Frogun is a retro-inspired 3D platformer, developed by digital artist and game developer Molegato, and published by Top Hat Studios. Players control junior explorer Renata as she searches for her missing parents within the Beelzebub ruins. Armed only with her parents’ latest invention, the titular Frogun, she heads off on a journey to prove how capable she is, while collecting treasure and discovering secrets.
The immediate appeal of Frogun comes from its visual presentation. Clearly inspired by games of the PS1 and Nintendo 64 era, the graphics of Frogun have an excellent low-poly aesthetic. Renata has a very cute design, especially with how the face has been drawn, and all the enemy designs have a good mix of intimidating and adorable.
The level design also reflects the era of gaming Frogun is inspired by. Simple structures suspended above bottomless pits – the type you might find in Crash Bandicoot, Pac-Man World and Kula World. Each level has several challenges and collectables for players to find, such as coins and hidden diary entries. Completing every challenge in a stage gives the player an emblem, which all contributes to fully completing the game (which is a lot easier said than done).
As a 3D platformer, Frogun involves a lot of running around and jumping over gaps, but the unique mechanic that makes it stand out is its grapple hook. Using the Frogun, Renata can grab walls that are far away and pull herself along. This core mechanic is used in many interesting ways, all in service of providing difficult and unique platforming challenges. Most of the time this works…but not all of the time.
Frogun is hard – harder than it should be, really. For players who aim for 100%, there will be a lot of frustration through a combination of the level design, enemy placement, and stiffness of the controls. In particular the grappling hook launches out in a straight line, but actually aiming it in the 3D space is difficult. The camera can often make the Frogun look like it’s aimed correctly when it’s actually not. This becomes aggravating when some challenges require the player to grapple while jumping, as a miss will often lead Renata to fall to her death (that is if a flying enemy doesn’t move into the her path unexpectedly and mess up the whole sequence).
Many of these annoying platforming challenges only arise when extending out to do the side content, like the optional challenges, but there is one level variant that is required, and is also very frustrating. Some levels will see Renata’s rival Jake appear and challenge her to a race through the stage. The focus is now on clearing a stage as fast as possible. Unfortunately, this runs counter to the way challenges and collectables are handled.
Although Renata is encouraged to run through a level, she is also expected to collect every coin and complete other challenges while doing so. Given how strict the timer is on the race, it results in an incredibly frustrating experience. Now, Renata can focus on just the race and pick up the collectables after, but in doing so will have to go through the entire stage again. This makes the stages feel twice as long as they need to be, and quite tedious.
This results in bringing down the overall experience of Frogun, which starts off quite clever and fun but slowly becomes repetitious and unnecessarily irritating. With some quirks that can result in cheap deaths, brought upon by the level design and camera, Frogun requires a high level of tolerance for anyone who wants to see everything the game has to offer.
