The biggest drawback to this game is the combat. Your main attack is a simple roll that instantly "frees" pets. Issue is that most times you use this you will get hit in the process anyways as there is no clear indication whether an enemy is in an attack state. You will go in for a roll and it will "free" the pet but you will still take damage. It doesn't teach the player that stopping and waiting for enemies to be in an idle animation is the time to attack. You can also jump on most enemies to do the job and I wish this is what the game asked you to do. Jump on enemies à la Mario and have other more advanced attacks from power ups that is mainly used for bosses. It would force players to be less gung-ho when dealing with enemies and cause less deaths and frustration.
I found the platforming to be pretty solid. My favorite sections we're the ones with the swinging brick power up. This added really fun gameplay moments where action and flow was key. I was disappointed in the other selections of pets as they didn't add to a 3d platformer's most important feature: movement. The swinging brick added so much that I quickly learned to adapt to it's main flaw. For whatever reason they chose not to allow you jump when the brick wasn't active. I guess a normal jump would add to much height and potential to this power but either way I just started hitting the button to summon the brick at anytime I wanted to jump. That's how fun the power is. The others are decent. The light bug had some cool sections where enemies wouldn't hurt in the dark but you still had to navigate. The ghost honestly had the best levels and incorporated the swinging block here and there but even without that it had some of the coolest level design. The helmet though... was bad. I already didn't like combat and the shooting the helmet had felt unreliable. I did not enjoy that section at all. The last power with the twin flyers was cool but underutilized. There's 2 sections, one of which is a tutorial, that use this power and neither does anything creative with it. Which is a bit sad cause these pets are your main focus in the story and they end up not doing much for gameplay.
Storywise, I wasn't impressed. I know it's a game made for kids but aren't almost all 3d platformers? For a game with a handful of cutscenes it had some really strange dialog and pacing choices. There was one moment I laughed, when they introduced the magical talking door you have be drugged to see, but even saying that... WHY WAS THAT IN THIS GAME? It didn't need to be. Practically every choice was so out there that they could have changed any aspect with the most random off the wall idea and nothing would be lost or seem out of place.
Overall it was a fine experience. I was whelmed. I had plenty of moments I enjoyed. Some frustrations. My favorite realization was that there were no barriers to continuing levels other than completing them despite being plenty of collectables to obtain. I ended a 3d platformer with no desire to go for 100% completion which is my norm. And I'm okay with that.
I found the platforming to be pretty solid. My favorite sections we're the ones with the swinging brick power up. This added really fun gameplay moments where action and flow was key. I was disappointed in the other selections of pets as they didn't add to a 3d platformer's most important feature: movement. The swinging brick added so much that I quickly learned to adapt to it's main flaw. For whatever reason they chose not to allow you jump when the brick wasn't active. I guess a normal jump would add to much height and potential to this power but either way I just started hitting the button to summon the brick at anytime I wanted to jump. That's how fun the power is. The others are decent. The light bug had some cool sections where enemies wouldn't hurt in the dark but you still had to navigate. The ghost honestly had the best levels and incorporated the swinging block here and there but even without that it had some of the coolest level design. The helmet though... was bad. I already didn't like combat and the shooting the helmet had felt unreliable. I did not enjoy that section at all. The last power with the twin flyers was cool but underutilized. There's 2 sections, one of which is a tutorial, that use this power and neither does anything creative with it. Which is a bit sad cause these pets are your main focus in the story and they end up not doing much for gameplay.
Storywise, I wasn't impressed. I know it's a game made for kids but aren't almost all 3d platformers? For a game with a handful of cutscenes it had some really strange dialog and pacing choices. There was one moment I laughed, when they introduced the magical talking door you have be drugged to see, but even saying that... WHY WAS THAT IN THIS GAME? It didn't need to be. Practically every choice was so out there that they could have changed any aspect with the most random off the wall idea and nothing would be lost or seem out of place.
Overall it was a fine experience. I was whelmed. I had plenty of moments I enjoyed. Some frustrations. My favorite realization was that there were no barriers to continuing levels other than completing them despite being plenty of collectables to obtain. I ended a 3d platformer with no desire to go for 100% completion which is my norm. And I'm okay with that.