a haT in Time

Publisher HumbLe buNDLe / DevelOPer GeArs For breAKFAst / fOrMat XboX oNe / release Date out Now / cOst £23.99

Not just a load of old hat rObert DOuglas

Long-time OXM

readers out there who have been bleeding green since the launch of the OG Xbox will remember some vague ramblings from fellow gamers stuck with Nintendo’s pokey ickle GameCube awkwardly perched ‘neath their TVs. While we were busy supping on console gaming’s first trendsetting forays into ‘mature’ games (Halo, Splinter Cell, Morrowind etc), somewhere in the peripherals of our highly distracted view someone was inevitably prattling on about how great Super Mario Sunshine was.

Sure it was. It just happened to arrive at the same time as a new videogame oeuvre was hitting its stride on other machines. Most developers outside of Ninty have since abandoned the 3D platformer genre as it wasn’t seen as modern any more. Sure, we’ve seen a few classics strutting into easily marketable nostalgic view in the years since (Banjo-Kazooie hitting Xbox 360 and Xbox One for example), but it was very rare (pun not intended but we’ll take it) to see completely new explorations of the genre surface. That clearly doesn’t sit right with the folk responsible for A Hat In Time.

Because the moment the game begins it’s very clear that you are playing a love letter. From its vivid spaceship hub world to its explorable levels chocka with collectibles, via a cute cast of characters and at least one actually funny joke every minute, A Hat In Time is delightfully reflective of its genre forebears.

And yet, as it does not have an existing set of recognisable motifs or characters, as many returning 3D platformers do (even Yooka-Laylee primed itself as a spiritual successor to Banzo-Kazooie, complete with dual protagonists), A Hat In Time has to do new things. And if you were one of those people that did play and love these older games, this is disarmingly exciting.

Sometimes it’s something simple, like when we find a new type of collectible. “A Yarn Ball? What does this do? Why do I want this? Oh, it unlocks new hats, gotcha”, “Okay, what does this Ticket do, and what are these glowy lines on the screen? Oh, they unlock treasure troves across the level and the lines hint at where others can be found, gotcha.” Discovering a new set of playful rules, items and motifs feels fresh. And even that Nintendo fanboy flapping about in your peripherals only very rarely gets to say that.

short cut

What is it?

A Kickstarted 3D platformer deeply nostalgic for games from Nintendo’s GameCube era.

What’s it like?

Like nothing has changed since Super Mario Sunshine.

WhO’s it fOr?

Dewy-eyed nostalgists who can forgive a few flaws for a hit of old school double jumping.

Rare delights

You play as Hat Girl, a top hatbedecked little girl who can don collected head coverings in order to unlock new skills, such as dashing or throwing exploding potions at enemies. At the outset your spaceship journey home is interrupted by a nearby Mafioso, who happens to be hovering in space outside your space window. After an altercation your ship’s fuel – a collection of glowing hourglasses – is blown out into space and onto a series of nearby planets,

Listen out for tunes from Rare alumni Grant Kirkhope (of Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Piñata fame)

left You never know what a level will bring, and each is delivered in a moreish 10-minute blast, there’s a real ‘just-one-morego’ feel.

“The moment the game begins it’s very clear that you are playing a love letter”

requiring you to hop out and go collect them all.

It’s a neat and tidy set up, requiring little logic to tie things together and enabling the writing, and indeed the gameplay, to go to all kinds of goofy places. Part of the joy on offer here is the pace at which you’ll move from, say, stealthily infiltrating a movie studio populated by fashionista penguins to a sepia-toned Agatha Christie novel (with a sprinkling of actual sleuthing involved) on a speeding train, to a social media follower-gathering photo bombing run.

Hats off

Okay, so you’ve already taken a cheeky glance at the decidedly ‘not-perfect’ score, right? While A Hat In Time scores a whole bunch of win-points for its originality and joy when it comes to locations, it does unfortunately fall flat in a couple of key areas which would push it over into essential territory (especially for those not already appreciative of the genre).

Thanks to some muddy lighting, at times even dipping into pitch blackness (especially weird for such a colourful world), it’s sometimes really difficult to see just what is going on. Couple that with attack animations and hitboxes which are wildly varied and inconsistent and it can be tricky to control. Take the game’s first boss, a gloriously guffawing Mafia boss. At various points during the battle he rolls a bunch of other Mafioso into a giant ball, parts of which are deadly to touch but others which are essential for you to clamber on to reach him and clobber him with your melee umbrella.

There’s a general unresponsiveness to the controls which irritates at times as well. Hat Girl’s attacks play out in a rigid one-two-three swipe combo, with an added head stomp ability for variation. With the camera zoomed

far left Your home ship expands the more hourglasses you collect, giving you new rooms to explore.

right Collectables are abundant, giving plenty of replay value – a good thing given the game’s sub-10hour run time.

HAt’s tHe wAy to Do it

one area that A Hat In Time does deviate from the hallowed early2000s era 3D platformer is in its inclusion of a fully voice-acted script. we’re not fans, partly because the voice actors aren’t especially great, over-egging certain lines and under-cooking others, but also: aren’t 3D platformer characters supposed to speak in an array of nonsense vowel sounds à la BanjoKazooie? either too far out or in, lighting muddying your view of the action and then your character feeling stuck in this fudgey combat, it’s too easy to come away frustrated.

But it’s hard to stay mad at A Hat In Time for long; it’s just too gosh darned charming and inventive. It’ll certainly leave those claiming the genre is dead eating their hats. Hahahahahaha! *leaves* n

OXM verDict

An honest and charming attempt to reinvigorate the 3D platformer genre.