Gift

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Gift is a Platformer with Puzzle-Platformer elements released in 2024 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox X|S, and Nintendo Switch. This game puts players in the role of an “old man” whose ship suffers some sort of accident, forcing the man to find his way through the ship’s wrecked interior as it capsizes.

I put “old man” in quotations because we never actually see the guy – through the entire game he’s wearing an old-fashioned diving suit that obscures his features. In fact, most of the game’s characters are represented in some sort of odd way, such as the man’s accountant being depicted as a bloated, golden piggy bank, and various businessmen shown as slim figures in suits with line graphs for heads.

Beyond this, the game’s 3D visuals largely look decent but not spectacular. For a game where much of the focus is rising water, the water doesn’t even look particularly great. Still, it’s passable, I suppose. These visuals are all backed by a sparse soundtrack that just briefly cuts in during focal points of the game’s “story”, such as it is – characters in this game don’t talk, they just make little grunting noises like characters in a Zelda game.

While the presentation may be a bit lacking, sadly the gameplay is worse. This game relies heavily on Platforming, which is unfortunate given how bad this Platforming actually is. Jumps are unpredictable, and the game has you grabbing at dangling chains with a mechanic that’s hit or miss when it comes to whether it will detect your input.

The game does one clever thing by having the ship rocking, tilting, and flooding, recontextualizing areas you’ve been in and changing them. Unfortunately, this potentially clever effect is somewhat soured by the seemingly random appearance of debris blocking your path and making you feel railroaded rather than it being a natural part of the environment.

Overall, I think Gift was aiming for something interesting in its gameplay and presentation, but none of this game’s components are strong enough to deliver on what it aims for. The Nintendo Switch has no shortage of great Platformers, even cinematic ones that try to tell a deeper story – I suggest you play one of those other games instead.

tl;dr – Gift is a Platformer with Puzzle-Platformer elements that has players working their way through a sinking ship trying to escape. While the premise here is good, nothing the game does really delivers on it, with the poor Platforming being particularly disappointing. Skip this one.

Grade: C-

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