Indie devs are criminals. Should be put to death for giving away games like this for free. Such is the case for The Big Catch: The Tacklebox by developer Filet Group. Among the insane announcement flood around the Summer Games Fest, this got lost in the shuffle, even though it deserves way more attention. The Big Catch: The Tacklebox is a Dreamcast style 3D platformer where you play as a cool crow dude equipped with a fishing rod exploring a vast desert. The inspirations taken from Rayman 2 becomes instantly apparent with the way everything looks. The twisting trees, the water, the way the climbable vine texture looks. Just like its big 90s inspiration, Big Catch gives off a colorful, dream like vibe. There is really nothing like hooking on to a sand worm and surfing through the desert to your next destination. And your destinations are of course all sick platforming challenges. This is in every sense of the word: a puzzle platformer, a quite difficult one at that. The game does expect you to learn the tech and use it to its full capacity.

The closest modern example I can give is probably last year's Pseudoregalia, although this game fells a bit less snappy. I really enjoyed the movement and loved experimenting with it in combination with the momentum based platforming. Big Catch wants you to think outside the box and often requires you to do things you don't normally think would work, but then they do. Like throwing yourself off a huge tower, hook shoting on to a grappling point and using the momentum from the fall in order to launch yourself further than you normally could. It kicks so much ass and those big eureka moments are the reason I fell in love with it.

The one sole criticism I have for this game are the checkpoints. Checkpoints are sort of frequent, with shortcuts that can be unlocked. The placement of the checkpoints is the bigger issue. There were a lot of times where the game just put checkpoints and shortcuts a bit too far away at the very end of a tricky section. It leads to more frustration than there needed to be, as I was forced to repeat platforming puzzles multiple times, simply because I kept messing up at the last moment. It also sucks that the game resets the world every time you turn it off, leading to shortcuts and opened doors getting locked off again. So I do recommend you clear out an area as much as you can before you end each play session. It's something I'm sure will be fixed in the final game.

There is a one of a kind game here, and I can not wait for the full release. And this isn't a short prologue or demo either, this is a fully fleshed out game. I have not collected everything yet, and I'm 6 hours in. Like I said in the beginning: It's nuts that they put this out for free and borderline criminal that I dont see more people talking about it. It's on Steam and if you have the means to play it, please do so. And yes, I know this was just me rambling about the game and not a real review, but I really wanted to get the word out on this. I'm gona go play some more Big Catch now, cheers.