Been sitting on writing this for a while, over a month now I think. I beat the game with such mixed thoughts that I'm unsure how exactly to formulate them. Its such an uneven yet captivating experience that I don't really know how to approach it.

I'll say this, right off the bat: The game is fun. It has fun characters, it had fun and easy to understand controls, it has fun music: If you want a fun game to relax to, then the game is 100% going to deliver. It oozes charm and you can tell the developers loved piecing it together. But while I can obviously commend the developers' devotion to having fun, the game simultaneously doesn't feel very elegantly thought through. It takes aspects from a variety of different games, old and new, and just kind of...lets them clash. Let me try to explain.

A level like Mafia Town, where you're dropped into, feels taken straight out of a sequel to Mario 64. It feels like the game wants you to snoop around, look for secrets, approach the game in whatever pace you want, like the collectathons of old or even Yooka-Laylee. Yet the game's structure feels like Mario Galaxy through and through. You have one objective, you're shown how to approach it, and you go do it. Point being, there's typically so little reason to explore and yet the game's design, half the time, seems to encourage it above all else.

And yet that isn't even consistent with itself: Dead Bird Studios feels taken straight out of Galaxy 2 with very focused, self-contained missions, and then Subcon Forest right after it feels even MORE open and even MORE aimless than Mafia Town did. Its as if each of the 4 worlds were taken from different games altogether and, playable character aside, are only really loosely connected by the similar sense of humor and writing they have.

Adding onto this confusion, there's stuff like the Hookshot Badge or Time Stop Hat, aping the Mario 64 caps that gate your progression until you obtain them. I already dislike that system in Mario 64 but it at least makes sense: You have an open-ended structure, so by exploring levels you find "keys" to "open" new missions, rewarding you for exploring with things beyond Stars or 100-coin challenges. With A Hat in Time, again, a structurally, seemingly 'linear' game, now asking you to go explore to progress, it feels at odds with itself.

It all feels very...uneven, is what I'm trying to get at. The level quality almost seems to match this as well: Subcon Forest is more or less thoroughly terrible, and then its boss is the best part of the game. Dead Bird Studio is sometimes fantastically paced and laid out, and sometimes just confusing and lacking much of any substance to its challenges.

I know people toss around the term "Style over Substance" a lot as a negative thing, but I feel like this game is one of the cases where I'll try to use it as a compliment. Sure the game has substance, but its messy: Its style and presentation, on the other hand, is sublime. So even when playing through levels that, substance-wise, are mundane (Vanessa's Manor, Picture Perfect, Mafia Town in general), sometimes it feels worth it because its dialogue and sense of humor keeps pushing you forward. Even when the gameplay is mediocre, the game stays fun.

And to reiterate: The base controls are still fun. Despite lacking most of the charm I just mentioned above, the Time Rifts are usually fun regardless due to just being brief, well paced, and infrequent enough to not override the core game's experience. Its in levels like Alpine Skyline, where story and dialogue takes a total backseat to pure gameplay that lasts longer than its able to sustain, where things were most mixed for me. With nothing to hide its design flaws behind, a lot of this level's content felt confusing, mundane and boring. Twilight Bell especially sucks.

Despite earlier praise, there were a lot of aspects of the core controls and gameplay I still found to be really disappointing. Sprint Hat aside the Hats were all really underwhelming, again feeling more like "keys" to "doors" than they did substantial gameplay alterations. I'm not asking for something like Mega Man ZX, where each form has its own strengths and weaknesses, its own tech, its own unique moves and animations and so on, but I was at the least hoping to want to switch to the other hats willingly more often. Really, all it boiled down to was using the Sprint Hat at all times and using the others when the game "required" me to (again: "Keys", like Mario 64 caps).

I feel similarly about the Badges in that most of them don't offer much of anything worth purchasing them for, I mostly just bought them for the hell of it. And when that's the case, the currency kind of loses its meaning, which in turn made exploring the levels lose most if not all of their meaning aside from stitching Hats, which I remind, I only did because the game flat-out requires them rather than because I wanted to.

I hope you're beginning to understand why, despite wanting to love it, I came away from the game feeling extremely befuddled. The baffling 30FPS on consoles and numerous technical issues (clipped through the floor on the final level) didn't exactly help either.

Though I want to clarify that these kinds of, laid-back platformers aren't really my cup of tea to begin with. I enjoy arcadeyness and challenge first and foremost, with Mario Galaxy really being the only exception, mainly due to its very specific brand of atmosphere.

"Atmosphere" isn't exactly what I'd say A Hat in Time has either, and despite its overall "story" feeling extremely half-baked it at least has character in spades. I love all the voice acting, the tone of the humor feels perfect for the game, and the music ties it all together very well. And its not like its ever really "annoying" to get through to see all these great bits, either. The game is really easy all around due to its forgiving yet satisfying controls and the checkpointing feeling so generous it makes me wonder why Hat Kid even has hit points at all. The only times you'll probably ever have issues will be due to the occasionally confusing structure, like trying to figure out where to find the Hookshot or...really where the hell to go in Subcon Forest to begin with (Can you tell I really don't like Subcon Forest at all?)

A Hat in Time is both a comfy, easy-to-love game, and a game that's annoying, unfocused, unchallenging and at times mundane and unfulfilling to play, often feeling like its at odds with itself in what it wants to be. Yet putting up with all of those aspects is worth it for the warmth of its heart.

[Playtime: 40ish Hours]
[Key Word: Endeavour]