A Hat in Time is a solid, charming, and fun little gem of a game.

I backed this game when its Kickstarter launched, and the moment they had the Alpha up I knew it would be good - it definitely needed time in the kettle then, and now, three years after the Kickstarter, it's finally out. Definitely worth the three year wait.

The game plays solidly - it's a 3D collect-a-thon platformer in the same vein as Banjo Kazooie (which I've never played) and games like the old Spyro trilogy (which I've played a ton of.) It certainly plays smoothly, even on a mouse and keyboard. There were a few spots where I struggled to get timing right, mainly with stuff involving the Dweller's Mask, but overall nothing would really frustrate you for bad handling.

Graphically, the game is a beauty. The characters are absolutely charming, and the environments are lush and beautiful. The game even gets a lil creepy at certain parts, and works it out really well! The levels are varied and carry a unique feel to each one.

The music and sound design is fantastic - the voice acting is great, although I'm pretty sure they ripped out a certain NPCs voices due to dumb backlash - which is a huge shame, in my opinion. Each level has really great music, with a few getting remixes as well due to the Kickstarter stretch goals. You can also opt to go for garbled dialogue by getting a badge, if you want it to feel more like Kazooie.

Everything about this game is great - really, the only thing that's bad is that it's pretty darned short, so hopefully Gears for Breakfast will find a way to give more content some time!

Absolutely recommend this game if you love platformers or if you loved old platformer games like Spyro and such, it carries a lot of the charm that those older games had in a nice, modern package!

Really good to see this be such a success!