Penny's Big Breakaway Review | A Stellar Performance

within the month of February there were several games coming out that you couldn't really ignore the big ones people were probably waiting for was Persona 3 reload Final Fantasy 7 rebirth and maybe hell divers 2o but there are still some smaller releases that came by too more specifically a handful of indie games and while a few games caught my interest I was sure to make time for one game in particular and that was Penny's big Breakaway but I think this requires a bit of background so let me give some context back in 2017 Sonic manual was released a critical Acclaim it was the series best received game in years and even now is still the best rated title in recent memory and no this doesn't count but what made Sonic Mania so significant was the developers behind it Christian Whitehead head Cannon and put go to West games these were devs who were dedicated fans of Sonic even making their own fan games and ROM hacks in the past and when they had a chance to make their own official game they ended up making one of the highest rated titles of the franchise ever and after the great success of mania you'd think that a sequel be a no-brainer I'm pretty sure the devs were open to work on another title too but no news of a sequel ever came up so instead the development team went on to form their own Studio named Evening Star behind the scenes they'd work on their own project for a few years and eventually revealed their game in a Nintendo Direct called Penny's big Breakaway and with the reputation of the devs and the game looking legitimately great it was another in game I kept on my wish list and the updates were kind of sparse but once the released window Drew near they began showing a bit more of the game and then out of nowhere Shadow dropped the game during February's Nintendo Direct honestly that caught me by surprise but I was no less excited to finally give the game a try so with with all that in mind let's get into the game proper so we follow Penny who's looking to participate in a popular edition to get a chance at performing alongside the big Emperor Eddie on her way there she picks up a cosmic string turning her yo-yo sentient and giving her some new tricks but during the audition the yo-yo takes a slash at Emperor Eddie causing an embarrassing accident which ends up putting a big Target on Penny's head leaving her to make a break for it and from there the story kind of lingers throughout the game having Penny travel across the world of Mex run for several reasons obviously the main one is to avoid being captured by the millions of penguins sent her away but you'll also learn a bit more about the cosmic string of her yo-yo Emperor Eddie's backstory and Performing partner taboo and how Penny can possibly clear her name honestly I'm surprised how much dialogue is used for the game story or how they even use dialogue to begin with given the game's trailers and opening I assume the game would be a show don't tell so to deal with its simple premise but given each character's personalities and the depth that the story has it might have been too difficult to explain the plot without any text not to mention all the NPCs who have their own clips and chats it works well enough but it just caught me by surprise really what kind of puts me off is the presentation for all the story scenes all cut scenes are either animated in 2D or use in-game Graphics instead and I honestly wish they just stuck with one style instead of switching between the two it just makes the in-game cut scenes look cheaper when the 2D ones have more detail and movement in comparison and I'd like to think that this might have been a stylistic reason like how older 3D mascot Platformers had their fair share of in-game cutcenes but even then it feels like a half-hearted approach when the 2D animated cut scenes just outshine the in-game ones for me not that it matters much since there's only a handful of cut scenes to see and the presentation for them isn't exactly the important part thankfully the rest of the game does just fine with its visuals there's plenty of colorful environments and vibrant animations to see throughout the game and it gives the game a fun cartoony art style that my eyes can't get enough of it's impressive how detailed each area is despite the simple shapes of some objects and the equally simple texture work I love how the is a soft hazy look for the game's depth of field kind of similar to a painterly style I think it's a unique effect I haven't really seen in any other game and it just adds to the game's visual design although turning it off looks a lot cleaner and I'm glad they give you that option through an update characters are all full of lively animations too but the clear highlight is Penny herself and that's pretty obvious given that she wields a yo-yo all the time but it's not just the countless yo-yo tricks either Penny herself is fairly expressive and has a lot of squash and stretch to her movements the Busker animations are a good example of that there's even a little window to show off her expressions in game nice detail there bosses in NPCs also have similar exaggeration but bosses get too little screen time to leave any Lasting Impressions still the effort is apparent and appreciated there are a few problems though at least on the technical side of things for one the render distance could be a bit better even with maxed out settings on PC there's still a couple times where you can see objects pop in and it's pretty rare given all the fixed camera angles but it can still be noticeable at times and as for the frame rate there's no real issues I have for the PC version and the PS5 and Xbox versions can even run the game at 120 frames per second which I can commend them for implementing but unfortunately for switch users the game mainly runs at a lock 30 which is completely fine don't get me wrong but I kind of expected it to run at 60 given the game's simpler visual style and there has been a patch that allows an unlocked frame rate but it still doesn't hit a consistent 60 which is honestly a bit baffling I feel like it would be a lot easier to reach given what the switch can run you know maybe optimizing the game for switch is more complicated than it seems I mean the game uses its own star engine so maybe that could be why or maybe there isn't enough horsepower behind the switch to reach a stable 60 it wouldn't be the first time for this 7-year-old device Jesus Christ it's been 7 years already anyways aside from some minor gripes I think the game looks pretty Sellar for what it tries to accomplish but it's time I get into the game playay and this is what intrigued me the most how would they Implement a character's moves around a yo-yo I mean it's pretty rare to see a yo-yo as a primary tool for Platformers and even then using a yo-yo might be a bit Orthodox but there's also a lot of potential too and I'm glad to say that Penny's big Breakaway does a really good job with its mechanics in that sense this is something you might be familiar with already penny has a handful of moves that work better in different situations and in conjunction with one another like some 3D Mario games and similar titles for example you can roll with your yo-yo to gain some speed down slopes or you can Dash before a roll to give yourself a better startup a wall jump can give you a bit of height if you need it but combine that with a yo-yo bounce and a double jump and you'll be able to ascend some bigger walls it's all about how you use and combine your moves and this can allow you to get past obstacles more efficiently than you would normally there's even a built-in combo counter to encourage chaining these moves together you got to keep on rolling to maintain your combo and if you're looking to get some high scores for those extra rewards you'll need to master the movement and mind your surroundings to get as much points as possible and speaking of your surroundings the environment also plays an important role with your abilities albeit to a lesser degree your roll in swing moves actually work directly with the level design rolling is mainly a way to gain speed and slopes while also granting some height if there's a ramp you can launch off of in the case that you need to reach a platform high in the air you might need a ramp and enough speed to get up to it and as for swinging that works with how far you fall so if you find yourself at a high point and want to get to a place far in the distance you can fall from that high point for a bit and use the swing to redirect your falling speed into a forward launch instead and I really love how that works granted you won't always have the height to pull off these big swings but when you do and you time your swing correctly to launch yourself at just the right angle making that big jump feels immensely satisfying to clear now it's not like you need to know that about the swing move in fact that might be leaning more towards the advanced side of the game's movement but I couldn't help but mention it because I adore how it's implemented using your fall speed and transferring that into a big launch is something I've never really seen before unfortunately the linear design of the game somewhat restricts this kind of movement but I'm just glad to be able to use it to some degree in normal gameplay though the swing basically works as either a double jump or a long jump depending on when you let go of it but aside from your base movement you might also need to think about the controls because this game has two distinct control schemes there's the simple controls giving you something more traditional with limited camera movement and then there's the pro controls giving you a more practical and unorthodox control scheme this places your inputs on the plumpers and triggers instead with your main throwing move on the right stick and honestly it's kind of an odd choice to give us an option because even if you prefer the simple control scheme it's already implemented into the pro controls with the only difference being the lack of camera control but seeing as the camera controls are already pretty restrictive alongside the game already having fixed camera angles you won't be missing out on much besides having roll on the trigger and Performing spins with the right stick makes the experience just a bit smoother than it would be otherwise so personally I'd recommend the pro controls for The Best of Both Worlds although the simple option is still there if you prefer it but going back to the game elements I should probably cover the game's main structure and progression so the game follows the linear stage to Stage structure that you're probably familiar with each world has a handful of levels to complete and sometimes ends with a boss fight however not every world has a boss which may or may not be a bad thing but more on that later each stage has their own gimmicks and Hazards unique to each world but throughout the game you'll also use a few powerups and items to get past certain obstacles you can ride a motorized yo-yo to roll over hazards use a large yo-yo to break some objects for a bit or use a magnet to fly through specific Rays most of these are fairly situational though and they either have a time limit or are restricted to a small area unfortunately this this also means that they don't really mesh well with your abilities either it's usually just a way to shake things up a bit I did enjoy playing with these powerups but I just wish they worked more with your own abilities like the whirling wafer for example the whirling wafer whisks you high into the sky and lets you slowly Glide to the ground but there's usually a few platforms that you can land on early so you can cancel your Glide swing towards the closer platforms and get to the end of the section faster this is the only power up that really allows a different approach with your move set thanks to the height you get you can use your swings to approach the area in a different way and I really like how that works again this isn't to undermine the other items but I feel like the whirling wafer here raised the standard just a bit for me there's also a few optional Collectibles that you can seek out for some extra replayability in each main stage there's three big coins to collect and three dilemas to complete the big coins just need to be found and collected but the dilemmas are short tasks that require you to do a variety of things under specific conditions like collecting items under a time limit breaking containers within an area or getting enough points in one combo getting big coins allow you to unlock Star Globe stages while completing dilemas grants you a bigger Point bonus by the end of each stage and I think these two are both great options for giving players more difficult tasks both rewards are also fairly different on how they challenge the player collecting big coins for Star Globes mainly focuses on platforming while completing dilemmas is for earning high scores it's a nice way to give the player a choice if they prefer playing for one challenge over the other although I feel like going for high scores is way harder than the star Globes but I'll get into that later it's all still optional so so if you're just playing through the game casually or don't really care for that stuff it's never required to beat the game by the end of some worlds you'll also come across one of the few boss fights of the game but honestly there's not much to say about them they're completely fine and play well enough but they don't leave much of an impression I can appreciate giving each boss their own unique gimmicks to deal with and it certainly helps make them stand out but I seriously almost forgot to mention them while writing the script and I'm pretty sure that says enough about them it doesn't help that boss fights don't appear in every World either so their presence is even smaller compared to the main levels they aren't unbearable or awful which is a good thing for sure but to me they're just kind of there to be fair though Platformers aren't exactly known for their boss fights so it's standarded in that sense but I don't know they're okay but that's all I can really say at least they don't take 10 years to beat like some other game I know well overall I think the core gameplay of Penny's big Breakaway is very enjoyable it's your standard 3D platform with some unique aspects added onto it that encourages a bit of experimentation variety and replay ability but if the base game and all the Collectibles still weren't enough for you there's some more content in the form of star Globes time attack mode and the unlockable scrapbook photos the star Globes are the rewards for collecting enough big coins in the main stages these are bite-sized challenge stages that usually focus on one or two gimmicks and are usually harder than most of the main stages in the game but because of their short length they aren't as difficult as You' think they'd be in fact they could be a bit forgettable because of how short they are there's not even a reward for completing them all I guess the star Globes themselves are the reward for collecting the big coins but if you're looking for a reward after that there's nothing here to see now the time attack is nothing new just get to the end as fast as possible and I think that works fine for a game like this there's definitely a bunch of big shortcuts to find and I've already seen some crazy stuff online so that checks out now this is definitely a nitpick on my end but I wish you could just restart faster that sounds really odd but when you're going for that perfect run and end up restarting a bunch of times because you keep making mistakes the time taken up from that Opening screen starts to add up so a faster reset would be to drop out instead since there's no checkpoints and it's generally faster than a menu restart so if dropping out of a stage can reset faster why can't menu restarts be just as fast I just wish there was a way to restart with a press of a button or at least have the restart be a bit faster or get rid of the opening on time attack runs something similar to how Mania did it would be nice you know with the that was basically instant and it was just an amazingly convenient feature to have but here you got to wait for that opening to play out or look for a p to fall into I know that having an instant restart button would basically be impossible but if a Dropout with no checkpoints can reset me so quickly why can't I have a button for that too you know but again this is just a small nitpick and most people probably won't care anyways but if you're not into time attack you can go for all those scrapbook photos instead these are basically concept art for the game and to get these photos you'll need to earn enough points in a stage and beat it it sounds simple enough but in execution it's almost the exact opposite to earn a bunch of points you'll need to do a few things first first you'll need to perform big combos with your moves and other stage objects while rolling around to maintain your combos think Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or bomb rush cyberfunk to compare it to something secondly you'll also need to complete most or all of the dilemmas in the stage since they're the main score booster to help you meet those High scool requirements if you skip just one dilemma you'll miss out on a bunch of points so they're all basically required for those higher sco requirements and thirdly you'll need to do most of the stage almost damageless I say almost because taking damage normally doesn't really matter but if you have any combo going you immediately lose that combo and all the points you were building up you get nothing back it's not always a run killer but if you got a big combo over a large portion of the stage and end up taking damage you might as well reset if you ever buy the showoff Spotlight item to help boost your score that also requires you to beat the stage damag less and if you somehow end up dying that gives you a huge score penalty so there's a lot of factors going against imperfect play and this might sound pretty doable but this this is a very demanding challenge you're basically performing big combos all the time while doing other tasks simultaneously that means you're dashing swinging and rolling repeatedly throughout the entire stage completing all the dilemmas and avoiding every Hazard to keep your combos going and if you come across any obstacle that requires you to wait on moving platforms or time your movements right that can basically force you to end your combo just to move on and yes there is a way to get around that problem but it's very unwieldly to perform if you swing low enough to hit the ground ground you can transition that into a whir to land on the ground and keep your combo going but that requires very specific timing and positioning which just adds to the already demanding challenge not to mention the score requirements get higher and higher for each stage it starts at 50,000 points which is fine but then it goes up to 70,000 880,000 990,000 and even 100,000 points for the last main stage that's exhausting just thinking about it but despite all the difficulties of going for the Scrapbook photos I think that this is still an excellent challenge for the game maybe even the best it requires extreme Mastery of the game's mechanics and movement you need to know where all the dilemas are make the most out of every stage object and gimmick all while performing moves and flashy tricks which is pretty fitting for Penny's character you even need to utilize that swing World Tech to make bigger combos which was apparently intentional by the dev team and I might have not done them yet but I know I'll come back to them at some point because I love the mechanics of the game it's an exceedingly hard task but one I can still enjoy completing not back toback though I adore the challenge but it can be extremely deflating sometimes taking damage during a high combo can be really demoralizing especially if you're almost done with a stage and if you end up being a stage but don't meet the requirements then that's another playthrough of the stage you have to go through that means doing all those combos all the dilemas and the entire stage again hoping that you have just enough points this time there were a handful of times where I just barely missed the score requirements and I did not want to go through the stage again God it's just just like the cuphead boss fights again this certainly isn't for everyone that much is clear but for the select few who really want to take on the hardest test of skill this game has to offer this is probably what you're looking for I can respect the challenge and what it can give but I got to chip away at it not Marathon it it's not like I need it for this video anyways I should mention that the main game itself is a very comfortable ride in terms of difficulty which is why I focus so much on the harder parts of the game like there might be more Bottomless Pits than your average platformer but there are no lives so it only takes one Health Point point away and losing all your health still allows you to start from checkpoints so taking too much damage is almost a nonissue but if you're going for high scores or speed runs taking any damage or dropping out is now a bigger punishment and dying basically forces a reset but whether or not you're looking for something laid back or something more demanding Penny's big breakway does a great job in covering all bases in difficulty and I can admire how they approached it so far I've been praising this game a lot but I'm fully aware that it's far from perfect and I have my own fair share of issues to bring up somewhere based on the game's mechanic others were just simple critiques like the cut scene visuals and a handful were more on the game stability for starters sometimes the camera doesn't allow much room for backtracking I know that's just how the game's designed but there's a few moments where you might need to back up to proceed and that might lead to trouble sometimes depth perception can also be an issue from the camera especially since the game uses more bondless pitch later into the game and your drop shadow certainly helps but when you're Landing from high up your Shadow might not show unless you get closer to the ground also the camera can just snap sometimes and I have no idea why I've already talked about the boss fights but they also end pretty awkwardly they either cut right to a result screen or they teleport everyone to the center and that's it and during this section if you go backwards instead of going forwards the floor won't follow you and you'll just be standing on nothing there were also a lot of smaller moments where things felt like they weren't functioning properly there's a move that allows your yo-yo to ledge grab but it felt like it only worked half the time and I couldn't tell why so I never relied on it that much there's also a few times where P just stumbled on a small slope and locked my controls for a bit for big slopes that makes sense because she's not meant to run on them but not for something like this the same thing happens whenever Penny does this skidding animation I assume this happens if she's moving too fast on the ground but sometimes it just happens for no clear reason and my controls lock up again causing me to do unintentional things in a panic there's a lot more small inconsistencies that I ran into and they weren't gamebreaking by any means but they certainly bogged down the experience a bit it's part of the reason why I didn't go for all those scrapbook photos going for those is already hard enough but when your run ends because of something like this it makes it even more unappealing I did get a laugh out of some things though namely the glitches I should reiterate that the game is more than stable and you're most likely never encounter any bugs on your own but I certainly ran into a few glitches myself and sometimes it was ridiculously easy to find them there were a handful of walls missing Collision like this one on the second stage and it was just right here a couple times I swung and clipped into a few objects getting stuck as a result the magnet item teleported me which isn't how it works I went through a lava fall fall somehow and caused an awkward camera pan right after the water waves didn't spawn here causing me to die to reset it there was missing collision at this corner here I got stuck in another object but also got out and I skipped a hovering section by getting on top of this wall which isn't exactly a glitch but it doesn't seem intended and I just thought it was cool I also ran into a few crashes and soft locks that were thankfully very rare just when I completed the stage I took damage and couldn't do anything to restart the game crashed for some reason during a loading screen and the game also crashed when I was playing on the steam deck I have no footage of the last one unfortunately but the game was running completely fine and it was on a new file too now I should also mention that the game has been patched while I've been working on this video and some of the bugs might have been fixed but even then there were a fair amount of issues I still ran into even after the patches that includes this odd Dropout and this the patches do make combo runs a bit more tolerable though not by much but at least I can ledge grab a bit more consistently still there were definitely more glitches and Oddities than I expected from the game but it's a small enough issue where it probably won't affect most people even then I still think that the game is overall a great time the movement and level design work really well together with a few power-ups and items to keep things from getting stale the Collectibles offer their own ways to test the player if they're looking for something extra and the extremely demanding high scores are an amazing challenge for those who've mastered everything the game has to offer and to top it all off the music is just absolutely phenomenal and you want to know why there you go TPS is already well known for composing amazing tracks but it's not just him on the game OST there's also sha biolo sorry if I mispronounced that who made some of the energetic tracks and even Christian Whitehead helping with a handful of tracks too who knew he can make music right there's Hunter bridges on the guitars and Johnny Atma known for his gal remixes or is it gametal also helping with some guitars as well which is really cool to see all of the level themes are super appealing and distinct always catching your ears as soon as you enter a new world and for every main level theme there's also a faster Pango mix if you got a penguin stuck onto you honestly I wish you had a toggle or something to listen to these mixes when ever we wanted because sometimes I prefer the faster Tempo over the normal mixes maybe if we could use them in time attack or with an optional toggle after beting the game that'd be a nice feature to have because you barely even hear them in game Boss music is pretty solid as well and cut scene music just kind of exists but again cut scenes don't really need much to work well so they're all right the only tracks that didn't leave much of an impression are the ones to use for the star Globes it's mostly due to how short the stages are so you can't really listen to one track for long they're also not associated with any level theme or aesthetic so they don't really leave a lasting of impression either but at the very least they work for smaller stages like these altogether Penny's big breakway is an amazing debut title for Evening Star the game is a remarkably fun experience for both casual and expert players the core gameplay Works exceptionally well once you get used to your moves and there's a fair amount of content to sink your teeth into not to mention how replayable the game can be the flashy and expressive visuals work well with a cartoon-like art style and the music is full of fantastic tracks that I simply can't get enough of there's a handful of issues for sure with the okay boss fights and very very small bits of Jank but everything else easily makes up for it for $30 I think you're getting your money's worth and if you're still on the fence you can always wait for a sale to come around there's probably going to be one during the summer anyways the game's on all current gen consoles including PC and switch I've already said this earlier but for those curious the main difference for switch is that it runs at a lower resolution and at 30 FPS with an unlocked but unstable frame rate as an alternative option and as I said before other platforms can run at 120 FPS so it's quite a drawing difference to go from 1 to 20 FPS down to 30 but if you're willing to put up with it the switch version is completely fine otherwise if you're looking to play portably though you can also play on the steam deck if you have it as that version does run at 60 with slightly better visuals to boot but that's all I have to cover as for me I'll be back in like 2 months when I finish my next video what it'll be is kind of up in the air but you'll find out eventually you can like And subscribe if you want or don't that's up to you and I'll see you later [Music] he

Channel: Technonova

Views: 810

Keywords: pennys big breakaway, evening star, sonic mania, nintendo, xbox, playstation, steam, video games, platformer, technonova, yoyo, playstation 5, xbox series x, nintendo switch, review, pennys big breakaway review, mario odyssey, mario sunshine, mario 64, indie, tee lopes, sean bialo, gametal, jonny atma, christian whitehead, final fantasy 7 rebirth, persona 3 reload, helldivers 2, ff7r, private division, pennys big breakaway gameplay, 3d platformer, indie games, sonic the hedgehog

Id: QMThexwWcI8

Length: 23min 40sec (1420 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2024