Crumble

Genre: 3D Platformer

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Split-Screen), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Crumble is a 3D Platformer released on PC in 2020 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game has you playing as a goo ball rolling through levels and swinging from platform to platform using a grappling hook-like tongue.

Crumble has visuals that are appealing, but simple, using some fairly simple polygonal visuals that have some nice touches like good-looking grass and destructible environments with nice physics, but mostly don’t do anything particularly noteworthy. The one exception here is that when this game really gets going, it gives players an incredible sense of speed, and in fact this may be possibly the fastest Platformer I’ve ever played – Sonic, eat your heart out.

Having said that, the speed and destruction physics come at a heavy price – this game’s performance is absolutely horrible at times, going from pretty smooth framerates down to what seems to be single-digit FPS framerates. This isn’t always an issue, and it mainly rears its head during scenes where destructible environments are exploding all around you, but when it does show up, it’s painfully distracting.

The high-speed stuff, on the other hand, tends to highlight this game’s issues with fog and pop-in, and players will at times be speeding along a corridor-like series of platforms at such a pace that they can seem to materialize in front of you shortly before you land on them. Again, these issues don’t ruin the gameplay, but they are definitely noticeable.

Add to this a repetitive soundtrack (with surprisingly quite a lot of old-timey piano themes) and simple cartoony sounds like squishy sounds for your slime moving and jumping on objects. There’s not much beyond that – there’s not really a story beyond “jump out of the spaceship to speed through the level and then jump back in the spaceship at the end”. It’s simple… even amateurishly so.

I know I’ve front-loaded this review with criticisms and complaints, so at this point you may be thinking I don’t care for this game, but this is mainly to let you know what you’re getting into here – this game feels like it was constructed by someone messing around with physics in a 3D engine and slapping together a game out of it. However, while it is absolutely lacking in polish… if you can look past that, you will find this to be an absolutely brilliant 3D Platformer.

What makes Crumble such a joy to play is a combination of three elements – its speed, its gameplay physics, and its level design.

I’ve already mentioned this game’s great sense of speed, but I’ll just add that while the insane speeds this game allows for can at times make you feel almost out of control, the ability to grapple onto most surfaces makes it easier to correct for a missed jump or maneuver into a position you want to be in. I firmly believe that every 3D Sonic game from this point forward should take a long, hard look at Crumble to see how you do this sort of fast-paced obstacle course-style Platformer gameplay right.

The grappling using your tongue takes a good deal of getting used to, and in particular using this gameplay mechanic with any sort of precision requires a somewhat steep learning curve that makes this not a great game for more casual players. However, once you get the hang of it (ha), the amount of freedom of movement it allows for is absolutely liberating, and it makes this game a dream for speedrunners (and because of this, the online leaderboards are very much appreciated, even if I’ll never come close to the best times for each level). And for less-skilled players, the game is generally forgiving of falling to your doom, allowing you to restart at the last checkpoint in a jiffy.

Finally, the level design in this game is absolutely superb. There’s tons of variety, but even more than that, there are some truly creative level ideas here that make for some absolutely thrilling setpieces. Without spoiling it, I will say that when you play the level with the storm raging in it, you’re in for a real treat. I can’t remember the last Platformer I played with level design this inspired.

Before finishing, I should note that this game does include a 2-player split-screen competitive mode, but it has serious issues. The resolution is severely dropped and there’s a lot of ugly aliasing, but the game’s other graphical issues remain in place. However, more than this, the multiplayer mode suffers from an odd setup that requires players to play with a single Joy-Con each. I suppose I can see some players getting some added value out of this mode, but I think most will likely dismiss it as being too saddled with issues to be all that worthwhile.

In short, Crumble is a game with high highs and low lows. The performance is outright nasty at times, the game’s presentation feels very amateurish, and the learning curve early on can make it difficult to really get into the game. However, if you can bear with Crumble’s technical issues, if you can forgive its lack of polish, and once you get the hang for how this game works, it is an absolute joy to play, moving at high speeds, swinging through the air, and making your own way through the game’s obstacle course-like levels. If you’re a fan of Platformers, you should absolutely give this game a try.

tl;dr – Crumble is a 3D Platformer that has players speeding through obstacle course-style levels as a slime with a grappling hook-like tongue. Crumble is sorely lacking polish and has some really terrible performance issues, as well as a bit of a steep learning curve. Yet despite these major flaws, it is an absolute joy to play, with an incredible sense of speed, thrilling physics, phenomenal level design, and an outstanding sense of freedom. It may be far from perfect, but it is still an absolutely must-play game for fans of Platformers.

Grade: B+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Platformer, Most Overlooked, The “Wow, this game was way better than I expected!” Award

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