I love silly and cute platformers. I grew up playing Banjo Kazooie, and even though I never finished Super Mario 64, I played my fair share of the first level. There’s something so charming and cozy about these stress free collectathons, and it took me about 3 minutes to realize that A Hat in Time was another one of these masterpieces.
I’ve had my eyes on this game for a while now, but it wasn’t until my buddy told me that it’s really great and that I could play it coop with my daughter that I decided to actually give it a try. I wasn’t really ready to get into another collectathon yet, since usually I can’t let go of the game unless I get every single collectible – but this game surprisingly easy to stomach. Before I continue with what I liked about this game, I quickly want to mention that the coop aspects of A Hat in Time is a lie and it sucks. You can play coop, but the camera is centered around player 1, so if you’re player 2 you’ll just lose track of your character every few seconds. If they were to patch this tiny little camera issue, the coop would probably be extremely fun, but as of right now it feels pretty much unplayable.
Anyway. In “A hat In Time” you’re main goal is to collect all hourglasses. They act like the stars in Super Mario, or Jiggies in Banjo Kazooie, but the difference is that there’s only one in each level. In the other games you’d usually hop into a world, do some quests and then hop out. But in A hat in Time every world is instead structured into chapters with a bigger narrative in play, usually culminating in a boss fight once you’re done with everything. You can explore the world in each chapter, and collectibles are tracked across all of them, but there’s only one hourglass and “objective” per chapter. Is this bad? Is this good? I think it’s pretty neutral. I like both versions of exploration, but I do wish that A Hat in Time added a free roam “chapter” once you’ve cleared every mission, since some areas are only accessible in certain levels.
Most of the collectibles are used as some sort of currency, so you never feel like you “have” to get them all. What’s important is the stuff you can buy using them. Mainly, hats and badges. The hats act like tools, they can turn you into a block of ice, make you run or let you throw bombs, while the badges act like “tweaks”. One badge makes you drive a moped instead of sprinting, one lowers the cooldown on your hats and one stops you from bumping into walls. They’re all fun and never feel obsolete.
Aside from that, the main aspect of the game – platforming – is crazy good. Coming from an indie studio, they really nailed the flow and feel of jumping around, and it always feels fun speedrunning a level or accessing stuff you shouldn’t be able to. The momentum of the game clicked with me very early, and it’s also what got me hooked. Both me and my daughter were arguing about who’s turn it was to try and reach different collectibles, because we both thought it was so fun to play. Very often games try to motivate you with extrinsic value – a reward, a carrot. But this game is very intrinsic, making you want to challenge yourself or just mess around in a cute virtual playground.
With music reminiscent of Banjo Kazooie, a charming and cute story, funny characters and a beautiful and creative world – I can easily say that A Hat in Time is a great game worth playing. Especially if you have a kid. 8/10!
