Recent reviews by Sammang

Full Disclosure : I backed The Big Catch on Kickstarter.

Okay so I normally don't really write reviews for games, but this is an exception. I have some things that I've been mulling over ever since this game launched. I want to help the devs make The Big Catch as good as can be, so if my input can help even a little I want to give it.

If you want a tl;dr on my feelings of the demo: Really fun, has an addicting movement system, love it a lot, don't play it as your first ever platformer, it's not easy and pretty unforgiving in some aspects. Definitely worth a look at the very least,

Truncated review aside, I do have a few more detailed thoughts I'd like to express. Starting with the most important thing:


Overall, I'd say it's pretty solid. The movement is incredibly fluid, easy to get a flow going. Though getting there takes a little getting used to, it's not the most intuitive system I've ever used. But it's not the least intuitive either. It requires you to use your brain, which I can appreciate. For example, you get a speed boost when you ground-pound slopes. So you have to train your brain to stay on the look out for them as you travel around. you'll probably pick it up after a few hours if you're of moderate familiarity with platformers like me.

The biggest gameplay problem this game has is probably with some of it's design choices. I'm not talking about the open world nature of the game itself. I've heard people seem to have a problem with that, but I actually like how open it is.

The issue is that almost all the areas this demo are designed around you being pretty familiar with the movement mechanics. The game starts out with a little tutorial area, one that nicely introduces you to the basic mechanics. After that, they set you free with nothing else. You'll find yourself heading off to a level, getting confused about what exactly you're supposed to do or quitting the area because you just don't have the skill to do something, only to head to the next area and encounter the same problem.

There's no half-tutorial level to ease you into anything. The closest I can think of is that spinning fling maze near the middle of the map. The problem is that you're not directed to it at all. You're actually directed towards one of the harder areas of the game, by a big blue sky beam that beckons you near after you exit the tutorial. That level starts out innocently enough, introducing you to flowers that fling you based on the distance you hooked onto it. But after that the difficulty of the area spikes. It rather poorly introduces you to the rod fling thing, then asks you to perform precise sliding jumps to reach a fish on a beam. And don't get me started on the worm ramp jump for that coin. I've spent several hours on that alone.

This is very frustrating to new players. While I can appreciate them not bombarding you with tutorials so you can learn things on your own and creating these levels for people to truly push the movement to its limits, it does a very poor job of introducing new people to this world and getting them excited for the full game. I hope the devs learn from this and try to ease newer and less experienced players into the full game by giving them some direction through some gradually escalating areas, while also keeping it open world for the people who like to explore.

I will say, the dynamic movement of the game actually allowed me to skip huge sections of some of the areas whenever I got stuck. Like the huge church area. There's a part where you're supposed to use your momentum to fling yourself across a massive void (This one leaves a lot of players stumped. The demo does emphasize how momentum is important, but it never truly demonstrated that you could pull off leaps like this, so lots of people had no idea what to do when they reached this point during launch) and a part where you have to wall run about 10 times in a row (Gosh, that... I didn't even know it was possible to do that when I first saw the giant wall. The precision required to pull that off is actually absurd. I've done it a few times now and it's still a struggle every time). I managed to skip both of these movement puzzles by searching around and flinging myself to places I probably shouldn't have been able to.

This, I kinda like. I hope the final game has a nice mix of levels that range between linear but with some extra exploration (like the bomb bird island) and jungle gyms that do have a linear path if you look for it (like the huge church).

But besides this pretty glaring detail, the base here is extremely good. I've played through this demo several times, breezing through levels like I never struggled through them before. It's incredibly satisfying. I even made up my own challenge runs for fun.


I can't praise the look of this game enough.

They really nail the sorta grimy Playstation look they were going for. The style feels familiar to me, but I couldn't name any game that looks like it. So my unqualified opinion is that they successfully evoked the feeling of those older games.

The older style doesn't stop the game from looking pretty at all, too. It's incredibly easy to get lost in the world. I remember seeing the moon for the first time and just standing there, staring at it for awhile. My mind was just mesmerized by what I was seeing. It's the first time in ages that's happened to me. At the end of the demo you get a special wide view of the plane and it's honestly incredible. Though the l.o.d does get silly simple at those distances, so it takes you out a bit.

Music is nice as well. I'd say it's very fitting and gives the world its own distinct feel. Some notable ones are the song that swells as you climb the final tower and the song that plays as you're worm riding.

The fish pendant health system and compass are also an amazing addition that only adds to the charm of the game. I love the little detail of Tackle losing his hat at low health too (and would like to formally request a costume where he's hatless. He looks cute without it..). I will add that the system that changes the compass' color when you're near a missing collectible around the end game is a little frustrating. It's not very precise, and these collectibles are well hidden. It's better than the nothing we had at launch though.

Now, for a game as scrungly looking at this it sure runs hot. My computer's fans instantly pump on whenever I launch this. I have a GTX 970, which isn't amazing, but it should work just fine. Even still, this game makes my computer explode. It runs alright, by all means, just hot. And things have gotten a little better as they've patched it, but it's a notable concern.


There isn't much story to this game, which is fine. You're a bird taking a test, that's all.

For lore details: there's the intro cutscene, some of the stuff Tackle's teacher says, and the land itself. For what little there is, I find it all pretty interesting. The things Tackle's teacher says are pretty charming and mysterious, and the land itself makes you feel like something grand used to be inside that desolate wasteland. I really wanna see what they do in the full game, and I hope they expand upon the characters and lore in the full thing.

Also bonus point: I love the distance markers by previous test takers in front of that annoying slide. It's a cute detail.


Game's not perfect, but good. Looks good. Plays good. Runs okay. It's free, so worth a try. Looking forward to The Big Catch. Hope they learn some stuff from this and how this game launched to improve the final game. Good luck to the devs and have fun anyone who decides to give this a go. And stay away from that worm launch slide, do that last if you're gonna complete the demo.

This game makes you feel the exact same way the people who played the original game back in 1998 felt when they played it for the first time. A remake cannot get any better than that.

You can point at horrible eldritch abominations and go

"I'm gonna kick your ass "

Then do just that