by them and all the extra stages and collectibles. Also, I almost forgot to make this point, but I'm very glad this game took inspiration from Super Mario Sunshine of all games, that's a game that deserves this kind of respect and admiration and I hope more games take it as inspiration. As much as I enjoy Banjo-Kazooie, I cannot say that it's structure of collect-a-thon is something I think games should revisit outside of an occasional throwback like Yooka-Laylee.
In case it wasn't obvious, I ended up being very happy with this game, and I'm looking forward to playing the DLC soon, but probably not for a bit because I just got this gaming PC built and I have a LOT of catching up to do. But I don't think It'll take long for me to come back to this game.
It's fairly simple, you have a jump, double jump, and a dive. You can cancel out of the dive, and a combination of these three moves make up the foundation of this game. On one hand, it makes a lot of platforming fairly easy for experienced players, even the later game challenges. But it's also incredibly fun to move and traverse levels with. This game understands that a lot of the joy of these kinds of games is in simply how fun moving from place to place is. I loved exploring these levels with this moveset, and it makes the idea of user-created levels through steam workshop incredibly exciting.
At first, the look, story, and general atmosphere didn't do much for me and I found it a bit generic. I mean, I liked the look of the main character and found the first chapter charming, but I wasn't expecting any big surprises, and then I reached chapter 2, where the game really shows its hand when it comes to the right kind of variety in this genre. Too many platformers of the past get bogged down by unnecessary mini-games or vehicle levels that aren't as fun as just jumping around, but this game gets that the right kind of variety can really make these games great. This game manages to have a lot of different kinds of levels, in very different kinds of environment, all while still involving platforming, and any strong deviations from platforming don't overstay their welcome. I loved just how often the game surprised and impressed me in this area. Stuff like the parade leader level, the murder mystery, the haunted manor, the structure of the 4th chapter, the actually fun boss fights, it just felt like this game had so many ideas and executed incredibly on all of them
As the game went on, I also found myself being a lot more charmed by its visuals, writing, and characters. While the jokes don't always land, they're never grating or annoying, and really when it comes to jokes in video games that's all I ask for. The music, while never really sticking out as exceptional in my mind, also got a lot more varied and surprising. In general the amount of stages that had a unique presentation that never got reused somewhere else was really impressive, and as I said before, was incredibly delightful.
Four worlds does sound like not much, but this game really gets a lot out of them, and by the end I was wholly satisfied by them and all the extra stages and collectibles. Also, I almost forgot to make this point, but I'm very glad this game took inspiration from Super Mario Sunshine of all games, that's a game that deserves this kind of respect and admiration and I hope more games take it as inspiration. As much as I enjoy Banjo-Kazooie, I cannot say that it's structure of collect-a-thon is something I think games should revisit outside of an occasional throwback like Yooka-Laylee.
In case it wasn't obvious, I ended up being very happy with this game, and I'm looking forward to playing the DLC soon, but probably not for a bit because I just got this gaming PC built and I have a LOT of catching up to do. But I don't think It'll take long for me to come back to this game.