Cloudberry Kingdom

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Cloudberry Kingdom sounds a bit like one of those free-to-play cutesy-looking titles that you’d usually find on Facebook – probably having something to do with trading fruit to friends while maintaining a happy little kingdom full of poorly illustrated, smiling animals. Thankfully, hidden under the game’s somewhat cheery name is a title that’s anything but casual.

As a love letter to platformers past and an open invitation to most hardened gamers out there, Cloudberry Kingdom succeeds admirably. Creative features inspired by classic influences help foster a hyper-addictive experience and thwart potential repetitiveness. While its technically impressive level generator ultimately doesn’t add a great deal, the intense, straight-ahead gameplay demands to be played and replayed for hours on end. It’s a shame the developers couldn’t find a unique and distinctive voice for Cloudberry.

The amount of content mixed with the random level creation sends the game’s replayability through the roof, assuming one hasn't already flipped their coffee table and lodged their fist in the television screen. When Cloudberry Kingdom gets it right, fingers will be flying furiously and emotions will change at the drop of a hat all in the name of fun, but when it gets it wrong… it’s better to not even mention what happens then.

Cloudberry Kingdom is a strong effort, but the lack of overall polish is impossible to overlook. I can’t say I’ve ever played a platformer that uses procedural generation in quite this way before, and I’d love to see the concept explored further. Even if certain elements of the game are inconsistent, the platforming itself feels good for the most part and the challenge presented is as formidable as advertised. That counts for a lot.

Cloudberry Kingdom does check all the boxes of what to have in a platforming game, and in many areas, offers a lot more. It's just that the whole doesn't feel like it equals the sum of its parts. For whatever reason, it never really comes together into the cohesive experience that some of the games it tries to emulate, do.

Even if the jumping had been solid, though, it still doesn’t quite capture the magic of games it takes inspiration from like Super Meat Boy. It always feels too much like you’re doing exactly the same thing again and again, with the super-quick levels and a poor diversity of obstacles both contributing to the deja-vu that kicks in pretty soon after you start your Cloudberry Kingdom. High score chasers may forgive it for that, and its high-level of challenge means it appeals to difficult-j...