Folks... I think we may have a new Top 100 candidate on our hands. As I've said before, Penny's Big Breakaway was my most anticipated game of 2024, and just a few days ago, it suddenly got a shadowdrop out of complete nowhere. Now that I've played it, yeah, it definitely lived to the hype. From the dev team behind Sonic Mania, now called Evening Star, Penny's Big Breakaway gave me everything I wanted, and some things I didn't even know I wanted. So this post will be both a standard review and a Top 100 gushing post, because man do I have a lot of positive things to say about this game.
Like all great 3D platformers, Penny's Big Breakaway has a simple premise. Penny is a performer who accidentally got herself in trouble with the king, and has to run away from him and his army of penguins as she tries to clear her name. I don't think I've played a 3D platformer with a fugitive-style plot like this, but it's a surprisingly brilliant fusion, lending the fast-paced gameplay a fittingly propulsive story. I was also quite pleasantly surprised about just how much I ended up enjoying the game's story, but it's so intertwined with the gameplay that I'll have to save that for later.
So let's start with the gameplay instead. Penny's Big Breakaway is a linear 3D platformer where you play as Penny who has a pretty wide moveset of yo-yo related moves. You can throw your yo-yo at objects, spin it around as a form of crowd control, swing to gain height, dash to gain speed, air stall to land on platforms more easily, and hop on your yo-yo to use it as a spin dash-esque speed boost. There's a lot to keep track of and it means Penny's Big Breakaway has a very steep learning curve. However, once you do get to grips with the controls, this is probably one of the best 3D platforming movesets period. It's so robust, freeform, and expressive. There's so many ways to tackle each obstacle, but nothing ever feels game-breaking, there's no double jump or anything like that. You need to work and use your arsenal to its fullest to get past every obstacle. What elevates the moveset is how momentum comes into play. Almost all of your moves are momentum-based. The ride move, for example, speeds up when you're rolling down slopes and slows down when you're going up one. But the really genius part is the fact that maintaining your speed requires you to pull off the tougher maneuvers. You'll have to dash rather than air stall or swing, and when you do swing, you need to let go a bit earlier to get a boost. Taking risks in Penny's Big Breakaway makes you go faster, and going fast feels very satisfying in this game.
The levels is also really well-designed, and consistently so. The levels feel meticulously crafted to encourage you to build as much speed as possible, and the many gimmicks the game tosses your way are all fun to use, from power-ups to a variety of contraptions you can interact with using your yo-yo. While the game is linear, it's linear in the same way that Super Mario 3D World and Forgotten Land are linear. They're straight-forward start-to-finish platforming obstacles courses, but they're also filled to the brim with hidden areas, secrets, and collectibles. But my favorite thing about the levels in this game is the theming. The starting town world is pretty standard, but from World 2 onward, Penny's Big Breakaway offer up some truly unique world ideas, each offering their own unique mechanics to mess around with. Zaphara is an electric-based factory on a desert where Penny becomes an intern and does odd tasks, Moltobene is an Italian-inspired restaraunt stationed onto of a volcano, World's Edge is a library in space, Lawberry has you escape from prison and platform your way through a courtroom, the list goes on. The color choices, striking backgrounds, and fantastic music (more on that later) also helps to really give this game a great sense of atmosphere, elevating its roster of stages.
The way Penny's Big Breakaway handles combat is also quite interesting. There's a serious lack of enemies, barely a handful. Instead, the foes you usually have to deal with is the occasional penguin horde, which you have to run away from and shake off using your yo-yo tricks. The penguin chases are pretty fun too. They don't show up too often and hamper the platforming or exploration, but rather get their own dedicated segments in each level where they try to chase you down. As you'd expect, there's also a bunch of boss fights, but they once again remain somewhat nonviolent. Most of the boss fights rely on you batting away attacks with your yo-yo, solving some sort of puzzle, and of course, running away, to take the boss down. This may sound lame at first, but the boss encounters are so inventive and fun that I found them to be a highlight of the game, especially with the often rocking music and cinematic camera angles. From playing pool with Mr Q's head, to racing a puppet version of yourself (very Sonic), to stealing Judge Rufus's gaval to use it against him, the bosses are overall really fun, and their role in story makes them even better.
Told you I'd be getting back to that. Penny's Big Breakaway's story is pretty simple at its core, but it's elevated by some really charming writing and character work. All of the boss fights feel less like standard fights and more like conflicts between Penny and the boss that need to be resolved. Most fights start with a cutscene that introduces you to the boss and teaches you about their motivations, with some just straight-up not even being bad guys. The pirate Sheila is just sad Penny cut her in line, and they patch things up after the fight. It's a neat take on a boss lineup and helps the world feel more like a genuine living place. What also helps is that each level is absolutely populated with NPCs, most of which have dialogue, a few even having sidequests for you to do. This is very rare in a linear 3D platformer like this, the only other game with something similar was Super Mario Galaxy 2 and even that didn't have nearly as many NPCs as this. They're such a great addition though, giving each level so much more life, fleshing out the theming of each world, and also just being so charmingly written. Some of the NPC quips got a genuine chuckle out of me. The sidequests are also quite funny, they remind me a lot of the sidequests in Spyro 2 & 3, some even taking place in their own disconnected challenge rooms, albeit without any of the minigames. It may sound weird for me to say, but Penny's Big Breakaway is actually really good at world building. It does such a good job at fleshing out its levels and character roster so that the world doesn't just feel like a place for you to platform around in, but like an actual living breathing place that you just so happen to be rampaging through. If anything, it further accentuates the fugitive plot.
As far as collectibles go, there's quite a lot to deal with. Each of the 34 main stages has three big coins to find and three of those aforementioned sidequests to do, and getting the big coins unlocks 15 fun and brisk bonus levels that really test your skills. All 49 of these stages also have a score threshold, which unlocks a bit of concept art upon beating it. Reaching the score threshold in each level is a tough task, especially in the bonus levels where you can't just rely on exploring for items to get point bonuses. You'll need to be fast and thorough, while also using the game's combo system to its fullest. Yeah, I didn't mention that part yet. By chaining together yo-yo moves without touching the ground, you can build up a combo that increases your score. If you're good enough, you can often pull off a single consecutive chain from the start of a level to the very end. This combo system is so addicting to play around with, and along with the Time Attack mode that's obviously based on the one from Sonic Mania, Penny's Big Breakaway really encourages you to master the controls and push yourself to go even faster. A neat detail I noticed is how most of the collectibles lead to shortcuts, so taking the time to explore the level can help you discover routes that can help improve your time.
Considering that this is still a review, I should bring up the few gripes I have with this game. First off, I think Penny's Big Breakaway gets off to a bit of a rough start. As I mentioned, I thought the first world was pretty weak in terms of theming compared to everything after it, and combined with the steep learning curve, it makes for a bit of an upwards climb at first. The game also does the Mario Wonder thing where some worlds just straight-up don't have boss fights, which is a shame considering how good they are. Even a simple chase sequence would've been nice. I also think it's worth mentioning that this game can feel a bit janky at points. The yo-yo can get stuck on stuff, and the camera can goof out a bit, but it's never anything game-breaking and only strengthens the early 2000s 3D platformer vibe I get from the game. Oh yeah, and the bonus minigame that you play at the end of each stage gets real repetitive real fast, and if you're going for score, it can feel pretty crummy if you mess it up after a near perfect run.
From what I can tell, the most divisive aspect of Penny's Big Breakaway are the visuals. They're bright and colorful, but they're also abstract and the character designs are a bit too weird for some people. Personally, I think the game looks pretty great. The bright and simple levels feel right out of a Sega Saturn or Dreamcast game, the penguins feel like mooks in a Treasure game, and all the major characters are quite charming and expressively animated, especially Penny. And I as I mentioned earlier, the theming and atmosphere of the levels is immaculate, and the phenomenal soundtrack by Tee Lopes definitely helps. Penny's Big Breakaway's OST is already an easy candidate for best of the year, it's super diverse and consistently catchy. Tracks like Tutto Finisce A Taralluci E Vino and Outside The Eidophusikon are probably the biggest highlights for me due to the sheer amount of PS1 era techno vibes they give off, but pretty much every stage theme is great, and the boss themes are all these energetic rock bangers that never fail to get me hyped. Other highlights include Scientific Method, Penny In A Pinch, Balearic Birds, Palace Sneaktime Swing, and Sparks Of The Cobalt Sands, but that's still just the tip of the iceberg with this soundtrack.
From what I can tell, Penny's Big Breakaway is a tad divisive? It seems a lot of people aren't vibing with the controls or visuals, or the general level of jank kills the game for them. But personally, I clicked with this game hard, it feels like it was made for me. Despite a slow start, once you really learn the controls, PBB has an incredible sense of flow and energy to it. The level design strikes a perfect balance between exploration and speedrunning, the writing and characters are charming, the aesthetics and theming are on-point, and the soundtrack is just incredible. Penny's Big Breakaway feels like such a loving throwback to early 2000s 3D platformers in the same vein of A Hat In Time, and as of right now, it's my current Game Of The Year.
5/5 Stars
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