The game looks clean, polished, and vibrant, with well-executed transitions between 2D and 3D movement. Exploration is rewarding, and the overall vibe is relaxed. The game is easy, but that’s not a dealbreaker.

The main characters are a weak point—overdesigned and generic, like some randomly ai generated mascots. You forget them the moment you look away.

The game doesn’t do anything new, but what it does, it does well enough.

7.5/10

While I don't think that this game is a "bad game" overall, as I was playing through this game, I kept running into issues that worsened the experience for me, and by the end of it, I was just underwhelmed by the game as a whole. The following are my major issues with this game:

1) Main problem: The "ground pound" attack should've been given its own dedicated button (like the "B button" on the XBox one controller) because I had many MANY accidental ground pounds to death when I meant to "just slide" instead of ground pounding, particularly when sliding of an edge to glide horizontally as far as possible, but SO MANY times I ended-up doing a "ground pound" instead which resulted in many unnecessary deaths and thereby unnecessary frustrations in some levels. (Note: Funny enough, I had this SAME ISSUE with another game, Kaze and the Wild Masks, but when I raised this issue to its developers, they were VERY RESPONSIVE to my feedback and have actually added a control option to give "ground pound" its own button instead of being the same button as the spin/hover button, which was an AWESOME thing to see from a developer and I hope the developer of Nikoderiko is just as welcoming of player feedback as that developer).

2) Character "auto-slides" when holding a directional input (left/right) after ground pounding, which was VERY ANNOYING and led to many unintentional slides into enemies/pitfalls/spikes. There NEEDS to be an option to turn this "auto-sliding" mechanic off.

3) Controls overall felt unpolished/Imprecise, as sometimes its unresponsive when loading into a level/bonus stage. Also, the characters sometimes slightly slides forward (i.e. stop brake) when stopping or changing directions (left to right or right to left) and that has led to, again, many unintentional slides into enemies/pitfalls/spikes.

4) Character feels slow/heavy while running. I'm really surprised that there isn't an option to increase running speed by holding "X" after sliding once like other old/new 2D Platformers.

5) Having to press "A" twice to activate "glider/parachute" (i.e. so you have to press "A" to jump", and THEN press "A" again to activate glider/parachute) is annoying and should've been a 1 time "A" button press like other 2D Platformers.

6) Throwing objects feels VERY INACCURATE, particularly in those 3D sections. I feel there should've been a targeting option, perhaps with using the Right analog stick to aim before throwing an object at an enemy.

7) The Bat animal friend's attack aiming was HORRIBLE/FRUSTRATING as his projectiles' angle is RANDOM based on his "head movement" while flying and man it was SO INFURIATING to try to hit enemies with his projectiles while riding him. Again, I think there should've been a TARGETING OPTION using either the D-Pad OR right analog stick to properly aim attacks at the intended angle/direction.

8) As for the in-game shop, I would've liked an extra "animal friend" who can point out secrets/give hints to their location rather than me having to rely on "YouTube" after completing a level once to find out the missing collectibles that I couldn't find the first time while playing a level.

9) D-Pad doesn't function in in-game menus, which is weird and kind of annoying to be honest.

10) Would've like a "Classic Mode" with limited lives (instead of the BORING "infinite lives" mode) as that not only would encourage me to be more "focused" while platforming, but would also give me a greater incentive to collect those "golden bugs" during levels as collecting them didn't feel "rewarding" at all (never used them in the shop tbh). I miss the "good feeling" of seeing a "1-UP" after collecting 100 items in a level like older 2D/3D platformers to be honest.

11) Main character's moveset is WEAK/LACKING (only sliding/ground pound). I really wish that at the very least there were "equipable" items (like bazooka, flamethrower, or any other fun weapons) to make the platforming more engaging, ESPECIALLY in those 3D sections where sliding/ground pounding an enemy can be VERY INACCURATE/FRUSTRATING sometimes.

12) Lastly, the Final Boss of this game (both in main mode AND "Secret World" mode) was VERY DISAPPOINTING as he kept summoning "regular enemies" during the boss fight and THAT particular aspect ruined the final boss battle experience for me as dealing with those regular enemies while actively dodging boss attacks was ANNOYING/FRUSTRATING rather than being "fun/challenging". I REALLY would've preferred if the final boss had 1-2 more unique attacks while fighting him ALONE instead of him CHEAPLY summoning regular enemies that only serve to disrupt/ruin the final boss battle experience than making it more "memorable".

As I said in the beginning, I don't think that this game is bad when evaluated as a whole, but continuously running into new issues as played through the game and culminating that with a DISAPPOINTING final boss fight just left a bad taste in my mouth and has shifted my review from a positive review to a negative review at the very last second.

If you are interested in 2D Platformers in particular, I would advise looking into Kaze and the Wild Masks as I ENJOYED that game MORE for its 2D platforming experience than I did with Nikoderiko.

Final Rating: 6/10.

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