Promenade | Review – A fun and colorful 2D platformer

The title leads us to onePlatform adventure with puzzle game elements In which we will take on the role of a child and his stuffed octopus, a loyal friend who will be crucial to us in solving the puzzles and navigating the pitfalls of the colorful fantasy world that the game offers.

In our review, we explore Holy Cap's vibrant creation that features:Bedtime story atmosphere for children with a touch of mystery, a cheerful and pleasant soundtrack to listen to and a simple and graceful artistic direction.

Together is better

As we said at the beginning, who told about promenade It's a happy and colorful adventure. The protagonist of the story is a red-haired childaccompanied by what looks like a small one Pink octopus shaped doll.

We'll find out soon Our friend is lively and is able to grab different elements of the scenario with its tentacles to help us carry out different actions.

We can use it for for example Grab enemies and use them as springboardsto carry out a real one Double jump It is able to let us even reach rocky outcrops that seem inaccessible.

We will discover this later in the adventure there are no borders to what our travel companion can teach us.

The cute pink octopus will also help us highlight some elements of the scenario Solve puzzles and complete mini-games and carry out a long series of activities that you will enjoy discovering and that represent a key element in the uniqueness of the gameplay proposed by the game.

The two little heroes wake up in what appears to be a damp cave, a kind of nightmare full of small enemies, but also Sheets and forts made from colorful pillows.

The setting immediately made us think of a child's imagination and gave us the impression of being in a dream or in his bedroom. inspired by the imagination that only the little ones can express.

The first pillow fort we find on our way gives us access to an even more bizarre and dreamlike area: the Big elevator It immediately becomes our base and a hub to achieve the different scenarios that the game offers.

Here's a disturbing and mischievous floating alter ego and our hero's ghost will destroy the elevator mechanism and prevent us from exploring the different areas.

So we will leave together with our faithful friend, looking for gearsnow fragmented and scattered across the world.

Once we find the parts we need for each level, we can use them go upstairs and unlock a new play area. However, history will repeat itself: the annoying ghost will tamper with the elevator and redistribute the gears across the world (a bit like Mario, who discovers this immediately). The princess is in another castleand down with another world to explore, Ed). Our task will be to collect all the parts, reassemble them and use them for further work.

As? Some components will be visible and easy to find, but others we will have to find Use our intuition and solve a series of puzzles of varying difficulty.

A colorful world waiting to be discovered

promenade It is a'2D platform adventure which in its own way is reminiscent of the old masterpieces Super Mario and that offers a wide variety of scenarios of unique beauty.

Her Collect-A-Thon game mechanics They ask you to collect some basic elements of the scenario, in this case the parts of the elevator, in order to progress with the story and unlock access to new areas to explore.

The game does not offer tutorials or hints on how to move and continue with the adventure. In fact, from the very first moment we have to learn to rely on our intuition and our – initially few – skills to get through the levels.

With the large elevator at the center, the game world branches out in all directions and offers a variety of possibilities vibrant looking landscapes and environmentseach with new enemies to face and skills to learn.

The gameplay revolves around our octopus friend who helps us lift objects and hold on to some elements of the scenario swing, throw or roll upwards at the speed of light to try to reach even the most distant ledges.

In each scenario we find one or more dungeonwhere our hero can learn new skills with which we can finally make sense of some elements of the scenario whose function was previously unknown.

The skills acquired will also allow us to retrace our steps and Access to previously inaccessible or inaccessible areasa bit like what would happen in one Metroidvania. Not even within the dungeons do we receive any suggestion as to how to proceed and we have to face the challenges with our intuition and our intuition I try and try again to use the elements of the scenario to our advantage to reach the end of the road.

This feature makes the game a bit frustrating and monotonous, but that's it It's very satisfying to be able to overcome an obstacle after several attempts.

promenade thus offers a gaming approach funny and fascinating: The lack of an initial tutorial forces the player to familiarize themselves with the surrounding world and its elements in order to discover their purpose and function and to experiment on the fly.

In this sense, it does a great job of creating an adventure in which the player, just like a Child discovers the world and its treasuresdiscovers step by step how to deal with the objects around him, learning new skills, learning from his mistakes and becoming stronger.

Despite this seemingly “childish” appearance promenade It's not a game for children. In fact, some scenarios and mini-games require a certain amount of skill (and a fair amount of patience) to complete successfully.

However, some of them are Accessibility settings The features available in the pause menu allow you to make the adventure much easier. For example, you can set the functionality of regular carewhich allows the character to restore health points every 5 or 10 seconds depending on the player's preference.

However, they are very simple Boss fight are present at the end of each level, which do not require any particular ingenuity, just the ability to master the skills learned along the way.

Discover the world

promenade offers fun 80s style mini games, speed races and secret areas to unlock Use the various skills you have learned along the way.

During our journey we will encounter a long series of Enemies with a fun and funny design and of characters that we must help obtain new parts to open the elevator.

The puzzles suggested by the game are: funny and never predictable. In some cases, we need to repeat the same scenario several times to understand how we can use all the environmental factors in our favor to recover everything we need.

Regarding the artistic direction, the title presents itself with a Children's book style graphics with pastel colors, delicate and friendly characters; The unique and special style, which we appreciated, reminded us of what it means to be children and discover a new part of the world every day. The soundtrack is also good, always upbeat and pleasant to listen to.

Of course it's not a monster longevitybut in only three hours of play time, promenade gave us a fun adventure and with a Excellent level of challenge in the final stages.

During our run on PS5, we experimented some minor technical problemswhich will likely be fixed with corrective patches and have not affected the experience in any way.

Finally, we would like to point this out promenade And also available in Italian.