A great game should have three things, fun gameplay, good graphics, and a compelling story. Most games don’t actually need all three to be great, but it helps to have at least two of these factors. Hirogami is an action platformer that in my opinion has two of these factors. You play as Hiro, an origami warrior trying to save the world from a dark glitch affecting the planet. You have to jump, attack, and transform into different animals, to combat the glitch and save the world.
This game is a work of art. Everything in this game looks like folded paper. The origami aesthetic is spectacular, especially with the levels. The main character Hiro, travels through lush-green forests and purple poisonous swamp as well as other awe-inspiring places. The character designs are amazing as well, with the other characters and all the animals made of folded paper, it makes me want to try and fold origami of these characters for myself. The first few hours playing this game have been a fun time. Hiro starts without his transformations and has to fend off the invading enemies with only his magical fan. Eventually you gain the ability to transform into an armadillo to roll fast across platforms, a frog to jump off toadstools, and an ape to swing off vines.
The transformations are also useful in combat so you have more options to take down enemies. The armadillo can roll through enemies with spikes, the frog can jump on enemies, and the ape can smash them. The frog tends to be the most useful, allowing you to jump on the heads of the enemies and avoid damage. Not to mention that certain enemies can’t be damaged by your fan so you have to use your animal transformations in order to defeat them. While the combat is interesting, this game suffers in the platforming aspect of gameplay.
When playing, the camera is always at a fixed angle, which causes more trouble than it’s worth. In my opinion the best platformers should have players know exactly where they will land and how far their momentum will take them. With Hirogami’s fixed camera angle, I keep ending up missing the platforms or even not notice the gaps, causing me to end up falling into the pits. I did find out that when you’re a paper it shows a shadow where you will land and this does help but it isn’t the best fix to the platforming issue.
The story is really engaging if you decide to pay attention. The story hints that Hiro had a previous experience with the glitch and a dark past. I can’t help but wonder what happened and what he has gone through. Hiro is a very interesting hero, pun not intended. While he isn’t confident in his abilities, he immediately springs into action when he sees his village in trouble. The other characters, while they tease him about being just a performer, you can tell they believe in him and support him, even using the materials you collect during levels to give him abilities to help in his journey.
When it comes to a sound track, it has a nice, peaceful, and appropriate one. However after a while it grows a bit old and repetitive. A lot of the levels have the exact same song playing over and over again, so even though it sounds good I end up just putting my own music on while playing. At the very least each biome should have its own distinct music playing during gameplay.
Another issue I have is the enemy design. The enemies are just circles, and I mean just plain black orbs. Couldn’t the developers create better designed enemies, i mean they design so much in the game. All the characters are origami people and are designed beautifully. Even the animals being affected by the glitch are amazing. I don’t get why the main enemies are just black orbs. It feels like the developers got tired and forgot to switch out the placeholder sprite for the enemies with actual character models.
In conclusion, Hirogami had potential to be the next work of art. The game looked beautiful, the story had me curious the whole time, but the combat needed more work and the enemies needed to actually be designed. I really wished this game would have been a great release because we need more games with an original idea and this kind of art style.
Score: 6 out of 10
Reviewed on PlayStation 5