Positives:

- Interesting innovation on the Platforming genre that controls well.
- Very characteristic and a beautiful game all around.
- There are enough checkpoints to reduce the frustration from failure.

Negatives:
- The novelty wears off too quickly, with little changes made to keep it appealing.
- Levels become very, very long and just drag on as a result.
- Minor camera issues.

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Snake Pass is an incredibly tough game for me to review because I am very mixed on it. On one hand I want to recommend it for the innovation it brought to the genre, and on the other hand, I want it to stay the hell away from me. That is a slight overexaggeration of course, but it's not too far from the truth. But let me begin by going into detail on what I like about Snake Pass.

Snake Pass is a charming platformer where one key feature is missing: jumping. Instead, you're a snake who gets higher up the stage by wriggling and coiling around wooden poles. Noodle is a long snake, so it is important that his entire body makes the movement to push him forward. This results in a physics-based game, and I can say that the controls are pretty good. The camera can sometimes be a hindrance though, but it happened only a select amount of times for me. Of course, it still revolves around physics which usually leads to frustration, and Snake Pass is no exception to that. The game gradually becomes harder, and deaths are becoming more and more frequent. Fortunately checkpoints are usually nearby more difficult sections so the reset is pretty much imminent.

But me throwing my controller through the room out of frustration is not the reason I partially dislike this game. That reason is simply because the novelty wears off really quickly. Pole climbing is the entire game, and it barely ever changes from that. Sure, it becomes more difficult, but a lot of it is still pole climbing. The only changes to the gameplay are some switches to use and a few stage hazards, and that's it. Is that an issue when the pole climbing itself is good? Not necessarily, but the levels themselves really begin to drag on the further into the game you are. They become very long, frustrating, and just very sameish. While the first few levels were all very fun because this idea was fresh and new, the later levels just weren't fun to go through. And we are talking about 3 to 4 hours of content here, not necessarily including completion. And besides, Noodle is just a very slow character to control, even when constantly wriggling to increase speed. If the gameplay evolved then I probably would have liked this game a lot more, but now? I can recommend it for two hours and that's it. But recommending a 20 euro game for 2 hours doesn't exactly sound ideal so I hate to say it but I'm sorry. I would love to recommend this for the concept alone, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend people to go out and buy it.

Mechanically, innovative and unique. It is a good experimental study on movement-centered gameplay (comparable to Grow Home), having to weave and secure yourself around poles to move around effectively.

It's good to see innovation! And I don't necessarily think this game is a bad game. But I don't think it's fun to play. The gameplay loop of the movement is kind of repetitive and isn't particularly engaging. There's not much else in the game but the movement. It's much more important to be able to turn that newfound innovation into something fun.

A platformer without jumping sounds like a painfully quirky concept, but Snake Pass actually pulls it off. Skillfully navigating an environment with the limited toolset of a snake provides for compelling gameplay, and you'll find yourself strangling your controller as you try to maintain your grip on each ledge. There's also a surprising amount of nuance to basic movement, and learning ways to efficiently navigate is an oddly rewarding experience. That's about the only string to the game's bow though, for better and worse. It's nicely focused, but if it starts frustrating you, there's nothing else to keep you playing. If the uniqueness of it all catches your eye then it won't disappoint, but you're not missing much otherwise.

i love noodle ssso much🐍 he’s ssso cute ☺️ i need a plush of him immediately. the 8 bit version of him is cute too. i love messing with his funny facesss lol im glad they made him cartoony and not too realistic looking its more fun :)
and i love that he’s a vegetarian even though he's a dangerous venomous snake lmao

i have just two words for people who find this game too difficult:
• git
• gud
lol idk i think i have a sssnake brain because this game just came sssso naturally to me lol it gave me what i never knew i needed from platforming. its weird it hadnt been made decades ago…
i love how nonlinear the gameplay is. theres no one way to finish a level and theres no one way to navigate all the obstacles.
i kept thinking the game was getting easier but it was just because i kept doing the difficult side challenges first lol
i slipped on ice and ripped up my knuckle making holding a controller a pain along with cat scratches on my other finger and i still had a great time lmao
it’s hilarious watching negative review videos of this game and people are whining about something being hard or whatever and i can literally see in my head the controller and the buttons this person is not pressing to get through something and its always because theyre not interested in learning how to play. theyre not patiently or carefully slithering around the very helpful poles given to them because they want to run and jump and not slither.
the gameplay is great yall just suck at it lol like sorry i enjoy learning a fun new type of gameplay and i dont just play dumb indistinguishable murder simulators or mediocre pokemon sequels or whatever. if youre not into platformers then okay thats fair. but like idk how anyone who enjoys platformers would not enjoy this if they give it a chance and embrace it for what it is? whatever. their loss lol

my only major issue (and tbh its sort of just a minor issue) with the game was the scenery. i love the jungle temple setting but its got just a little too much detail with the plants & decorative temple shit that the camera gets stuck on or it has plants and stones that cover the camera. and swimming underwater is hard to see with all the seaweed and stone blocks everywhere.
also doodle the hummingbird was annoying af always flying in front of the camera i just wanted to violently swat it away. using doodle for help is sorta of like bumpers in bowling. like most often i could do the whole levels without doodle and i just used it out of laziness at times wanting to climb up faster because it was offered lol but like as a last second savior i didnt really need it because this game just came very naturally to me. but i wish it was a dragonfly (even if thats kind of copying sparx the dragonfly from spyro lol) but like i just wanted something smaller and less intrusive on the camera. its even worse when you switch to the 8 bit cosmetic skins and its just a big block in front of the screen -_-
there was a moment where i got a collectable only because i cheated and climbed up a decorative statue that i shouldnt have been able to climb on . if the setting was designed with a little less decorations it wouldnt have been a problem. theres nothing wrong with a little editing guys. the primary appeal here is the gameplay you dont need to do so much to sell it with the art design...
also the decorative floating islands you cant get to needed a different design to better show that theyre not meant to be accessible. they have skull warning signs on them but its not enough because i dont always see them and sometimes end up wasting a minute trying to figure out how to get to a decorative island thats not supposed to be accessible so it makes it confusing where ive been and where i need to go. and theres tops of structures with nothing on them and im like ? why is this here? idk some of it may be a place they put the fruit in arcade mode? i didnt play that too much really tho so i wouldnt know. like its fine tho thats just nitpick it didnt ruin the game.

the checkpoint system was a tiny issue when i forgot what stuff id collected and id think id gotten something then turns out i died during that life lol some of my post game 100% completion task to finish it was just re-collecting stuff id already gotten but forgot to recollect after dying. but it wasnt like bad and only happened a few times. i guess it just should have always saved the collectables whenever youre fully on a flat grass area and leave the checkpoint respawn stones only for a place to go after you die. thats just another little nitpick tho its nothing that frustrating really lol and it only matters if youre a weirdo completionist like me. if youve done all the challenges you care to do and dont care to 100% the game it doesnt matter.
the game works best if you go through all the levels first just focusing on the keystones then do the bubble and coin collectables in the post game for more challenges.

the intro is kinda weird having noodle already on these floating islands? its an odd start like do they live there? lol
like it doesnt matter really. its not a flaw and im not asking for a story to this game (cringe) because thats not the appeal here. but a little cutscene of noodle and doodle arriving at a portal that teleports them up to the floating islands wouldve made more sense to me. but i guess since noodle is a vegetarian he doesnt need to hunt animals if he lives on the floating islands lol whatever.

the 4 elements theme to the 4 worlds is cute. the names of the gods of each world are funny :p
i wish theyd utilized the elements more for each world because its sorta just art design and doesnt affect the gameplay very much.

i like that theres no villians or dumb boss fights or conflicts of any kind. its just lighthearted platforming fun :) it makes the challenges more relaxed. theres no dumb timers or anything to stress you out.

the soundtrack was done by the guy that did the donkey kong country soundtracks so of course thats a plus. i love the water world music. its so groovy and chill :P

the last level had several glitches where id die while sitting idle on grass ? or the hummingbird would throw me off a cliff instead of transporting me to another platform? it fixed itself when i reloaded the level but still it was odd…

i like that the game gives you the sssssuper ssssspecial sssssnake vision post game to find missing collectables easier so you never have to look up anything online. i hate when a game requires or inspires outside help to complete it. a game should always make it clear what you have to do within the game itself. it should always be a self contained experience.

the arcade mode and time trial modes are kinda boring to me. i never understood the appeal of speed running? whatever. happy for ppl who enjoy that but idgaf.

i waited 2 years to buy this on sale and ended up only paying $1.50 for it because of the sale and an added discount from buying other eshop games lmao but i wouldve gladly bought it full price.

so yea this was definitely one of my top favorite gamesss :)
as cynthia harrell would say in beginning of the theme song to metal gear solid 3 sssnake eater:
"what a thrill..."
🐍
✌🏻

червь в моей жопе такой

идея и механика змейки мне понравились, а техническая сторона люто отбивает в эту хуйню играть. управляется при лазании змейка хорошо, скилл нужен, честная игра в этом плане, а передвижение так заебывает, аж палец болел из стороны в сторону передвигать змейку

сраная помойка, в которой, я насмерть застрял уже два раза, выбраться нельзя и сука загрузиться с чекпоинта в меню тоже (поэтому разрабы тебя заставляют суициднуться в пропасть нахуй, если тебе нужен новый трай с ласт чекпоинта), только начать фулл СНА ЧА ЛА сраного лвла , а на уровне я собрал уже много душного дерьма, ну ладно пусть пропадут все предметы к хуям, ок, штош, увы

еще я решил зачем-то собирать все предметы на каждом уровне, ужасное решение для этой игры от меня, потому что я потратил аж 15 часов на нее. ребят, лучше возьмите и по фастику пробегите уровни и соберите то, что хотите, а 100% предметов на уровне вам испортят все, скорее всего, вот так я сам себя и задушил

был такой баг один раз еще: началась какая-то типа катсцена, и она будто остановилась на определенном месте, мол скрипт не сработал и дальше что-то не запустилось, игра не зависла, все норм, а в меню зайти нельзя, на управление не реагирует, ничего сделать нельзя и весь твой прогресс в мусорку, и конечно, нужно только убивать процесс игры. вот бы можно было начать с последнего актуального чекпоинта при перезаходе в игру, вопросов бы не было

(эти суки еще, конечно, не дают тебе скипнуть титры в их замечательной игре)