Ratchet & Clank - budget edition.
PC version reviewed.
Skylar & Plux: Adventure on Clover Island is a platformer published Grip Digital and developed by Right Nice Games for the Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC.
GAMEPLAY
The jet pack and swing shot are straight out of Ratchet & Clank, the movable platforms are right out of Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty and you can slow time like in Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, not to mention some of the puzzles such as the laser guiding one had also been in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal. These things work okay in the game but I can't help but really feel that perhaps it would have been nice if this game tried bringing something new to the table.
The gadgets work well enough, even if working through levels doesn't feel quite as smooth as Ratchet & Clank. The few levels there are though seem decently designed to test out all your gadgets and provide a solid linear structure to jump and dodge through.
Sometimes you wouldn't quite land on some platforms and you would be dragged off, this was especially common in the Clover Mountain level. The rocket enemies could be a bit annoying as well, where if you dodged their rocket it could still carry on further for a bit and come back to knock you off a platform.
Perhaps it would have been nicer to have a bit more enemy variety, as you only come up against three different enemies throughout the game (Four if you count the boss). Speaking of boss fights, the one in the game was quite good, where you did have to use your brain and test some of the powers you had gained, it would have been nicer if there were more bosses though.
It seems the PC version was a port of the Xbox One version because despite me playing on keyboard and mouse sometimes the button prompts would appear as the Xbox icons. I wouldn't usually mention things like that if it all seemed fine but there seemed to be a problem where the camera wouldn't move until you pressed a specific key, which would then trigger the game into realising that you were playing on a keyboard and mouse.
STORY
If anything it was quite nice to see that they did actually put some effort into it, rather than just throwing you into the world with no real explanations - they even put in a few plot twists too.
GRAPHICS
SOUND
The music was pretty good. I liked the touch of the main hub area theme changing, when you got near the entrance to an area, from the hub theme to a remix of it with the other areas theme.
Some of the voice acting was a bit poor at times, not that I was expecting AAA quality or anything. I'd have said it annoyed me that Skylar didn't speak but after hearing the only other female character in the game I think it was possibly the right choice not to.
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL
Despite being a generally solid experience the length of the game lets it down. Due to how little content the game offers I can't recommend it at full price, even for a big fan of 3D platformers like myself. The game is however probably worth checking out when on sale, as the little content it does provide is quite fun. It's just a shame the game couldn't really quite shake that feeling of being a demo to something bigger.
