Developer: Team Spikkeee
Publisher: Team Spikkeee
Platform: PC, Mac
Tested on: PC
Peanut – Review
Some of us are always looking to relive our childhoods, longing back to the innocent years of relaxing and fun, without the responsibilities that often plague our adult lives, like making money and filing taxes and other boring stuff like that. Some games can help in trying to return you to those years gone by, while others just try to cash in on that same nostalgia to earn a few extra bucks. Presumably that’s what Team Spikkeee was trying to achieve when they made Peanut, a seemingly inconspicuous game that is obviously inspired by old-school platformers but fails horribly in being as enjoyable as the classics were.
Story
The story starts off pretty simple, a short cutscene gives us the basic premise we have seen a million times before. Peanut, our titular character who also happens to be a small cute corgi, returns home to find the love of his life missing. She has been kidnapped by the evil Veronica Vet, who has left behind nothing but a ransom note and a very heartbroken Peanut. It is up to him to travel the furthest reaches of the world and retrieve his BAE. Yes, that’s the name of his lover, not just a joke we’re trying to make here. You will soon discover the game is littered with this kind of contemporary humor and clever references. There is more to the story here than meets the eye, but as we soon find out, it will be hard to get to these good bits through all the poor execution.
Graphics
Headache inducing might be the best way to describe what Peanut’s graphics are. The character himself is actually pretty adorable looking, but that’s about the nicest thing we can say. The game tries to emulate a classic retro vibe, but the colors are overly saturated and don’t even go together, with objects indistinguishable from the background and hard to make out. You will be squinting at the screen more often than not and most of the enemy designs just seem boring and bland.
Sound
Similar to the above category, once more it feels like Peanut is trying too hard to stick to a pre-cooked formula. The music is upbeat and cheery, but awfully generic. You will listen to the same tune on loop for the duration of the level, only to forget about it immediately when finishing. Every area has its own songs though, which is always a nice touch. Sadly it still feels like only the barest minimum amount of effort went into composing them.
Gameplay
Peanut is a platformer first and foremost. You will be dropped in an environment and have to make your way to the end before a timer runs out, giving you a sense of urgency in trying to complete the level. On your way you will be jumping from platform to platform and over obstacles: things like water, spikes or lava. Touching any of these will instantly kill you and force you to start over. There are no checkpoints, so completing a level isn’t always as easy as it looks. Especially since later on the game starts introducing more complicated mechanics, like bouncing on mushrooms, climbing ladders and platforms that move.
Besides the instant deathtraps, you will also encounter various enemies. These can be killed by either jumping on top of them, reminiscent of old Mario games of course, or shooting them with a well-aimed fireball. Should you accidentally run into an enemy head-first though, do not distress. You will merely lose a heart, which you can regain by collecting one of the hearts scattered around the level. Speaking of collecting things, you will find coins aplenty on your journey, and picking them up is the best way to make your score grow rapidly. Jumping on enemies will also add to your score, by the way.
With all this said you might think Peanut isn’t such a terrible game. It’s not especially inventive or daring, though it doesn’t need to be when you just want some quick fun. That’s where the trouble lies though. The controls of Peanut are sadly so lacking there won’t be much fun in playing this game at all. Your character constantly feels like he’s running on ice, sliding over the screen aimlessly. Sometimes the game doesn’t seem to react to input at all, or the reaction is delayed. You can easily get stuck on the side of obstacles or fall off things without meaning to. As an added frustration, the hit-boxes in Peanut are all over the place, and you will often find yourself losing hearts and dying without even being near to the thing that killed you. As a result, levels that are supposed to be easy, become a real struggle to get through, making it hard to actually want to keep playing.
Conclusion
Peanut needs significant work to be a proper game. There are some fun ideas here: classic platformer gameplay combined with modern jokes and the beginning of what could have been an enjoyable little title. Sadly nostalgia does not make up for the annoyance this game will cause you. If you are a die-hard fan of classic platformers, you might get a kick out of this game. But beyond that, it’s really not that special.
Peanut - Review,
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