Big Hops Review

It is about time some fresh 3D platformers to turn up, bringing with them fresh ideas and new ways to enjoy the genre. Big Hops is a game that comes with some big and fun new ideas, like using a frog tongue as a grapple to latch onto points and to grab items from the environment, and using different plants for fun ways to get around the world. But as it’s leaping from platform to plant, jumping through the world, can it stick the landing?

Big Hops follows the story of a young frog called Hop who lives his simple, quiet life in the forest with his sister and mum. However, he soon hears a voice calling to him away from his usual stomping grounds to a shrine where he is asked to bring some things to fix the altar. Unfortunately, the voice belongs to the being known as Diss who whisks Hop away to different worlds where he must find Dark Drips to assist Diss, as well as Airship Parts to get back home. The lesson here is that you shouldn’t listen to disembodied voices promising a good time – embodied voices can also be pretty problematic.

Hop visits three very different worlds from his home, including a desert inhabited by rabbit people, an island chain inhabited by otters, and a mountain inhabited by bats. Diss brings Hop to each of these places because there is conflict at each one which draws in the Dark Drips. In the desert, the regular townsfolk are in conflict with a gang, in the islands it is a between one person and the oil company DrillCo, and in the mountains it is punks railing against authority. Three very different conflicts and each one is presented decently, with a wide cast of characters that are brought to life by good voice performances. Each of the locations also look great, filled with vibrant colour and well mapped environments that show where you need to go, but letting you test different ways of getting to points of interest.

Big Hops gameplay has the classic hallmarks of 3D platformers providing open spaces to explore to find collectables, solve puzzles, and assist people in their endeavours. Where Big Hops differs is through its traversal and puzzle solving. As Hop is a frog he has a long and powerful tongue that can latch onto surfaces allowing him to swing across gaps, pull levers from a distance, pick locks, and even engage in a bit of light graffiti.

As if his tongue wasn’t enough, Hops can also make use of a number of plants and vegetables, each of which has its own properties and affect the way you can navigate the world. Mushrooms can be used as bounce pad, a cacti plant can create rope crossings, and the flux plant creates zones of low gravity. These are just three of a wider number of plants that can be used to solve puzzles and find different ways of getting around, though some are exclusive to each area. Hop does get a backpack to store these items in, but space is limited so you won’t be able to carry every plant with you.

In each area, Hop has to try to resolve the local conflict to find the airship parts he needs and to move on to the next world. Much of the gameplay consists of solving big puzzles, usually three, to unlock the path to move forward. There are also secondary tasks available to tackle, but they are not required to move on. Your focus is looking for Dark Drips and solving the issues of the region.

Dark Drips are needed to unlock additional bonuses for Hop, be it additional stamina for climbing, more health, or compasses to locate more Drips in the world. Every time you find a Dark Drip you can take it back to Diss and choose between two bonuses. I wouldn’t agonise too much over the choice as you will eventually get all of them. The worlds also contain hidden challenge rooms where you have to use what you have learned in that world to navigate treacherous paths to grab a Dark Drip.

I initially really enjoyed my time with Big Hops and there are some really fun moments, but through the review period we did run into a number of issues on PS5. One area had stuttering performance, there was some clipping through the environment, skipping music, and more significantly some game crashes and progression-blocking issues. Patches arrived before launch to address most of these, allowing me to finish the game, though I wasn’t able to return to previous areas and did still run into a glitch that locked me into a first person view – this resolved itself when I failed the level. Hopefully remaining issues at launch are patched quickly, because they did detract from my experience of an otherwise charming game.