This game has one element that really undermines its enjoyment value:
The controls are, kind of, broken and buggy as heck. Just like in, so many ways it's not even worth listing them all. And I've had other fun glitchy stuff happen like getting stuck in a wall, a cannon not firing leaving me stuck & having to restart a level, the camera not following me through a tube making it impossible to tell where I am, an entire chunk of the level visually deloading because I went back to a previous checkpoint and then died, basically the works.
And the bonus levels are a very, very mixed bag; a few of them are clever, but the "level in a room" ones all suck, without fail. And there's one with the bird where you're escaping from rising lava, and the level is supposed to be designed like one of those chase levels from rayman origins where if you just keep going you'll be fine, except... it never quite works out that way and makes everything way harder than it should be. I did like the last bonus level at the very least, though there were a few bits that were kind of meh, but like, as a whole it's cool.
And really, the level design in general is quite good? It makes good use of all five characters and never really feels stale or repetitive, each world has its own gimmicks to keep things fresh and there's 15 possible character inventories making for a lot of interesting pairings. Really, that mechanic on its own makes for a solid game premise and it's executed decently well. Just clearing through the stages normally is never that much of a challenge, but oh boy is every stage jam packed with other stuff to do. Getting through the level in under a time limit, getting through without dying, killing all of a specific enemy type, finding the secret switcher that gives you different characters and forces you to play parts of the level a different way, collecting enough orbs to earn gems, finding the hidden gems... they get a lot of mileage out of these levels but the different ways you play each level make it so it doesn't really get old.
And for a $10 platformer there's a lot of content here - heck, even for its original $20 asking price the content is very, very solid. 15 levels that probably take 30-45 minutes each to fully complete, 10 tough as nails bonus levels, 5 boss fights (which, admittedly, are not great boss fights on the whole, but far from the worst I've seen too), even some secrets to find in the hub levels. The game's soundtrack is also pretty jammin', a lot of the hub levels play off one main theme but every individual level gets its own song too. And it's visually beautiful, though I had to turn down the graphics settings to get it to run decently at all - does not seem too well-optimized.
But. And this is a big but. The game can be really frustrating for reasons that don't feel like the player's fault. The frog's tongue can just do whatever the hell it wants and getting the swinging physics to cooperate can be a pain. The armadillo is kind of broken in a good way in general but sometimes he will just not boost in the right direction. I have no clue why. Especially when going up walls, sometimes the same inputs will get me a boost up, or a boost down (the latter usually killing me). The kangaroo's controls are really awkward to get a hang of but probably controls the best out of all the characters, I certainly had the most fun with it and doing wall jump shenanigans. The bear is BROKEN AS HECK and basically feels like 100% glitching out everywhere. Most of the times I got stuck in a wall were due to this pest. And he can latch onto walls from way far away. Sometimes has trouble latching onto enemies to kill, it feels inconsistent. He's slow too. Don't enjoy the bear at all. The bird is mostly solid though sometimes he will stop moving fast even though I don't let go of the action button, and the amount of rebound you get when taking damage or bouncing off walls is a bit excessive. On top of that, something that applies to every character is that after you get hit you just can't interact with the floating platforms at all; frog can't grab them, armadillo will just fall through them, same with the roo. Doesn't affect the bear or bird too much but it's just a general nuisance.
Basically, at the end of the day: controls are bad, level design is generally pretty good, presentation is great, replay value is high, entertainment value as a whole is middling. I would give this a meh rating if it existed on steam but as it stands I think there's enough to like here to recommend it, even at full price, though I can't say 100%ing it is worth it in the end. I'm just really stubborn.
