Penny's Big Breakaway

Penny’s Big Breakaway is a delightful breath of fresh air for the 3D platforming genre. It doesn’t just feel like a love letter to Sonic, but rather a number of mascot platformers from back in the day that captured our hearts. There are a few issues here and there, but for a first official release in 3D platforming from Evening Star, it’s a great start, featuring a massive collection of beautiful levels, solid mechanics and gimmicks, and a soundtrack that keeps the vibes charming throughout. There’s a lot to enjoy here, and I hope it’s just the start of things to come for Evening Star, Penny, ...

However, the bigger stinger here is one jumping mechanic that’ll break all your momentum: the swinging bar. These horizontal bars ignore all momentum you’ve built up, instead forcing you to angle a landing awkwardly with your left stick. Rather than being able to jump freely at the highest point of your swing, you’re forced to slow down to make jumps (and sometimes, the angle measurement gets confused!). Even by the end of my first run, I still wasn’t used to this and I feel like it slows down Penny’s level progression unnecessarily. No other latch mechanic forces you to angle your jump beside...

An ingenious combo-driven challenge that's speedy and fun.

Penny’s Big Breakaway is a flashy platformer debut that shines brightest for the encore.

After developing the highly acclaimed Sonic Mania, can the folks at Evening Star repeat that success with their very own 3D platformer? Let's join our yo-tagonist Penny on her colourful adventure and find out.

A compelling game lies at the heart of Penny's Big Breakaway. If you're willing to give it the proper staging and some time to practice, it will put on a great show as a speedy platformer with a fun learning curve. However, getting to that point requires seeing past its many distracting elements. I enjoyed my time with Penny, but if we're being honest, I think she needs to polish her act.

It has some issues that can frustrate, mechanically it can take some getting used to, and it could do with a patch or two to clear up some unfortunate bugs, but Penny’s Big Breakaway has a lot of charm which sees it pull through the other side. If you’re a fan of 3D platformers, especially those with unique quirks and gimmicks, chances are you’ll absolutely love what Penny’s Big Breakaway has to offer. It’s certainly a solid debut from Evening Star, and we can’t wait to see what the studio does next.

Penny's Big Breakaway is a loving homage that accurately captures what was both fun and awkward about the early days of 3D platformers.

Wielding enough creativity and originality in its approach, Penny's Big Breakaway is a classic case of the good of its premise outmatching the occasional bad of its execution. As annoying the technical state in parts is, let alone some of the misjudged application of additional, incentivizing challenge runs a greater risk of putting players off entirely. Even so, flawed and lacking a touch of polish it may be, Evening Star have done well establishing a new IP that is not only reminiscent of past years, but eagerly wants to build something new out of it. What it ends up creating may not be the ...

While speeding through Penny’s Big Breakaway, the studio debut of new development company Evening Star, I could swear I was playing an underrated Sega 3D

An unbelievably satisfying platformer that demands a certain pedigree of player, and if you aren’t able to perform, you may find yourself alienated by what it demands.

At the end of the first world in Penny’s Big Breakaway, the titular character and her sentient, aggressive yo-yo are presented with their first boss-like encounter: a giant rolling ball of penguins. I had to run for my life, swinging with and riding on my yo-yo at pivotal movements so I wasn’t smushed by the ball of a boss, proving to myself that I understood and had started to master its dual-stick control scheme.