Seafrog is a genius mixture of the 2D skateboarding of Ollie Ollie World and collectathon motion platformer akin to Donkey Kong Nation. The brainchild of Grumpyface Studios, Seafrog is a captivating sleeper indie that feels so good second to second that I’ll proceed to poke at it all year long. It’s low affect, low penalties, and all enjoyable, however can it actually stand out among the many upcoming onslaught of latest releases?
Seafrog begins with our silent protagonist (the titular Seafrog) caught adrift on a ship together with his AI pirate companion and trusty rocket wrench. After crashing down a waterfall, the crew finds themselves in a ship graveyard, and it is right here the place they determine to commandeer a bigger ship, then use elements from all the opposite ships to restore theirs. That is the place the collectathon side comes into play, and it’s such a blast to dig into.
Your trusty rocket wrench features like a skateboard if you press the R button, after which if you hit jumps, you let go of the R button in air and do methods robotically, touchdown them if you hit the R button once more. Additionally hitting the R button when close to a rail or ledge will robotically have you ever grind. Doing grinds and flips will construct your enhance meter, which may make you go sooner for greater jumps, and even will let you defy gravity by driving the ceiling. Letting go of R on the bottom has you get off the board and stroll round. The simplicity of the skateboarding management scheme is a particular plus.
There’s much more nuance to those techniques if you embody grapple factors, magnetic partitions, manuals and so many extra variations to maintain the combos going and hold that enhance meter full. These are launched slowly throughout a number of ranges, along with an improve system and assault system. The improve system has you discovering improve chips you could equip that provide bonuses and buffs, like bonus enhance meter at the price of well being. When slotted in subsequent to a yellow well being chip, you get much more bonuses, so not solely does it matter what chips are geared up, but additionally their positions, growing the totally different kinds of gameplay. Experimenting with totally different builds retains the sport contemporary and distinctive with only a few swaps.
The totally different ships themselves are micro open worlds with nested stage areas so that you can discover. While you enter a ship, you’re thrust proper into the open area: doing methods, defeating enemies by boosting by them, and discovering sources to restore your ship. There are totally different grapple factors you must restore to open the principle door to get additional into the ship, however there are additionally a number of small doorways you’ll be able to undergo which have bonus challenges and sources. It is actually sort of a neat trick to get into this skatepark fashion stage, solely to see it offer you entry to much more to discover at your individual tempo. Each ship has its personal vibes, biomes, and customized mechanics with the rooster ship and the ice ship being my two favorites.
After getting as many sources out of the ship to improve yours, it is time for a boss battle. These are large flashy enemies which might be fought by doing combos and hitting environmental factors to do harm. They’re enjoyable methods to make use of the mechanics whereas additionally posing reliable threats. There’s lots right here that actually performs like your favourite 2D platformers, however with a novel twist of the skateboarding to clean up the dynamic. It’s an thrilling mixture; like somebody discovering chocolate and peanut butter for the primary time, it simply flows so effectively.
That being mentioned, when you’ve seen a stage or two, you sort of get the loop of what you’ll be seeing for the rest of the quick runtime: exploring ranges, amassing sources, tackling totally different bosses. There are a bunch extra issues that can pop up equivalent to impediment programs, excessive rating, and fight challenges that each one deal with one particular a part of the gameplay however nonetheless, you don’t get trick controls, or grind controls so you’re simply doing them for the combos and fewer about customizing your skating. That’s okay as a result of skating isn’t the main target right here: it is the traversal, and that’s clean as silk.
Seafrog doesn’t hit the best highs of say, a Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater, or Ollie Ollie World, however its easy gameplay and satisfying useful resource assortment loop is sort of the addicting premise that stored me going again. Even after beating the sport, I nonetheless discovered myself poking round ranges, on the lookout for extra gears or chips, simply because it felt so good to take action. This sport is all about the way it feels, and it feels improbable. All the pieces else is so inconsequential, although, that it made me need somewhat extra oomph out of it. Some kind of enhance of adrenaline or pleasure, possibly, which is why I might categorize this as a comfortable sport. A comfortable skateboarding platforming collectathon. Actually rolls off the tongue, would not it?
