Pennys Big Breakaway Switch Review
Announced at the most recent Nintendo Direct, Pennys Big Breakaway is an offering from the team behind Sonic Mania, Evening Star. Rather than being in the collectathon format that most platformers tend to follow, Penny’s Big Breakaway proudly leans on the team’s experience in a momentum-based platformer with a side dish of busking. What’s it Like? Grab your Yo-yo, put on your mime makeup, and keep moving as we review Penny’s Big Breakaway for Nintendo Switch.
The game tells a story about Penny, who enrolls in a talent show, unknowingly wringing some people and ultimately disrobing the emperor thanks to her out-of-control sentient Yo-yo. You make your hasty escape and are thrust into the bright and colourful world of Penny’s Big Breakaway, navigating multiple paths, completing side missions like delivering lunch to a construction worker, collecting bolts, and upon finishing each level, you perform a busker special for some bonus points to your adoring fans. Penny herself is full of character despite having no dialogue, and her exaggerated moves and emotions are really well done in a charming and likable way. During each level, you can collect bonus objectives and link moves into some nice combos to get that high score. Initially, I was terrible at getting around, but after a while, the fluid movement became almost second nature.
Penny’s Big Breakaway is loud. Its bright and colorful world, playful animations, and larger-than-life ensemble are refreshing and its approach to gameplay is reminiscent of the Crash Original trilogy and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle days. That Sonic pedigree also shines through as Penny Big Breakaway is focused on that speed of traversal, with several moves and abilities afforded to you from the outset, allowing you to cruise through levels, or should you decide it, have a crack at speedrunning. This is Penny’s Big Breakways biggest strength and its controls are well implemented, and linking these traversal moves into on fluid run is satisfying when everything goes right, and downright frustrating when it doesn’t. To keep you moving, the Emperor’s trusty army of penguins is almost constantly chasing you, and should you be overwhelmed by them, you are captured, and promptly lose a life. This is where my first complaint comes in as some of the levels seemed to be counterintuitive to the design of the momentum-based nature of the game, made even more difficult by having to wrestle the camera with the D-pad, which can lead to some frustrating occurrences, especially when outrunning a giant ball of Penguins which gave me flashbacks to the Crash Bandicoot stages where you would run towards the camera to escape a giant boulder.
Graphically, the game is decent looking and it’s not hard to see the Sonic influence and DNA shine through. The game is locked at 30 frames per second and rarely dips below that. The characters look good, the worlds have a lot going on, and despite the aforementioned issues with the level design above, they are wonderfully varied and seem to change up at just the right moment so they never outstay their welcome. This is all backed by a fun and playful score that ranges from relaxing calypso beach-style vibes to fast and busy tunes that match the world perfectly. The score also hastens tempo when evading or nearing capture, creating the same rush that we used to get while searching for oxygen bubbles while underwater in Sonic the Hedgehog. For my vision-impaired Yo-yoers, there aren’t any accessibility options so to speak, and due to the fast nature of the game coupled with the colour scheme, more research might be required to see if Pennys Big Breakaway is right for you.
Unfortunately, there is a distinct lack of polish in some aspects of Penny’s Big Breakaway that takes away some enjoyment. Throughout my playthrough, there were several annoying bugs like getting a game over screen when hitting close to the edge of the water, or the penguins appearing in the Busker Bonus scenes blocking the screen. There were times when I would successfully complete a phase of a boss fight only for the game to trigger a game over screen instead of a cutscene, forcing me to lose my score.
As we wind up the string on this yo-yo of a review, Pennys Big Breakaway is a bright and fun platforming adventure for enthusiasts of the genre and a challenging race for speedrun aficionados. It may need a little more polish, but those who enjoyed the likes of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and KOa and the 5 Pirates of Mara will find enjoyment here. There are frustrations and some obstacles to overcome, but Penny’s Big Breakaway is a great adventure that is sure to entertain platformers of all ages.
So What’s it Like? Pennys Big Breakaway is like Sonic Adventure and Jet Set Radio.
In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t affect my score.