I'll be honest, the game doesn't make a good first impression. I actually quit playing it the first go-round. I'm not sure what made me decide to give it another try, but I'm glad I did.
You have two main objectives in this game: collecting recipes and making it to the level exit. Collecting recipes is more of a scavenger hunt than completing objectives; think Super Mario Odyssey rather than Super Mario 64. The recipes are scattered everywhere: tucked away into corners, hiding at the top of cliffs, sitting on top of roofs just out of the range of your double jump, etc.
In some 3D platformers from the PSX/N64 era, I liked trying to get places that I wasn't really supposed to be able to. That seems to be the intention behind some of the design of this game, considering the placement of the recipes. Basically if something exists in the world, you can land on it. Incredibly narrow ledge on the face of a cliff? Yep. Fences that end in a point? Sure. Water? Well okay, maybe not EVERYTHING; the water is instant death. But I guess cats don't like water anyway.
There still is some gatekeeping. It's not as though you can just pass through walls or gates without opening them. One particular section in the 4th level made me think I could just cross through an opening above a closed gate, but an invisible barrier prevented me from going through. Still, you have plenty of freedom in navigating the environments and in how you want to approach collecting the recipes scattered around the world.
Getting to the end of the level is a more straightforward affair. Usually you'll enter an open area, discover a closed gate at one end, and need to flip a number of switches to open it and progress. These sections involve more typical platforming challenges than the "jump anywhere you like" with the recipe gathering. Hopping from one moving platform to the next requires good timing and precision.
Thankfully character movement in general is good. It is not perfect though; one of my main gripes is that you cannot immediately jump again once you land. You have to wait a second or two before you can jump again. This isn't game-breaking, but it's certainly irritating to try for a jump only to wander into the water instead, or missing the window for jumping onto a moving platform because you cannot immediately jump again. I played this game with an Xbox One controller, and I recommend using a controller for this game.
Adding to the challenge are enemies that spit projectiles. This would be fine if you could actually see the projectiles. They're so small you often don't see where they are or where they are coming from, and you seem to get hit almost immediately after hearing the *ptt* sound these enemies make. My advice is, if you see these enemies or hear the sound, don't stop moving, even if it's just in a circle.
Speaking of enemies, you'll encounter lots, but they are all pretty easily dispatched. The variety isn't bad either. I wish there was more feedback on if you're landing a hit. You'll only have a visual cue if you land a hit, and only occasionally will they make a sound. There is no sound of impact made when you hit, at least not that I heard, and I don't recall any force feedback from the controller either.
Another gripe I have is how loud some sound effects are compared to others. I might not be able to hear if I land a hit on an enemy, but I can certainly tell when I break a vase. My neighbors can tell too. The music is...there.
I said at the beginning that game didn't make a good first impression. That was true the first time I tried playing this, and playing through the opening areas a second time did not change my mind. It starts off in a castle which acts as a tutorial area for you to get used to the character movement. This would be fine if these enclosed areas didn't make the camera wonk out. The camera becomes much less of a problem after you exit the castle into the courtyard, and when the main game opens up and you can really start exploring.
The first area outside the castle is pretty vanilla and straightforward. The second level mostly takes place in caves and starts to introduce more platforming oriented challenges, along with those annoying spitting enemies. Neither of these two levels are necessarily bad, they're just "okay." There are a couple of interesting areas, but it's mostly just "walk to the end."
The third level is when things really pick up though, and the levels after that are just as good. I was really surprised; normally the first world is among the best and leaves the strongest impression, with what comes after going up and down in quality. Here, the levels progressively get better. The platform challenges are more frequent and interesting, the different areas of the levels are much more open and fun to explore, and there's a lot more to do and see in general. Maybe those first two levels are just intended to ease the player into the game, but it's almost unfair to those opening two levels just how better level three and beyond are.
As far as visuals go, well, you've seen the screenshots. You can tell what everything is, and it's mostly clean. The main character is just goofy, from the look on his face down to his walking animation. That goofiness extends to some of the NPCs as well. These people are supposed to be working in the castle, but it looks like they are dancing in place.
So yes, it's a flawed game, but they didn't detract much from the fun I had. It gets a recommend from me.
