Penny's Big Breakaway

I REALLY tried to beat this game but I had to quit after getting really frustrated at the puppet penny fight. I was super excited for this game to launch but trying to beat it has been such a slog that I have to throw in a towel. A lot of ideas in this game seem good on paper but the execution feels half-baked.

This game cant decide whether it wants to be a precision 3D platformer or a slick movement based platformer. While you can very easily chain moves into each other, and even combo infinitely, it is really easy to lose momentum even during these combos which made a lot what could make the movement fun in the more linear parts of the levels feel stilted.

It feels incredibly awkward at times in a way that's hard to put into words. I've seen a lot of people praise the movement in this game for how "slick" it is, or how it "flows" but it just doesn't click for me.

For the more precise platforming required for some of the objectives or for the challenge sections that you unlock using the collectibles, the camera and the controls feel like they are actively working against you. In my thousands of hours of gaming, including VR games, this is the basically only game that has ever made me feel nauseous and motion sick.

While the levels are brilliantly designed and gorgeous (which goes for the whole game, the game is the best looking platformer since celeste 6 years ago) the flat shading and fixed camera make incredibly hard to gauge your position relative to the rest of the level, the lack of depth of field between objects have gotten me killed so many times.

This game also has so much jank its insane. Normally that's not particularly an issue for me, because I love games that have way more jank. But here it definitely detracts from the overall experience.

The animations for the little minigame at the end of each level are frankly really weird (and penny's model, while very nice from a distance, doesn't exactly look amazing close up), and the minigame itself adds pretty much nothing to the game.

The boss fights feel tacked on and don't really challenge the player or add any meaningful twists on the gameplay. The powerups should add depth to the game but ultimately don't add much. I encountered at least 6 or 7 different powerups and I didn't even beat the game, yet I couldn't tell you what any of them did beyond the ones in the level that I just got done playing. It's a weird contrast because the levels themselves are great and every region feels very fresh and distinct from one another.

I've clipped through walls and the floor a few dozen times, and also have found a handful of clips I could very easily recreate. I understand stopping clipping is hard to do as a developer, and I don't want to imply that they're bad at their job or anything, but it's pretty shocking how many times it happened to me in the course of normal gameplay and how it didn't get caught in development.

I really did want to like this game but man at every corner there's just so much friction that hardly feels intentional. If you catch the game during a sale, and it seems like you're kinda thing, I guess I can still recommend it, but with some heavy asterisks involved.

For a long time, Sonic fans have long wondered why SEGA didn’t do the obvious thing and commission Sonic Mania 2 from its developers. Turns out, they did try to. However, the Mania developers decided they didn’t want to retread old ground by making a 2D Sonic game, and decided to take a bold, creative risk. I really want to applaud the developers for trying to make a fresh, new take on a 3D platformer that’s momentum based and also puts the emphasis on character movement. But I really can’t in good conscience recommend this game to anyone but the biggest fans of speedrunning, momentum-based games, pre-analog camera control platformers, and Sonic.

A big break of traditional game design Penny’s Big Breakaway does is breaking away from using the second stick as camera control. Instead, you use the stick to control Penny’s Yo-Yo. On paper, this should give you way more freedom of movement than just double-jumping or dashing or spinning via contextual or different button controls: for instance, you can quickly dash in a direction that’s not the one your left stick is heading towards, allowing you some handy emergency clutches. It’s basically a super-powered version of the advanced cap-jump trick you can do in Mario Odyssey, promoted to a main starring role.

However, it’s also that removal of camera control that screws up the hypothetical elegance of this new movement system. The camera automatically changes viewpoint in order to show what’s ahead. Again, on paper, it’s not bad (it makes hunting for collectible an actual challenge of reading the road in front of you ahead and anticipate where possible path deviations might lie). But your constantly changing viewpoint that’s out of your control makes it very hard to accurately move both sticks in the direction you want them to go.

These things make for a very steep difficulty curve, that will ensure that most players will not nail these gameplay mechanics by the time the credits roll. I’ve had a nice time of reaching 80% item completion on my first runthrough, but I definitely struggled in the later levels to keep a nice flow going. It was a harsh reminder that playing fast, momentum-based games like Sonic elegantly is a skill that takes a long time to master, and I do not fault most players to give up before that point. However, it’s unfortunate that Penny’s Big Breakaway lacks the precision itself to make the road to mastery a great experience for those who do want to engage in the challenge. Lots of people have already commented on the bugs which can seriously screw up your game flow, but even beyond that it lacks the clearly communicated nuance that a game like Celeste has in your movements and punishments that makes platformers like these tough but fair.

To wrap it up, I really wish I could give this game four stars. I’m a huge fan of the work of the developers, and their commitment to take the ambitious and revolutionary path, especially for what is essentially their first 3D game. I just hope that they’ll hone in on the unique potential of this game and polish it in their next project. Like Sonic the Hedgehog, whose first game showed potential that was only really realized in the sequels, Penny and Yo-Yo need to have a little more time to practice their skills in the wings.