I honestly can not remember when this game entered my library. If I had to hazard a guess, it would have been back when I was subscribed to Humble Bundle and decided "yeah this game could be fun." Unfortunately, while the themes indeed were, the game under it just fell short.
Story: This should have been a simple and uneventful trip home for Hat Kid. She had set the course and turned in for some much needed sleep while the space ship traveled along. But this was simply not to be as an alarm woke her quite rudely from her slumber. A quick look at the ship's consoles told the girl everything was fine, however, leaving her to find the cause in the form of a man tapping on the glass. Her ship had traveled over an inhabited planet, and the Mafia on this planet wanted her to pay a toll for it. Denying their rep his pay did not sit well with the man, so he busted through the glass windshield to take it and physics took care of the rest as Hat Kid and the time pieces that fuel her ship were sucked to the surface.
And that is where you are. It will be your job to play as Hat Kid and find her time pieces so the poor girl can refuel and get home, traveling across several lands in this globetrotting adventure. It is a fairly simple story, but that works very well for the game. It also works exceptionally well to showcase the other stories going on, as each land you visit has it's own issues: from the island she landed on overrun by Mafia to a haunted woods and beyond, and each one is a complete mini episode.
If you are looking for a complex story of any sort, you have come to the wrong place, but what is here works in that "Saturday morning cartoon" kind of way, so sit back, relax, and enjoy like you might have as a kid.
7/10
Graphics: And you can expect the look of the game to reflect that same morning cartoon energy the story does. The world is made of several bright and vibrant locations (yes even that haunted forest) which is simply appealing to see, if a little simplistic. Every place carries it's theme brilliantly as well, be it the island run by the Mafia where it's littered with buildings being constructed and oddly inviting and threatening at the same time restaurants (most of which mix pasta with whatever they are making), or a mountain village sparsely spaced among the clouds. It's a very pretty set of landscapes and just carries that cartoon energy.
And the characters also carry this note and style brilliantly. That mafia village is filled with big tough guys stomping around at twice Hat Kid's height, sometimes menacingly, sometimes dancing with a sign (often threatening yet humorous) or even enjoying the hell out of their life when alone (almost like they think no one is looking). Meanwhile oversized birds with angry eyes chirp and bounce around and sleepy raccoons float about till their balloon pops and they fall to the ground (usually aimed at you). It's an almost innocent look that permeated the cartoons kids watched in the late 80s/early 90s. Then you add in Hat Kid herself to complete the deal.
Hat Kid is a little girl who's about as expressive as remotely possible, whether that's sticking her tongue out at a potential enemy, grinning from ear to ear after saving an old man from being beaten up, or even a nervous look of fear when stuck dealing with a haunted house. She comes off as a rambunctious little kid the likes of which were popular in cartoons and games of a time everything seems to keep throwing back to.
Although I would be amiss if I didn't also note the other obvious inspiration here: 3D Mario games. If you've played anything by Nintendo since the N64 was their current system, you will see this even faster then the memories of dry cereal in front of the TV to start your weekend properly as a little tyke. In fact the moment the UI shows you your health meter, you will immediately think of the Mario titles, which also clearly have left their mark. But overall the whole picture is absolutely adorable...
It's just a shame that it does have some issues on the way due to the camera. For starters, it doesn't handle tight spaces very well letting itself get crushed against a wall easily, insisting on staying directly in line Hat Kid even when there is no room, resulting in her absolutely covering your screen when this happens. Generally it will turn her transparent to make up for it, but even this is done with a horrible dithering effect that really makes it difficult to see anyway. It really does take away from everything else and this adorable little game doesn't stand as strong as the art should let it because of things like this.
6/10
Sound: Expect the music to carry the morning cartoon feel just as much as the story and the game. Like many games today, it is orchestrated, but the tone is not some grandiose adventure. Rather, it feels like it's a note on Hat Kid herself, energetic and precocious as often as not. And yet it also goes out of it's way for the world you are in, taking mysterious tones when in the forest, or going all out when mingling with your adoring fans. Frankly the music is spot on! Maybe a bit too "video gamey" to want to hear beyond the game, but an absolute joy to hear while playing and perfect for every moment while playing.
And this feel will continue into the world's sound effects too! This entire game's motif is "cute" and the sounds only enhance this where they apply. But the real enhancement here is voice work. Surprisingly, most of this game IS voice acted, leaving Hat Kid herself as really the only silent character. From the Mafia guys who start the game right down to the last world. Every line in this game is delivered perfectly and you will quickly find favorite characters. (If you know me, you will figure out who was mine VERY shortly after meeting them.)
Overall, its a great audio space and just oozes character non-stop.
9/10
Gameplay: Sadly it's in this category that ultimately A Hat in Time fails. At it's core this is a 3rd person collect-a-thon much like you would see in the golden days of Nintendo 64, taking especially heavy influence from none other then Super Mario 64. From a 3rd person perspective you will platform your way across the various lands in your quest to collect the time-pieces so you can return home like you would have had Mafia man not broken in to try to collect a toll from you. For the most part you will find one of these pieces at the end of each level, much like the stars you collect in Nintendo's title. And also like that game, you will need to collect a number shown on the various doors of your spaceship in order to access anything behind it, including a telescope that will let you see and access another land. You even have a substitute for coins you collect along the way (gems).
However this is also one of the first places you will find the game different, in that you don't have lives to get a new one every 100 gems. Rather you will find these as a currency in the game, which will let you buy some upgrades in the form of badges. Each badge will offer you an effect or tool you can use while playing and you start only being able to equip one. However you quickly find out if you buy safety pins, you will be able to add an additional one, and you will likely want to do that. Unfortunately there are not many badges that are worth buying but the ones that are work VERY well together, so using them all at once is a real benefit. Still all of these are optional since the only badge you will absolutely need before the game is over gives you a hooked rope to swing on... and you will find it rather then buy it.
But you will actually need these gems as well, as some levels will require you to spend them to unlock them, so if you wish to optimize your play, you will likely need to watch your gem-count. If not, it's no big deal as they can be very easy to go back and collect what you need, especially from early levels.
In addition to this you will also get multiple hats as you play, each having a different power you will need access to to finish the game before you are done. You get them by collecting yarn which you will find all over the place. Each new kind will offer you the ability to create a new hat provided you can find enough yarn to do so. But again, don't worry too much about that as yarn is also fairly common and as long as one is the kind you need, you are ready to go once you have enough. When you are done you will have about 6 of them to pick from, but unfortunately most of them are really only good for specific points they are needed for while maybe one or two have a good general use. Still, they work as puzzle devices over all.
But sadly this is about all the game does really good for gameplay, because the actual platforming is just not really there. Simply put, you never feel fully in control due to how Hat Kid seems to decide on here own if she will jump off walls or try to climb them or worse where she will go when she bounces off of an enemy. Normally this isn't too bad, but there are times when you will be required to do these things with a precision just not available, so expect to die a lot to the environment.
Similarly, jumping can be tough to aim as well due to poor ways to identify where you are landing. Normally it's not bad, but the game features the ability to aim for things like clothes lines and telephone wires, which are exceptionally thin and exceptionally easy to jump off of.
And the game seems to understand it is failing this step as the checkpoints you come back to after dying are very generous, as well as offered hearts to refill your health once you get through a part that heavily requires you to make these kinds of leaps (falling to your death will cost you one of four health points rather then restart your attempt). It would have been a lot better to work on making the controls work better rather then putting a bandage on it like this, however.
But while we are talking about it's failures in control, we should also consider two seriously strange choices that are incredibly detrimental. First is the fall down mechanic. Sometimes, Hat Kid can be knocked over or fall down, and when this happens, she can't move. To get out of this, you will have to jump, and it at least seems like you need to wait a moment before you are allowed to do so. Normally this is annoying, but there are bosses that will knock you over and leave you sitting there to just take extra damage before you can do anything about it. It is a frustrating experience to put it mildly.
But to put the final touch on this game, the camera itself can also be a nightmare beyond what I mentioned in the graphics section. If you play this with a controller (and being a Mario 64 style game, I can't imagine you not wanting to do this), you will not be able to look down. I shit you not. Until you fix a setting in the camera section of the game, controller looking around will NOT let your camera look down.... at all. And it's not like that setting is obvious. It's called Top-Down Camera and you have to set it to "none." It makes no sense and it's really kinda stupid.
4/10
Bugs: Once again, we have another game that for all it's flaws actually ran flawlessly.
Digital Rights Management: The only DRM this game has in it is if you are playing the Steam copy. Here, the game will need Steam itself to run. If you are playing on the gog version, there is nothing at all (as one would expect).
Overall: I really wanted to like this game. It looked like a fun little game and had a sense of humor that permeated the game and legitimately made me smile more often then not. But the game underneath it is just not as good as it needs to be to support this and well below the standards of yesteryear it's taking it's inspirations from. The precision of the controls, despite the game demanding more from them, is just not up to that demand. And then we have some just plain strange and poor choices that get in the way of playing. The game frankly trips over itself.
Score:
System Requirements:
- Anything 3.0 Ghz or faster
- Anything that supports Direct X 9.0c
- 4 GB RAM
- Windows XP SP3/Vista/7/8/10 (64-bit only)
- 8 GB hard drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 5 5600G running at 3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 11
- PDP DX Wired Controller (Crimson)
Source: Steam
No comments:
Post a Comment