So, A Hat in Time. This is a Kickstarter game that was in a development for 5 years and promised to bring back the memories of classic 3D platformer games... No, come back, please! This one is actually good, I promise!

*Ahem* So. It's surprisingly good. So far all content that the game offered me was great and it's one of the few games that I actually wanted to replay right after I completed it.

In this game you play as a girl whose name we don't know and is nicknamed Hat Kid. The game starts with you waking up on the spaceship on which you are flying back to your home. It uses hourglass thingies called time pieces as a fuel. On your way home you are flying past a planet from which a person who claimes to be a part of Mafia came to take a toll from you for passing over their town. Instead he manages to break the glass window on your ship and it results in losing all your time pieces as they fall on the planet and now you need to take them back so you could have enough fuel to fly back to your home.

The controls are good and tight. You have a variety of moves including a wall run, double jump and a dive which are pretty standart for a 3D platformer. You also have a variety of hats that have different abilities that help you to explore the levels. Also also, similar to Psychonauts you can buy and equip badges that add new abilities to your character or improve the abilites of the hats.

The game features 4 big worlds for you to explore (there are 5 worlds actually but the fifth one is just a bossfight) and they differ greatly in style and atmospere which helps to keep the game fresh and fun. For example, the first world named "Mafia Town" is a Mario Sunshine-esque world in which you are given the main objective you need to do but you can freely explore the map. The second world named Dead Bird Studio in which you are caught in battle between two movie directors that managed to get their hands on some time pieces is a more linear experience compared to the first world and so on. Each world also features bonus levels called "Time Rifts" which are pure platforming segments similar to Mario Sunshine.

The art style of this game is very good and cute, can't really say anything else about it.

The characters in this game are very good and memorable. You have the Mafia with thick russian accent who punch barrels who are dressed as old ladies to keep the town in fear, you have a scottish owl who likes to film western movies on his own train with innocent owls that just want to get to their destination on his train and a sassy penguin who is a former owner of night club who decided to film movies too, and many more.

I also want to point out the voice acting in this game. It's one of the best I've heard in a game and it adds a lot of personality to the characters and makes them much better (you also have an option to turn off the voice acting if you do not like it). Voice actors did a really great job.

The music in this game is amazing. So far every piece of music the game offered me was a delight to my ears. The game musician really needs to get an extra credit for his work.
Here's an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XUw1NxJS2k

While there are a lot of good things in the game, there are some problems too. The game also brought back some cons from old platformers like strangely placed and fixed cameras which can mess with your view and thus it makes navigating the level harder, controls sometimes can be a wee bit wonky, some rough edges when it comes to graphics and animations and a story is a bit shallow in some places.


A Hat in Time is a really good and solid game that managed to bring back the feeling of the classic platformers (and some problems) while mixing in some new stuff. I highly recommend to buy this game and try it out. For me this game was one the best gaming experiences (if not the best) I had in last couple of years and definitely my favorite game of 2017.