A Hat in Time

With witty writing, colorful presentation and smooth and varied gameplay, A Hat in Time is one of the best platform games released in recent years. While the game wears its influences right in the open, it's never bound to them, offering features that do manage to make it stand out from the best classic games. Yooka-Laylee was meant to bring a new golden era for the genre, far from the spotlight for too long, but it's a small spacefaring kid and her trusty hats that may finally be able to do so.

A Hat in Time excels with an overwhelming charm in its writing and art direction that overcomes any missteps in these areas. Its core, smooth mechanics also benefit from promising ideas, but none of them prevent the game from being pulled into a wormhole of mediocre level design and objectives. The potential for phenomenal platforming and exploration is here, but for every positive, there seems to be a negative in A Hat in Time.

Hat Girl may not go down in history as an iconic character, and the story is nonsensical, but often it’s this very bizarre nature that lends this cap much of its credence. A Hat in Time is delightfully charming and always manages to take a left turn, surprising and challenging even a storied gamer like myself.