Flynn and Freckles Review

“If I die again, I’m uninstalling this game,” is something I found myself saying a lot. Flynn and Freckles was a borderline frustrating experience, burdened by many classic 3D platformer problems. Surprisingly, the camera wasn’t one of them, but the jumping mechanics more than made up for it. This is the kind of game where ledges are spaced just far enough apart to require annoying precision. When the game introduced a double jump, I thought that would solve these pain points, but that just meant levels started placing platforms farther apart. Missing a ledge here and there wouldn’t be such a big deal if it weren’t for three other glaring issues: 1) Flynn dies if he touches water. 2) Flynn can’t fall very far without getting hurt. 3) There’s a half-second pause before Flynn can jump again.

Seriously, this game would be 50% more enjoyable if there was no jump cooldown. Alas, the game constantly sets you up to fail by having platforms that sink as soon as you touch them, and yet you have to wait for Flynn to recover before jumping to the next one. It’s ridiculous. Oh, and sometimes Flynn will randomly glitch through the ground and die, so there’s that. It’s kind of a shame, because Flynn and Freckles can actually be fun when things are going smoothly. The setting and level design and secret-finding are all passable. While the in-game treasure doesn’t have much of a pay-off, it’s still rewarding to grab those hard-to-reach chests. The quality gap between this and other indie platformers like Poi is probably too wide to ever bridge, but with a few patches, Flynn and Freckles could be a fun second place.

Reviewer

Clark
I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Published by

Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.