Poi

Developer: PolyKid
Release: 2016
Platform: PC
Genre: Platformer, Collectathon, 3D
Gameplay Stats: 8 hours, 24/25 achievements

I honestly couldn't say how I heard about this game, but it came to my attention in probably 2015 when it came onto Steam in Early Access. I picked it up on sale during that time, but waited for full release before I jumped in. No more ado!

Visuals: The visual style of this game is kind of a low poly, 3D game very reminiscent of Super Mario 64. This was the goal as stated on their Steam store page and I think they mostly nailed it. There were 5 worlds and each was visually distinct. Unfortunately, there was very little enemy variety, but everything else was fine visually speaking.

Audio: First up, the music! The music in this game is pretty solid. It communicates the tone of the game, being playful and encouraging exploration, very well without being too distracting from the gameplay. The sound effects definitely leave a lot to be desired though. There are several bosses in the game and none of them have sound effects when you hit them. Regular enemies have squeaks or some other kind of noise, so it's very definitely missing. Your indication that you actually hit them is that they always display a speech bubble saying "OUCH!!" or something like that. Additionally, I found the jumping sound effect of the guy to be horrendous, so I played through as the girl character.

Gameplay: This game handles largely very well. You start off with a double jump, a wall kick, and a sweet roll move. You don't get any more moves as the game progresses, but the challenges asked of you get slightly harder. The environments are well modeled and given appropriate geometry. The enemies however are a little wonky. I never had this problem with bosses, but the snake enemies in particular always gave me trouble. Jumping around on the tightropes wasn't real great either, but it was serviceable. Collecting all of the items/locations wasn't ever too tough or ambiguous, so that was good. Your objectives and progress were always very easily view-able. In the hub area you get a hang glider to travel around with, but you don't get to use it in any of the levels which seemed odd.

Story: There really wasn't much story here. You encounter an explorer in the first area that becomes something of a leader to you in the rest of your journey. He mentions a wife and that she is missing, but I don't think that's ever touched on again. They apparently used to hunt the Explorer Medals (think Stars from SM64), but all of his medals have gone missing, so you get to find them over again for him! I didn't come into this game looking for story, but it was weird that there was no resolution. Maybe I missed something? There were a few other NPCs, but they were all 1 dimensional. "For every 5 [item] you give me, I'll give you an Explorer Medal!"

Overall, I did mostly enjoy this game. I would've liked if they would have updated their formula a bit from almost exactly what SM64 was, but otherwise it was a pretty fun experience. If you've got an itch for a Super Mario 64 clone, this one is pretty serviceable, but I wouldn't say that this is a great game on its own. This is the first game that I've heard of from this developer, so I'm interested to see what they make next [7/10]