They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and this dusty old saying carries across to our beloved video games too. As well meaning as we try to be though, sometimes a game has visuals you just can’t ignore. For me these visuals are almost always papercraft visuals, which have been luring me into games since Paper Mario struck on the Nintendo 64. Thankfully pretty much all the paper based games I’ve ever played have been pretty great, but will Hirogami continue this trend?
In this gorgeous platformer you play as Hiro, a performer who uses his folding skills to turn himself into various forms. When The Blight breaks through the barriers protecting the village it falls on you to save the day, which admittedly you aren’t particularly keen on since you’ve just lost all your origami powers in the attack. The story certainly isn’t the driving force of the game, but the framing for the platforming adventure is certainly charming enough.
In the very first stages of Hirogami the game is simple but enjoyable. You can run, double jump, and hit enemies with your magical fan. It feels good to use all these basic movement abilities to get past various traps and pits, but you really need your folding powers to truly shine. The one paper ability that Hiro still has is the ability to roll out into a flat sheet, which you can use to slide under gaps and also glide in the air. It’s a delightful way to add a glide to the game, but there’s much more to come.
After you face your first paper animal enemy you’ll be granted the ability to fold into it at any time, and this particular animal is an armadillo. Now with the ability to boost around as a ball and smash wooden boxes you’ll be able to get to so many more places, and this is only the first of three animals you’ll be able to transform into. There’s also a high jumping frog and a swinging gorilla that you’ll gain access to in later worlds, and once you have all their powers you’ll be unstoppable.
Each form you have also has its own set of abilities you can use in combat, and these will be useful against different enemies. Smashing into foes as an Armadillo is often the fastest way to dispatch baddies, but pesky shielded foes will be safer to deal with if you spit on them as the frog instead. Sometimes your standard fan attacks or its charged alternative are actually more useful to use too, so prepare for a whole lot of switching.
Hirogami is a fixed camera 3D platformer, but despite this it’s full of a plethora of collectibles to find in each stage. The first time through a particular platforming level you’ll usually not have all the powers you need to find everything though, and will have to come back once you’re an origami master if you want all those precious chests and pieces of artwork.
Another reason you may want to replay levels are all the different optional objectives you have to complete in each of them. Some of these are pretty straightforward and easy to do, like finding all the chests or killing a certain amount of an enemy. Others are absolutely diabolical though, like beating a level within a certain time limit or not taking damage. The not taking damage objectives especially feel almost impossible, and the few I tried to complete in earlier stages were beyond frustrating and not even slightly fun.
The time limits are equally unenjoyable, as they just ensure you try and rush through a stage on your first playthrough and miss the fun stuff. All in all these optional objectives feel tacked on and the game is more fun to play if you do your best to ignore them.
These objectives aren’t the only disappointing element of Hirogami either. The combat is for the most part frustrating, as once you gain a few transformations you’ll be constantly expected to switch between them to succeed. This is just a bit fiddly to do, and when faced with so many different enemies at once I found myself dying while desperately swapping about more than regularly. The forced swapping doesn’t stop there either, with so many blocks that require a certain form to break which just feels needless.
Hirogami is a fun fixed camera 3D platformer, but the frustrating combat really lets it down. The platforming and different powers you use to get around are really enjoyable, but when faced with enemies I always just felt deflated. It certainly looks gorgeous and has a lot of replayability though, so if you aren’t averse to the combat as I am you’ll find a lot of folding based content to jump into.