The first thing that struck me about this game is the colourful cast of characters. Among the members of RIFT’s dimension-hopping cops are not one, not two, but three girls with horns - all with different aesthetics from different worlds. That’s not all, though: there’s also a stern mer-lady in a hoverchair, a protein lovin’ plant man, a nerd bigfoot.... I hope the character designer had fun.

Gameplay-wise, you can see some of the mechanical concepts here are borrowed from other games, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Platformer design space is limited, and sometimes a mechanic comes along that deserves more exploration. Also, some innovations just improve the general gameplay experience - in which case, it’s a good thing if they become a standard design component of the genre.

Specifically, this game has Hollow Knight’s “find a safe spot and channel your energy to heal” mechanic, which honestly it doesn’t really need because the combat is very simple. More importantly, it leans heavily on a tether-slinging mechanic that’s very similar to Ori and the Blind Forest’s ultra-generically-named Bash ability.

You quickly learn how you can remain aloft indefinitely using repeated tether-launches, and how to use your brief airtime to manipulate the angle of your next launch. Some of the game’s best segments string together sequences of tethers, hazards, and wall jumps and it’s only here that you glimpse that perfect platformer focus flow state.

The levels are generally quite well designed, and usually follow the classic Mario formula of introducing a gimmick and then ramping up the complexity and combining it with what you already know. It’s nice to see genre fundamentals applied competently.

I’m most of the way through the game now, and nothing’s been exceptionally challenging. Some sections were a bit frustrating - but at least there’s a snappy respawn with only a nominal health tax (which you can eliminate entirely with one of the upgrades). I feel some stages also overstayed their welcome, with too much of the same basic content.

It’s got a megaman-esque setup where you can do the nine main missions in any order, which lets you hop around a bit if you want something slightly different. The levels have star ratings for difficulty, but I didn’t feel much of a curve between them.

I found each of the three main worlds a bit one-dimensional (ha!) in terms of setting and theme, which is a shame. You’ve got an entire multiverse of possible worlds available, and yet you spend four missions each in A: goo caves, B: dinosaur wasteland, and C: neo(n) tokyo. 

There’s also only a handful of enemy types, mostly just reskinned to each world, which also sticks out in contrast to the variety in the cast back at RIFT HQ. In fairness, tilesets and assets are expensive and it’s an indie game. But still.

The game could also do with a little more oomph to its sound design. I’d like to see more adventurous and varied level music - I recall one timed escape section that lost all its urgency because the soundtrack stayed on the stage’s usual distantly pensive theme. Some of the fighting and movement would also feel weightier if there were a bit more feedback, though I know that’s an art that’s exceptionally hard to perfect.

There’s XP items hidden on every stage - up to a dozen or more. They’re the only persistent pickup you have to worry about, which is nice, and they’re usually either rewards for exploring or for bonus challenges. It can get a little annoying checking every possible hiding place to make sure you don’t miss one, but at least the menu shows you the order they’re found in the stage so you can tell how you’re doing. 

None of the upgrades so far seem world-shattering, and you’ve only got a couple of slots to equip them anyway. So I’ve been doing my best to be clever and skillful and grab what upgrade points I can, while not stressing about them too much. Having said the game is quite easy anyway, I think following only the critical path and ignoring all extras would be quite - literally - straightforward.

The combat doesn’t have much depth, so it’s a shame that the dinosaur world in particular has a lot of compulsory, multi-wave combat encounters. I generally just found myself equipping the upgrade that improves heavy attacks and spamming that, especially since most of the unlockable combat moves are basically more versatile and mobile heavy attacks anyway.

There’s also a mystery-solving meta-plot which is a bit bare-bones in terms of gameplay, though there is a cute dossier with bullet points chronicling the information you know about each of the suspects. At its best, there’s a little bit of deduction in figuring out who needs to be shown which evidence. At its worst, it’s just a chore. And at its middlest, it’s an excuse to occasionally take a break to wander around the base and check in with those colourful characters.

The final thing I want to mention is, for some reason whenever I launch this game it automatically sets itself to a different language that I then have to switch back to English. I don’t know if this is an easter egg or a bug or what, but at this point it’s kind of endearing.