[Review] Frogun - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Molegato
Published By: Top Hat Studios
Categories: 3D Platformer
Release Date: 08.03.22

Ok so. It’s not only a Frog…IT’S A GUN TOO. Our lead Renata is from a family of world famous archeologists, explorers, and inventors. She’s no stranger to the mysterious parts of the world, but on her parent’s most recent expedition, they decide it might be a tad too dangerous for Renata, so she’s left behind. Three days pass however and they haven’t returned. This leads Renata to take up the titular Frogun, the latest invention of her parents, and go deep into the ruins to save her parents and perhaps prove her worth as an explorer!

You’ll notice this immediately, and I would not even be close to being able to avoid mentioning it, but Frogun is gorgeous. I’ve always had a soft spot for the art style that Mega Man Legends took on. The colors, the shading, the sprites as facial animations. This is something a handful of anime games and even the recent Say No! More did. Absolutely love it. I also want to say this definitely leans more into a PSone aesthetic, not so much N64, which was softer and usually not heavy on textures.

I’ve caught myself humming the music. The music has a bit of that PSone/N64 feel too, though not as crispy sounding. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s part of the upper echelon of music from that era, but it’s still really nice. As a whole, it’s refreshing to see people who *get* that feel games had back then.

Frogun is a bit of a platformer, a bit of a collectahon, and a bit of a grab and pull kind of game. A lot of platformers back then had a gimmick, and I’d say Frogun’s gimmick most closely resembles something like Chameleon Twist. The Frogon can grab enemies, pots, switches, handled blocks and the lot towards you. It can also pull you towards walls or bigger objects. You’ll need to master this if you really want to get to hidden areas or those speedrun challenges.

Lets touch on the challenges quickly infact. You sorta have a checklist, speedrun, getting every collectable, not dying, yadda yadda. Frogun does one thing that I appreciate more than you could possibly imagine. It doesn’t force you to do each challenge in a single run. So say you collect everything in one run, you don’t die, but you took your time. Great, no worries, just replay the level and make a mad-dash to the end. Thank you thank you thank you for allowing players to not just do everything in one swoop.

While most of these collectables are just that, collectables, you’ll find some notes in each level too. These are left by Reneta’s parents and can explain more of where you’re at and how they experienced it. You can view these in stage as you grab them, or just whenever you’re on the overworld map.

Once in every world, you get a Race level. On first look, this might be overwhelming, as you might think you need to collect everything and then still get to the end fast enough before Jake and his snake, Snaatch get there. Don’t worry, just get to the end like you would. These stages always allow for circling back to grab those missed collectables. And remember, you can always do multiple runs for each challenge if needed. Each world also has a boss level. These are a tad closer to how say, a Sonic game would do boss levels. You’re still doing a full level, but it ends with a boss fight. It’s those “hit __ times” kinda bosses. Nothing too tricky.

Hey, there’s a shop in each world too! And Reneta…she can get a new hat! I love this more than you could imagine. It’s a little thing, but I love when you can put on new outfits in games, even if it’s really just a hat. These shops are also where you can purchase art to look at whenever you want. If you ever wanted info on the wonderfully named enemies, you can read it here too. Last but not least, you can view what Medals you have unlocked or still need to. These are more or less achievements.

So Frogun has plenty of replayability, it looks simply fantastic, and it really does harken back to those games back when 3D will really starting to get into it’s groove. Even better, there’s a multiplayer component in coin duels. Though I never got the opportunity to enjoy this mode. There’s got to be a catch…right? Well, I do find aiming the Frogun to be a tad tricky at time, especially when you’re in a hurry like a race level. If you want to get precise, you need to stop in your tracks.

Otherwise, I have very little issue at all with Frogun. Even if I was getting slightly peeved at ruining a run for a challenge or personal best, the game feels fun enough for me to just go back into the game without worrying. It really helps the load times are short.