Suggested by @Drax for this list.

A while back I did a review of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. I specifically pointed out that one level featured no jumping, which I said was ridiculous for a 3D Platformer. Removing jumping in a game focused on 3D movement is a bold choice. Jumping is the players main and usually only way to interact with the Z-Axis in a 3D Platformer. Removing that interaction is a decision that the developers of Ty made rather flippantly.

By comparison, Snake Pass feels much more deliberate. In a genre about moving around in 3D spaces, the simple act of moving forward can take some conscious effort. In the game, ground movement is fastest when you move in a zigzag pattern as opposed to simply moving forward. While not hard, it’s certainly more conscious to wiggle the control stick back and forth rather than just push forward. This mirrors real life, as many snakes themselves move in this zigzag pattern. This philosophy applies to the whole game, with the important note that it’s still a fantastical setting. Snakes can’t jump. They can do quick attacks that may look like jumps, but there’s nothing to attack in this game. The most vertical distance you can gain in this game is raising your head a small amount. As such, all platforming is done by climbing things. Wrapping around protruding surfaces and using them as foundation for more movement, extending from a platform to get a collectible or maybe take a slither of faith hoping you land on another nearby platform. Your other tools aside from slithering and lifting your head are a button to hold your grip and a bird friend that will lift your tail. That last one may sound a little overpowered, but the bird can lift only the tail, and it also results in no counterweight to the head when you’re dangling off of a pole or the like. It’s all fairly simple, but it allows for a decent amount of varied platforming and a little nuance. It’s almost puzzle-like in how it works, as often there’s multiple ways to tackle a challenge, but experimentation can find one particular way that works really well.

One interesting element of the level design is that the complexity of platforms actually decreased as the game went on. Earlier on, there were wooden structures with several protrusions one could use to pull themselves up with, but by the end, platforms had much less support. This isn’t to say the level design became lazy, it was consistently solid throughout. The game has a linear progression of levels, but the levels themselves are non-linear, and you can collect the three gems needed to proceed in any order. The first set of levels is pretty tame, which makes sense considering how unconventional this game is, but in due time you’re dealing with more and more moving platforms and diagonal structures. I was worried early on that the checkpoint system would create issues. It’s basic, with no lives and the simple system of respawning at the last checkpoint and losing all item progress. Generally I’m fine with this ’’’’outdated’’’’ system, but considering this game is all-or-nothing in terms of health and a movement system that could make excessive backtracking annoying, I was kinda worried. However, the game thankfully positions checkpoint near the most challenging segments, optional or not.

While I think the level design is good, it definitely feels a little monotonous to an extent. While the latter three worlds do feature at least one main mixup, the implementation of these is mixed. This game features some pretty solid sections in the water level, for example. However, the third world just introduces lava, which doesn’t really do anything the previous established threats of pits and spikes couldn’t. The last world’s gimmick is by far the most consistently present, being wind. It requires you to be very careful in many cases, but in others it allows for more speed and freedom than ever before. While we’re on problems, there’s these switches that you have to pull to activate platforms and the like. While pulling these switches with your snake body is initially novel, the utilization of these switches remain the same from start to end. More could’ve been done to add more unique environmental interaction here.

The problem of monotonous theming extends to the visuals as well. The game’s world are themed around grass, water, fire, and air. Already this is pretty underwhelming, but the individual worlds just look very similar. The most stark difference are just lighting and skybox changes. This comes with the tradeoff of very polished visuals. The wider game has a jungle ruins theme, and it’s all very bright and colorful. However I still feel the lack of visual variety is worth mentioning. We have some great music here though. That’s because the composer was David Wise, known for the first two Donkey Kong Country games, composed for this game too. I’m not sure if his soundtrack here is as strong as those two, but it’s great regardless. It fits the tone and theme of the game and is just generally very good.

This is probably one of the shorter reviews that I’ve done for this list, but Snake Pass is a pretty simple game. It knows exactly what it is and doesn’t bog itself down with unnecessary fluff. No combat, No pointless diversion, and little story. However, it’s also a very novel game throughout its short length. In that spirit of brevity, I’m gonna end it here. This was a very good game, and one of the better 3D Platformers I’ve played. 7/10, honestly close to an 8.