Reasonably good platformer on the surface, was expecting more finesse from these creators, but a really good time. There's just too much holding it back including re-use of level design aspects, inconsistency in design and bugs, subpar bosses that feel like they haven't been playtested, and how it handles precise platforming.

What it absoluteky excells at is speedy momentum based gameplay which feels amazing when going fast and skipping huge chunks of the levels and their respectively suburflous and repetetive mechanics. More at the end, but here're my issues and likes I listed as I was playing the game through Story Mode.

Problems:
- Control feel is unnecessarily floaty and tanky
- Turning mid-air is absolutely horrible
- The movement doesn't have a ton of depth, you just have three moves: ride the yo-yo, swing on the yo-yo, and yo-yo dash, coupled with a double jump and wall jump and it doesn't go beyond that.
- Why does the spin attack have the most dreadful sound?
- Riding on the yo-yo feels absolutely horrible, it never turns how it should, especially with how tight some of the turns are demanded from the player.
- For such a nimble and acrobatic character, it feels wierd to have everything control with the difficulty of a bar of soap sliding around in the bathtub.
- QTE at the ending of each level, not a fan, could've been easily left out, they add nothing of value
- Bosses are uninteresting both character wise and gameplay wise. Not to mention janky and glitchy, one literally just locks you into position and if you happen to be caught in a specific spot, it'll just spawn a laser over you. And what the hell was the final boss even, it was over in one minute and you rode a low resolution flat PNG of the penguins, just dissapointing.
- Characters and themes feel inconsistent and half-hazardly slapped together. All the bosses are kind of just, nice to you after fighting them? Things could just be a little bit more tought out in that degree, Penny isn't all that likeable herself either.
- The yoyo moves can be sometimes inconsistent, especially when you initiate riding the yo-yo, I feel like half the time I won't start riding it immediately, losing the oddly placed tony hawk combo system.
- Anything that's not a flat platform and exactly the intended path will result in odd collisions or just straight up clipping through the floor
- Not a fan of the locked camera, or at least not how it was done, they could've picked a more isometric view, or zoomed out a little, but as it stands with how it is, coupled with the very bright and graphic art direction, depth perception is constantly an issue, and this is coming from someone who's favorite and most played genre is 3D movement games. Penny's shadow sometimes isn't visible as well which makes everything so much worse.
- The levels are gorgeous, but.. don't offer a lot of interesting gameplay scenarios? Everything plays out the same, sure there are power ups, but they're not largley interesting and just slightly amplify what you can already do, they don't change anything drastically or are intriguing to play around with.
- The game runs out of unique platforming mechanics and powerups by the half-way point, everything is just a mish mash of previously re-cycled elements. In most of the amazing and great platformers you would have mechanics that are unique to a world and are introduced, used, and then left behind to introduce something new in the next world to keep things fresh, not re-use it constantly every single time.
- Same goes for helping out all these worker dudes, they're dressed accordingly for the world, and what you're doing for them might look different, but it's all the same stuff over and over again; 1. Carry something without taking damage 2. Rack up a score. 3. Collect some goobers, 4 Go through a ring in time. Not a lot of gameplay is unique to the specific worlds.
- The theming of these level mechanics is also only consistent for a few worlds, and is very limited, mostly in the form of platforms that look and function a little different. Why wasn't there a freeze powerup in the ice world that froze platforms or water so you could jump over, or ride along a set of waves, or use it in a creative manner to help out the robots, or make ice cream or turn into a giant snowball? If anyone played Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, there's a whole world that slowly takes you through the production of picking fruits, blending them, and making ice cream out of them for the boss at the end, it was such an engaging concept and I really wanted that kind of creativity and connectivity in the world design with this game. I would've preferred half the amount of levels if it meant more interesting and involved design choices.
- Some elements are only interactible with the yo-yo, some are not, it's really disorientating and inconsistent, I constantly wish I could grab powerups on the fly easily by riding through them, and I wish I could grab those special coins or ice creams with the yo-yo.
- When trying to grab the powerups mid air, it's incredibly inconsistent and you miss it half the time, it's not great since you have to stop abruptly, get the powerup and then go, which just disrupts the flow, again solved by just getting them by riding over them, this is especially annoying with the turbo powerup.
- After riding on some predetermined roller coaster-like elements; zip lines, wierd ticket things, cannons, or springs, it's inredibly difficult, or sometimes impossible to chain into a yo-yo ride to keep the combo going making it really frustrating when you're forced out of your control to finish your combo.
- Why the HECK aren't there any loops.

What I do like:
- Cute penguins and fantastic colour design and level aesthetics throughout the entire game. I seriously love the penguins so much.
- The fact that the penguins set up various traps to catch you is such a fun little thing, although not much of an obsactle. I wish they expanded on it more and more, it'd be great if Penny was just assaulted with tanks, attack helicopters, giant penguin robots at the end. Like she caused so much chaos she's now the top most wanted criminal in the whole kingdom and instead of the bosses being fellow performers that try to brutally murder you for no real reason and then flip their mood to a kind friend like some bipolar degenerates, they could've been trying to get Penny because the King placed a bounty on her head and whoever gets her imprisoned will get the title of the royal performer. The setup could've been simpler and better, I honestly don't even know what the hell the character's deal is because I lost interest by the third boss.
- The game has a ton of charm, despite some wierd stuff it really sells that genesis Nights into Dreams/Sonic Sega Saturn aesthetic.
- I LOVE the alternative control scheme with the stick, that was a fantastic decision, it takes a while to get used to, but feels amazing once you get it down.
- Whilst tanky and janky in smaller movements, the way this game preserves momentum overall is absolutely wonderful, and the moves flow together seamlessly.
- When the game is good and at its best, is when you replay the levels and realise just how much freedom you have in approaching and skipping all the boring janky minute platforming. The best part of the game is not playing the game, and thats honestly really telling how unpolished things feel when playing through the courses the way the level designers set up.
- The music is absolutely amazing and I get Balearic Birds from Tee Lopes to listen to on repeat.

Time Attack:

After a rather huge initial letdown in what I was expecting to be one of my favorite games this year, I decided to give the game another shot and maybe see how I can poke and prod at the momentum mechanics and potentially find any more interesting level skips.
And my god this game is absolutely cracked on time attack, there's none of the annoying features that the game has, no QTE, no bosses, no side missions for NPC's, half the issues I had with this game are GONE. All that's there is speed and momentum. Half the time I don't know if I'm breaking the game or doing shortcuts the way the developers intented, but I figured out a way to instantly get a large amount of speed, as well as scale fucking cliffs with this moveset. Plus the game doesn't have (none that I have managed to find) invisible walls, if you can manage it, you're free to do it. World's Edge is just unreal to play now. You can skip all the annoying puzzles, most of the annoying powerups, the annoying platforming, you're going mach speed through it all. Quite honestly I feel the same like that first time when I experienced the reveal in The Witness, or discovered some crazy shit in Outer Wilds, a whole nother game inside a game. Once you figure out the skips the levels are more interesting, more challenging, and they really push the momentum engine to it's limits. This is the real game, not whatever Story Mode is trying to do.

Unfortunately the game is still glitchy and inconsistent, the ledge grab is extremely picky with what ledges it'll attach to, I constantly get stuck on wierd geometry that screw up a run. You can jump on the small red lights on the walls in Zaphara and Penny will go crazy, I even got her to run on walls, I couldn't really replicate the glitch again, but I managed to get a nice view of the level. It's not perfect, but the way to enjoy this game to its fullest is go nuts on Time Attack after rushing through the Story Mode. And that's how I upped this from 3 to 4 stars.

I knew from watching 10 seconds of this game I would love it.
Interesting climbing and platforming mechanics with a lot of depth, risk and reward gameplay, paired with a 19th century scottish setting.

I can't recommend it for anyone that gets motion sick, struggles with mastering movement mechanics, or has acrophobia.

If you don't have to worry about any of those points, then I can highly recommend it because this was a charming, sometimes frustrating, sometimes relaxing but a very engaging time.

The game slowly introduces basic mechanics and various types of obstacles to you, only to ramp them up steadily in difficulty as it progresses. You have to climb everything in one go, your entire progress is at stake, if you fall, and don't manage to grab onto anything or aren't tethered to your limited usages of rope, it's over.

You'll find yourself wrestling not with the controls, not with a sense of direction, but with your own wits and mind as your heart jumps out of your chest when you realise how far high up you are, and how much progress you risk losing doing even the most simple jumps.

In terms of climbing games, unlike Getting Over It, which relies on short difficult challanges and purposefully unintuitive controls that threaten to reset you back to the beginning, Peaks of Yore's climbing is a lot more consistent, and has you on edge all the time with every climb.

What it does gracefully upon failure is instead of leaving you with a sense of sheer rage-inducing frustration, it actually boosts your confidence in the climb.

As you do courses you struggle with, you'll look for shortcuts, you'll use less ropes to keep yourself from falling, you'll soar over sections that you previously struggled with and you'll gain more faith in your ability to get to the top with each repetition, until you somehow find yourself at the peak. Thats when Peaks of Yore is at its best.