Gaming: Big Hops Is A Charming Platformer With Some Great Movement And A...
I wouldn't call myself a big platformer buff, per se, but I do like to partake on occasion—I simply cannot resist the allure of kicking back with a controller and collecting something. I've especially become a fan of the wave of indie platformers that've cropped up as a mainstay of PC Gaming: Games like A Hat in Time, which distil the essence of 'do movement tech until you've got a hundred gubbins' until it's basically dopamine moonshine.
From the hour and change I've played Big Hops looks to be joining that proud tradition. Developed by Luckshot Games, Big Hops sees you playing as Hop. Who, contrary to the game's title, is just a little guy—perhaps the littlest guy to have ever done it.
It's a cute setup for a collectathon: Getting split off from your sister, Hop finds a temple with some mysterious frog statues that promise they're super cool, actually. 'Just collect some cursed orbs for us, c'maaahn', they say. 'Is this a setup for a world-spanning adventure?' I ask. 'Maybe,' they reply.
Alright, they didn't actually say any of that—what they did do was suck me into a big portal to be introduced to the game's antagonist-come-taskmaster, Diss, who wants me to collect them some drip. Not the clothing, but the void-goo that's your bog-standard collectible for the game's runtime.
Get enough, and you grab a trinket—think charms in Hollow Knight. At the start you can have two equipped at a time, and they fiddle with your gameplay in a variety of ways. I got offered a choice between two: One let me attack coins with my tongue, the other made my belly-slides produce less friction.
My avarice knows no bounds and will one day send me straight to the gates of hell, so I picked the coin tongue, and was delighted to find the game let me choose a place to pin it on my silly little backpack, which almost made me feel better about the whole hell thing.
What's really stuck with me so far is the fluidity of movement. From a control perspective, Big Hops is a tightly-designed game. You've got a jump and an air-dash that combos into a slide, which you can chain together with consecutive jump-dashes and rolls to build momentum. You've got your tongue, which is essentially just a grappling hook—and lastly, you've got your Breath of the Wild-style climbing system, complete with a lilypad-shaped stamina clock.
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You've also got items that you can store and throw to mix thin
Source: PC Gamer
