Hat Kid's bodycount is at least in the hundreds.
You know its funny, I look over my notes and I see a lot more negative then positive comments. Yet when I reread them they were mostly very menial complaints. Character mouths don't animate, text crops out text bubbles sometimes, models clipping into each other is frequent, there was some awkward collision here or there; man who cares? It's an ambitious indie project by a small team, not made by some titanic monolith of a company.
Not to say I don't have genuine complaints, nor does that mean the ones previously mentioned can't affect others enjoyment, but moving in this game, as well as the game itself, is fun. That's nothing new, yet it takes full advantage of its movement. There's a variety of highly-explorative levels and creative linear obstacle courses. Platforming is not especially challenging since you can cancel out of your dive whenever, and you also have a generous double jump. Having a platforming moveset where you have near full control of your aerial positioning gives a very zen feeling to movement. At most, you'll have to time dive cancels to not bump off walls, yet the dive cancel also provides a slight upwards boost and you can use this to act as a (tiny) triple jump. The DLC does give a lot of challenges with difficult restrictions on existing missions, but I was strangely not enticed by them. I'm trying to be better about not exhausting myself when playing games. I don't need to fully complete a game to give my final thoughts on it (FYI, I got 50/56 time pieces. Didn't go for a lot of time rifts). And when I started to struggle with Snatcher's Challenges, I made the decision to not push myself and potentially taint my impressions on this game that is trying its damnest throughout this whole time to make the player smile.
The game wants to elicited joy and laughter in the player. So many gags both obvious and hidden. Many moments of "Oh, they thought of that" that'll catch you off guard. A main character whose a selfish brat, but rarely does bad for no reason (I do push the mafias off the cliffs all the time admittedly). You have an insane amount of cosmetics, both for color schemes and alternative hat models for all six of your main hats; so everyone's Hat Kid will be unique. On PC, mods are pushed to the forefront. They absolutely want you to experience what the community has created for this game, which is a very wholesome attitude honestly. Oh, and nearly every mission has its own unique illustration, which is just brimming with character.
I don't know, it's hard for me to be cynical on A Hat In Time. I guess in terms of things that were hard to ignore, the voice acting is rough... well some of it. The voice direction on some characters push the boundaries from charming to annoying. But even with the characters that it does happen with, there are times where they're just fine, so it's more of a consistency issue. The hookshot being exclusive to a equippable badge, which you only have three slots for, gets old quick. It doesn't kill my flow playing this game as I have to pause and keep swapping badges, rather halts the fun more then I'd like. It's like kicking the ball out of bounds, your mindset is out of the game as you have to go get the ball yourself. And I guess I'd prefer more movement based hats. The sprinter is fun not just to move way faster but to also leap across wide gaps. Nothing else gives this kind of extension to your movement; maybe the ice hat with its ground pound but I'd also would want that ability on command whenever, like my ideal hookshot.
Despite all that, A Hat In Time excels in creativity. Almost every seemingly tropey level has a unique spin. I feel no world, including the DLC, felt like filler. This game really should be experienced by all who enjoy a good 3D platformer.
Confession: I enjoyed Arctic Cruise more then Nyakuza Metro....
You know its funny, I look over my notes and I see a lot more negative then positive comments. Yet when I reread them they were mostly very menial complaints. Character mouths don't animate, text crops out text bubbles sometimes, models clipping into each other is frequent, there was some awkward collision here or there; man who cares? It's an ambitious indie project by a small team, not made by some titanic monolith of a company.
Not to say I don't have genuine complaints, nor does that mean the ones previously mentioned can't affect others enjoyment, but moving in this game, as well as the game itself, is fun. That's nothing new, yet it takes full advantage of its movement. There's a variety of highly-explorative levels and creative linear obstacle courses. Platforming is not especially challenging since you can cancel out of your dive whenever, and you also have a generous double jump. Having a platforming moveset where you have near full control of your aerial positioning gives a very zen feeling to movement. At most, you'll have to time dive cancels to not bump off walls, yet the dive cancel also provides a slight upwards boost and you can use this to act as a (tiny) triple jump. The DLC does give a lot of challenges with difficult restrictions on existing missions, but I was strangely not enticed by them. I'm trying to be better about not exhausting myself when playing games. I don't need to fully complete a game to give my final thoughts on it (FYI, I got 50/56 time pieces. Didn't go for a lot of time rifts). And when I started to struggle with Snatcher's Challenges, I made the decision to not push myself and potentially taint my impressions on this game that is trying its damnest throughout this whole time to make the player smile.
The game wants to elicited joy and laughter in the player. So many gags both obvious and hidden. Many moments of "Oh, they thought of that" that'll catch you off guard. A main character whose a selfish brat, but rarely does bad for no reason (I do push the mafias off the cliffs all the time admittedly). You have an insane amount of cosmetics, both for color schemes and alternative hat models for all six of your main hats; so everyone's Hat Kid will be unique. On PC, mods are pushed to the forefront. They absolutely want you to experience what the community has created for this game, which is a very wholesome attitude honestly. Oh, and nearly every mission has its own unique illustration, which is just brimming with character.
I don't know, it's hard for me to be cynical on A Hat In Time. I guess in terms of things that were hard to ignore, the voice acting is rough... well some of it. The voice direction on some characters push the boundaries from charming to annoying. But even with the characters that it does happen with, there are times where they're just fine, so it's more of a consistency issue. The hookshot being exclusive to a equippable badge, which you only have three slots for, gets old quick. It doesn't kill my flow playing this game as I have to pause and keep swapping badges, rather halts the fun more then I'd like. It's like kicking the ball out of bounds, your mindset is out of the game as you have to go get the ball yourself. And I guess I'd prefer more movement based hats. The sprinter is fun not just to move way faster but to also leap across wide gaps. Nothing else gives this kind of extension to your movement; maybe the ice hat with its ground pound but I'd also would want that ability on command whenever, like my ideal hookshot.
Despite all that, A Hat In Time excels in creativity. Almost every seemingly tropey level has a unique spin. I feel no world, including the DLC, felt like filler. This game really should be experienced by all who enjoy a good 3D platformer.
Confession: I enjoyed Arctic Cruise more then Nyakuza Metro....