BAKERU Reviews

want to have fun? its time to play bakeru

This is a wonderful 3D platformer that's bursting at the seams with both charm and content. You take on the role of Bakeru the tanuki and attempt to liberate Japan from an evil oracle who wants to subject the entire country to a never-ending demonic festival. Along the way you'll meet new friends and pick up new transformations to help defeat the oracle's party-obsessed minions. This game felt like a real labor of love from the devs. This also just feels like a straight-up, fun platformer . . . for me, it had similar vibes to a 3D Mario game or Astro Bot. Pros: + 63 unique levels. All of them are quite big, and most of them are visually and thematically unique. + Three different types of (optional) collectables for you to find scattered throughout the levels. + It mixes up the gameplay (e.g. there are some racing, mech fighting, and space shooter levels). + There's a decent number of unique boss fights. +Heavy focus on Japanese culture making for a unique experience compared to other platformers +You'll be smiling the whole time playing this game Cons: -Walking towards the camera causes your character to slowdown instead of maintaining his speed. -Revisiting specific levels is a bit annoying towards the end due to the map layout/ travel mechanics. -There probably should have been a few more regular enemy types. In short, if you're a 3D platformer fan this is definitely one you'll want to check out. It's a great experience.

I loved this game! As a huge fan of Goemon, I was stoked to see this spiritual successor (from the lead of those games, Etsunobu Ebisu) released on Steam! It looks and plays great, and while it doesn't have random things to do in stages, secrets to find per se (though there are collectibles), or as fleshed out of an inventory, it has a nice variety of gameplay mechanics as well as fun and inventive stage design, that never stopped delighting me. This feels like a lost 3D platformer from the PS2 era, and I mean that as high praise! Totally incidentally, I'm hoping we see a sequel that adds in some of the things I mentioned, as well as broadening Bakeru's moveset and removing invisible walls (a minor gripe, but they do sometimes show up in places that feel odd). Don't let any of these things stop you from enjoying this gem!

Hidden Gem and currently one of the best PC titles in its genre. Lots of humor, great Boss fights, fun platforming , lots of variety and collectibles. This game was only released for Switch and PC.

Just plain fun. Super charming and unique. If you fw PS2 era platformers you cannot miss this

A great collect-a-thon game with a strong Goemon influence in its aesthetics.

Imagine Mario 3D World, but instead of jumping on people’s heads in the Mushroom Kingdom, you’re beating them over the head with taiko drumsticks in glorious Nippon. Basically, Mario for weebs and trivia nerds. You can really feel (heh) the pedigree of Good-Feel as a 2nd party Nintendo developer in how polished and problem-free the game is to play, at least on my hardware. No tinkering or modding needed. Also, the characters while being simplistic, are endearing enough to enjoy watching during the course of the game. A platformer set in a cartoony, exaggerated Japan does provide for some clever level designs, and the pieces of random Japanese trivia doled out by Scoop adds a touch of Mario is Missing to the experience. The game’s biggest drawback is in how little faith it has in the player. Clearly Bakeru is designed to be someone’s first video game, and that’s great. On the other hand, because of that, more experienced players will likely find the game’s opening stages underwhelming as Bakeru’s full moveset is slowly drip fed to them. Once you have everything and the training wheels are off, the game does become much better. While the game does try to create more variety for itself with a few racing, flying, and giant robot stages, I think I would’ve liked if it had stages dedicated entirely to Bakeru’s different Henge transformation abilities, as I didn’t feel the game as is uses them to their full potential. Overall, it’s a charming, well made 3D platformer. Not amazing, not revolutionary, but good. It’s fine. Recommended.