HardCube

Genre: Arcade / 3D Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

HardCube is a family-friendly Arcade-stye game with Platforming elements were players move a ball around various linear levels, with gameplay reminiscent of arcade classics like Marble Madness and Super Monkey Ball. This game was released on mobile devices in 2016 (or possibly before, it’s hard to tell) and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2020.

Visually, HardCube looks decent, but fairly simple. Environments and backgrounds are largely made out of abstract geometric shapes, and there’s some okay lighting, but nothing to get excited about. This is paired with annoying menu sounds and decent but forgettable synthesized music.

As for the gameplay, most games of this sort lean heavily on their physics to make their gameplay enjoyable, but despite touting “realistic physics”, HardCube does not. In fact, if it wasn’t for the way your ball is slow to gain speed or stop, there’s hardly much in the way of “physics” here at all, with the obstacle course-like levels’ focus mainly on the game’s Platforming elements… and I’m sorry to say that the Platforming here is pretty terrible. It’s slow, not all that nuanced, makes players repeatedly bounce if they hold down the jump button, and made it’s all worse by an absolutely atrocious camera that’s controlled by the L and R buttons and can only move to 90-degree angles. Gameplay largely boils down to slowly and meticulously moving through the game’s levels and trying not to mess up and fall off… and being tossed back to the level’s start if you do.

That said, HardCube is not a terrible game, just an extremely mediocre one. Its simple arcadey gameplay might hold some attraction for those looking for a challenge, but most will find this game’s slow gameplay to be tedious and not worth bothering with.

tl;dr – HardCube is a family-friendly Arcade-style game with heavy Platforming elements that sells itself as a ball-rolling physics-based game like Marble Madness or Super Monkey Ball, but plays a lot more like a simple obstacle course Platformer, and not a very good one. Bad camera, simple gameplay, and slow and tedious pacing make this a game most will want to skip.

Grade: C-

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