Ok enough of those spacy shootemups and bunny brawlers. Its time to sit back and relax a little. This type of game I grew up with and I feel quite at home with. I might be to old to play this game at this point. I can never ever drop playing platforming games though. Some of the greatest memories of my childhood was climbing things . Jumping to the highest point into a level and looking down. I don't know platformers amazed me when I was young. Does this game measure up? Does it feel like a classic 3d platformer? There has been a serious resurgence of 2d and 3d platformers from indie games to yooka lay-lee and of course super mario odyssey. Where does this game fit in that bunch?

A Hat in Time

This game has a lot of charm. It has a lot of spirit. It brings a lot of what made the old platformers so great and modernizes it in some ways. How does it stack up??

Platforming

The most fundamental part of a platforming game. This game is chock full of it. Atleast the first level has a ton. You can climb up anything in this city. It kind of reminds me of another game where you are on a island and you have to remove paint from things from a few years back. The area has so much to do. You only do the game in portions but you can always come back and explore every nook and cranny. There are doors with symbols that I cannot do anything with nor can I go and jump on those balloons out there flying around. I have yet to go into the buildings and scale all of the buildings as well. I am sure they are climbable. There is a lot of jumping to be had here. Also they are releasing 2 more levels and a level editor so I am sure that in the future so look forward to that.

Just look at the design of the first level.

Powerups

HatGirl with her hat and a couple of badges.


Another mark of quality in platforming games is the abilities and tools that you get in a game to traverse the world. The powerups you get in this game come from two categories. Hats-Badges Both Hats and Badges give you unique abilities to change up the playstyle a little bit. You only have 3 slots from what I see for badges. Hats only one. It be silly anyways to have more than one. In the above picture the hat that is shown tells players where to go for the next step of their journey. I do not agree with this mechanic. And the badges allow HatGirl to run and to float in air after making long jumps a thing. I am sure there is more to this part but I have not gotten to far in this game to see anymore. This is all I know!

Collectathoning

Some people like it, some hate it. With collectables it is usually a mixed bag of opinions. I personally loved it back then. Going to every level in mario 64 and getting every star and coin. Same with Banjo Kazooie and other platformers. I personally do not know if I can do it this time. There are 100s of those gems in a level and to go get em all. I am to old for this....... There is so much stuff to collect. Lets see we have time pieces which is the Star or Jiggy to this game. You have gems that you can use to trade for things or get hats or upgrades to badges and even secret badges. There is also these vault tickets that you use on a safe in a level with a random reward. I have not come across the safe in the game yet.
This game succeeds greatly off of collectibles. I might not have the energy to collect all of these things. But for where I stop collecting things I am sure others will dive right in.

Other Qualities of this game.

So the level design is grand. Once you go to a level you want to jump on everything. The worlds are sprawling with things to do. They all have different atmospheres and you will be surprised on what you see next. I think this game is really ambitious Yooka could of learned a thing or two from this game. Hopefully mario shines as bright as this one. The music design of the game has a little bit of everything. You will hear metal when you fight bosses. You will hear a very different song for each thing you are going through in the game. Difficulty its pretty easy not to difficult but the 1st boss destroyed me a few times. Characters and animations. Another area where this game puts itself on the highest shelf. Hatgirl reacts to things going on around her and she has funny dialogue with npcs. You let the game play itself and she will start twirling around the umbrella she has equipped. All in all this is a great game thus far. I have only done 6 Time pieces and I am remembering my childhood with every jump.
I would give it a 9/10

Also I will be putting out a video of me playing on dtube probably later on today!
Till then here is a gameplay video for your eyes to feast on.

Sources: Gears for breakfast
Hope you enjoyed the article culater @sinned