Almost there.
UPDATE 1/15/2026: A patch was launched later within the day after we issued our earlier replace. Patch 1.0.2 considerably improves body charges in choose massive hub areas on the unique Swap. Some stability points stay as of this patch.
UPDATE 1/14/2026: A rating has been assigned primarily based on model 1.0.1. Substantial stability points persist on each Swap and Swap 2 that will influence your capability to finish the sport and important efficiency points are current on Swap 1. Whereas the underlying sport is great, sadly too many technical points exist with the Swap launch to advocate enjoying it on that platform. Whereas the efficiency points are largely addressed by enjoying on Swap 2, stability points stay, notably on the very finish of the sport.
Unique overview textual content:
Every now and then I overview a sport the place assigning a overview rating proves extremely troublesome. Huge Hops is visually charming, endlessly artistic, and boasts a stunning quantity of mechanical complexity. Sadly, it additionally has some fairly troublesome to disregard stability points on Swap which are solely considerably mitigated on Swap 2. I’ve been knowledgeable by the developer that they’re actively engaged on what is going to hopefully be a launch day patch, however I can solely actually overview the model of the sport I’ve been given. For that cause, I’m leaving my overview unscored for a day which is able to ideally give me time to check the patch and supply a extra correct rating.
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In Huge Hops, you play as a frog named Hop. After being separated out of your sister you wander into a wierd shrine the place you might be whisked away to an alternate dimension referred to as The Void. Right here you meet Diss, a wierd being with unclear motives. In the end Diss units Hop on a path by a number of distant lands as Hop struggles between discovering a method house and uncovering what Diss desires from him. Whereas I by no means felt the general story really paid off in an attention-grabbing method, particular person characters in every area had been compelling. Each line of dialogue is absolutely voice acted and the solid contains some surprisingly nice expertise similar to Steve Blum (Spike Spiegel), Kirk Thornton (Shadow the Hedgehog), and Giselle Fernandez (Princess Daisy). The voice course for a few of the smaller secondary characters is a bit hit or miss however every space all the time has a number of legitimately compelling characters.
Hop’s core move-set feels closely influenced by Tremendous Mario Odyssey, however with plenty of originality stacked on high. As a frog, Hop can use his tongue to grapple and freely swing, zip to sure factors, choose up objects, and in any other case work together with the surroundings. He’s capable of climb on vertical and even absolutely inverted surfaces at the price of stamina which could be prolonged by consuming bugs. Every space additionally hosts quite a lot of throwable greens that may do issues like generate bounce pads, sticky factors on partitions, and even zero gravity bubbles. Huge Hops locations a heavy deal with advanced platforming and momentum, however permits the participant room to experiment. Hop has a backpack so you may carry greens from one space to a different, and infrequently discover a number of options to most challenges. That is very true of hidden problem ranges which require a a lot deeper grasp of assorted mechanics. In all the sport I solely discovered one spot the place a problem compelled me to resolve an issue in a particular method regardless of a vegetable I had introduced with me theoretically permitting for an alternate answer. I usually had moments of finishing an space and considering “I don’t know if that is what they anticipated me to do however it labored.”
Past a fairly sized opening tutorial space, Huge Hops consists of three huge environments which are every constructed round a self-contained sequence of quests. Your mysterious companion, Diss, will ship you after Darkish Drips, which he’ll trade for upgrades. Initially you’ll solely be capable to equip two upgrades at a time, however by the tip (assuming you’ve been looking for out problem levels) you’ll be swimming in all kinds of upgrades and loads of slots. It’s price noting that the sport doesn’t actually drive you to interact with its collectibles and makes these upgrades solely non-obligatory. It additionally doesn’t flood you with Darkish Drips, so I by no means actually felt overpowered or prefer it was a chore to go get one once I noticed a possibility.
Huge Hops is a particularly engaging trying sport no matter platform. There isn’t a devoted Swap 2 model presently, however the Swap model performed through backwards compatibility is a particularly easy expertise the overwhelming majority of the time. I did discover a number of occasions in bigger areas the place I might get some body stutters, however I solely discovered this impactful to gameplay in a single late sport part. Evidently, these occasional hitches are considerably extra noticeable on Swap and could be felt in a number of of the bigger areas.
The one important challenge Huge Hops faces on Swap and Swap 2 comes within the type of stability. When enjoying for an prolonged time frame I’d typically get a loading display screen crash after a number of hours. A stable autosave system meant this hardly ever harm my precise development however it was a light annoyance. Nonetheless, on the very finish of the sport throughout some fast-paced platforming challenges I started experiencing crashes with such regularity that I struggled to achieve the credit. I wound up bouncing my save between each my Swap and Swap 2 as I discovered they might crash at completely different factors, and I might leapfrog (no pun meant) round them by making use of each methods. I’ve reached out to the developer and been knowledgeable that they’re conscious of the difficulty and {that a} patch is incoming, hopefully at or round launch.
Within the present pre-launch state by which I’m reviewing it, Huge Hops bounces triumphantly as much as the end line earlier than tripping on a pebble. With stability addressed I’ll have little question recommending this as an early contender for indie of 2026 on Swap and Swap 2. Till then, take into account different platforms or double test that the launch day patch has hit. I’ll be checking again in on Huge Hops with the hopes of giving it the optimistic rating it deserves, very quickly.
