Review #460: Floating Runner - Quest for the 7 Crystals

 Float all ya want, just stop bouncing, for cryin' out loud!

That thing on the cover looks nothing like the playable characters in the game.

 Floating Runner is a platform game with all the charm of a 90s game... and all of its pitfalls. Cutesy on the outside, but wonky on the inside, Floating Runner lands flat on its face.

 There's a story in the game, but you wouldn't know it unless you read the manual, it has something to do with both characters collecting 7 colored crystals or something. What you need to know is that every crystal is made up of two stages, and each crystal-world has a health power-up and a unique weapon to find. Both heroes, Lay the boy and Cress the girl, play exactly the same and are merely a cosmetic choice. And interesting, but ultimately adds nothing to the game, mechanic is that you have to collect a crystal at the end of every stage, but the crystal at the end of the second stage will change colors, each color representing a world you haven't beaten yet, thus allowing you to select your next destination!

It plays as bad as it looks. Yikes!

 Sadly, the game is a bit of a mess. The X button allows you to jump, O is your dash and square shoots you gun. Your bullets travel in an overhead arc, so it's a bit hard to aim at enemies which makes jumping on top of them a much more viable alternative. L1 and R1 lets you do a Matrix sidejump, which looks relatively cool for what it is, but in this game... it's better not to chance it with sidejumps. As previously stated, each world has a unique weapon hidden within, and these weapons consume crystals to use. Crystals are very plentiful, enemies drop a handful when defeated, so just spam away.

 Where the game fails, however, is in level design. Stages are absolutely bland, it doesn't help that it looks so ugly, and they even had to resort to floating compass signs to point you in the correct direction... but they won't always be there for you. At times it can be really hard to know where to go next, like the end of the Swamp World, how was I supposed to know I had to drop below after climbing the stairs? To further exacerbate problems with navigation, the default camera angle is a weird downward angle that's really awkward, and the alternate camera angle... puts the camera almost on top on you, which is almost useless.

Where are my textures? I demand textures!

 Some levels are worse than others. The first forest stage features a tree that must be climbed... and it's terrible. Y'see, landing jumps is a thing of nightmares, and to add salt to injury, depending on where you land... your character will automatically perform a forward bounce upon touching the ground, plummeting you to your death... or forcing you to climb the entire tree again. This tree is such a pain to climb that I died on my first try and thus started with this level first. And it is a hassle, because the game runs on a timer and if you run out of time... you lose for good. Back to level 1, no ifs or buts. Which is a bit surprising considering that death is but a slap on the wrist: You only lose your crystals and restart back where you died.

 But the game isn't so kind in a few other aspects. Some levels, like the second lava stage or the second ice stage makes it very easy for the player to land back at the start of the level. Levels might be short, but when you're under a timer and under threat of having to redo the entire jumping ordeals again... it quickly saps any fun you might have playing the game. And by the by, you can't save your game, so either you finish the game in one sitting or you leave your console on until you can play again. On its defense, the game is mercifully short.

That's supposed to be water.... I think.

 Floating Runner isn't a very good game, but it's as 90s/early 3-D platformer as it gets which might be a selling point for quite a few, me included. But once the charm wears off, you're left off with a very poor platform game, with a few neat ideas, like hidden, permanent upgrades on each level and having the ability to pick your next stage, but none of them can save the game from sub mediocrity.
 3.0 out of 10