Developer: Fat Panda Games, Ratalaika Games
Publisher: Games Starter
Platform: PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X
Tested on: Switch
Flat Kingdom Paper’s Cut Edition – Review
The distant year of 2016 is starting to sound like it happened in another lifetime. Yet today we are discussing a title that is brought to us all the way from back there. Flat Kingdom, developed by Fat Panda Games and published by Games Starter, was originally released for PC. We reviewed the game ourselves here, giving it a decent score. Today, a good six years later, our papercraft hero is back in Flat Kingdom Paper’s Cut Edition. This version of the game doesn’t actually contain any new content though, so don’t let the title fool you. It’s in essence just a console port with a fancy name.
Story
Identical to the original, the storyline of Flat Kingdom could come straight out of a fairy tale, or a more cliche video game. The opening cutscene shows this beautiful 2D land under the attack of a 3D wizard, and the princess is kidnapped and taken to another castle. We get some teasers of deeper worldbuilding, but you’ll have to uncover secrets to find out more about that. For now, all we know is that a magical crystal was stolen and the entire world is in danger. Our intrepid hero Flat will have to set out on a journey to save the princess and retrieve the gem, defeating several bosses to do so. It’s standard but nonetheless adorable stuff.
Graphics
Visually, Flat Kingdom stands out in a sea of near-identical titles. We’ve seen similar gimmicks before in games such as Paper Mario, but it has to be said that the designers knew what they were doing. The worlds are colorful and really do look like they’re made out of paper. While the game did not change at all, it looks great in the higher resolution and on the bigger TV screen. Because of the plot, the mixing of 3D and 2D graphics is both story relevant as well as a visual treat for those playing the game. On top of that, we do need to compliment the cute character designs.
Sound
Legendary Japanese composer Manami Matsumae did the soundtrack for this game, so we don’t need to tell you that it’s good. If you listened to any of the music in Shovel Knight or Mega Man, you’ve probably heard some of her work before. The music in Flat Kingdom has a distinct tropical touch for some reason. It does a lot to bring the world to life and give the game a more unique identity, plus the music is just incredibly catchy. Like in the original, the game only has very limited voice acting in a select few important cutscenes.
Gameplay
Flat Kingdom Paper’s Cut Edition is a simple but engaging action platformer that doesn’t have a long runtime. You can beat the game easily in just a couple of hours, even if you go looking for optional sidequests and other secrets. The bulk of the game is spent exploring locations by walking and jumping through them, defeating the enemies you come across, and the occasional boss fight. This might sound rather generic, but Flat Kingdom has one very interesting gameplay element: your character can change shapes.
With the push of a button, your little paper guy shifts from a circle to a triangle to a square. Three basic shapes, but each has slightly different powers within the game. The square is slow but strong, whereas the triangle moves extremely fast. The circle is what you’ll probably default to most of the time though: despite it being only of average speed, it has the ability to double jump. You can imagine how handy this is in a platformer. The fun doesn’t stop there though. All the enemies will also look like one of these three shapes. And like in a game of rock-paper-scissors, any shape is only able to beat one other. This means that you’ll have to develop some quick reflexes for fights.
Overall, the game is fun with this mechanic, though the short runtime kinda drags it down. You get some additional upgrades to each shape later on, but you only have so few levels to beat, making it so that the game doesn’t utilize this to the fullest. Sadly, the boss battles also tend to feel very generic, which ultimately drags down the fun to be had in this bite-sized platformer.
Conclusion
Flat Kingdom Paper’s Cut Edition is a bit of a letdown. At its core, this is still the same fun game we discovered six years ago, now available for consoles. But, even though the title has changed, you’re still getting the same experience and it even still suffers from the same flaws as it did several years ago. If you have already played the original there is no real reason to buy this edition. If you’re looking for a cute platformer, you could do far worse than this one, but we might recommend waiting for a sale.
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