Making skateboarding a cozy sport
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/74431/seafrog-switch-review
Seafrog is a genius combination of the 2D skateboarding of Ollie Ollie World and collectathon action platformer akin to Donkey Kong Country. The brainchild of Grumpyface Studios, Seafrog is a charming sleeper indie that feels so good moment to moment that I will continue to poke at it throughout the year. It’s low impact, low consequences, and all fun, but can it really stand out among the upcoming onslaught of new releases?
Seafrog begins with our silent protagonist (the titular Seafrog) stuck adrift on a boat with his AI pirate companion and trusty rocket wrench. After crashing down a waterfall, the crew finds themselves in a ship graveyard, and it's here where they decide to commandeer a larger ship, then use parts from all the other ships to repair theirs. This is where the collectathon aspect comes into play, and it’s such a blast to dig into.
Your trusty rocket wrench functions like a skateboard when you press the R button, and then when you hit jumps, you let go of the R button in air and do tricks automatically, landing them when you hit the R button again. Also hitting the R button when near a rail or ledge will automatically have you grind. Doing grinds and flips will build your boost meter, which can make you go faster for bigger jumps, and even allow you to defy gravity by riding the ceiling. Letting go of R on the ground has you get off the board and walk around. The simplicity of the skateboarding control scheme is a definite plus.
There’s a lot more nuance to these systems when you include grapple points, magnetic walls, manuals and so many more variations to keep the combos going and keep that boost meter full. These are introduced slowly across multiple levels, in addition to an upgrade system and attack system. The upgrade system has you finding upgrade chips that you can equip that offer bonuses and buffs, like bonus boost meter at the cost of health. When slotted in next to a yellow health chip, you get even more bonuses, so not only does it matter what chips are equipped, but also their positions, increasing the different styles of gameplay. Experimenting with different builds keeps the game fresh and unique with just a few swaps.
The different ships themselves are micro open worlds with nested level spaces for you to explore. When you enter a ship, you are thrust right into the open space: doing tricks, defeating enemies by boosting through them, and finding resources to repair your ship. There are different grapple points you have to repair to open the main door to get further into the ship, but there are also multiple small doors you can go through that have bonus challenges and resources. It's really kind of a neat trick to get into this skatepark style level, only to see it give you access to even more to explore at your own pace. Every ship has its own vibes, biomes, and custom mechanics with the chicken ship and the ice ship being my two favorites.
After getting as many resources out of the ship to upgrade yours, it's time for a boss battle. These are big flashy enemies that are fought by doing combos and hitting environmental points to do damage. They are fun ways to use the mechanics while also posing legitimate threats. There’s a lot here that really plays like your favorite 2D platformers, but with a novel twist of the skateboarding to freshen up the dynamic. It’s an exciting combination; like someone discovering chocolate and peanut butter for the first time, it just flows so well.
That being said, once you’ve seen a level or two, you kind of get the loop of what you will be seeing for the remainder of the short runtime: exploring levels, collecting resources, tackling different bosses. There are a bunch more things that will pop up such as obstacle courses, high score, and combat challenges that all focus on one specific part of the gameplay but still, you don’t get trick controls, or grind controls so you are just doing them for the combos and less about customizing your skating. That’s ok because skating isn’t the focus here: it's the traversal, and that’s smooth as silk.
Seafrog doesn’t hit the highest highs of say, a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, or Ollie Ollie World, but its effortless gameplay and satisfying resource collection loop is quite the addicting premise that kept me going back. Even after beating the game, I still found myself poking around levels, looking for more gears or chips, just because it felt so good to do so. This game is all about how it feels, and it feels fantastic. Everything else is so inconsequential, though, that it made me want a little more oomph out of it. Some sort of boost of adrenaline or excitement, maybe, which is why I would categorize this as a cozy game. A cozy skateboarding platforming collectathon. Really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?
Topic: Seafrog (Switch) Review (Read 334 times)
