Over nearly a decade of writing about video games, I’m not sure there’s been a game I’ve had a harder time scoring than Big Hops, a new 3D platformer from indie studio Luckshot Games. On the one hand, the game is an unpolished mess that crashed an average of once every hour I played (my full playtime was somewhere between seven and eight hours) and couldn’t maintain a consistent frame rate for more than a few minutes at a time. It also has some of the blandest voice acting I’ve heard in a video game, which failed to elevate a strangely ambitious but largely underbaked plot. Its visual design is cute enough but never eye-popping, and its soundtrack is mostly fine but unremarkable.
On the other hand, the actual platforming gameplay in Big Hops is tremendous, and at times on par with anything I’ve played in a 3D Mario adventure. Some of its mainline puzzle sequences would fit neatly in a shrine from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. There were moments in Big Hops where I completely forgot about the messiness of its presentation or the lack of depth its characters held and focused squarely on the incredible movement mechanics and climbing challenges. I can’t say in good faith Big Hops is a great game, but there are absolutely times where it feels like a great game is in there.
The Story Is There, I Guess
In Big Hops, the player assumes control of Hop, a happy green frog who wears cute outfits and loves running around the forest with his little sister. After a brief tutorial section, Hop ends up separated from his sister and falls into The Void, a surrealist purple world where the laws of gravity and logic do not apply. A dark figure named Diss tells Hop he needs to collect items called Dark Drips in various other regions (that serve as the game’s three main areas), though neglects to tell him why. Coincidentally, once Diss sends him to the Red Desert to look for the first of the drips, Hop finds out that he needs to find three airship parts — of course, one in each of the aforementioned regions — to fly back home to his mom and sister.
Each region, including the Red Desert, the Open Ocean, and the Shattered Mountain, also has its own mini-plot that creates some friction for Hop. The various other animal-people he meets in these places, of course, offer him one of the three airship parts in exchange for his assistance accompanying a punk-rocking bat in an abandoned mine to look for secrets, thwarting a criminal enterprise run by corrupt rabbits, and even helping (and simultaneously hurting?) a big oil company run by otters. The stories themselves can be charming and even a little heartwarming, though they lack the humor or the pathos to feel like anything more than set dressing.
Oh, remember that whole Void thing? It’s simultaneously the connective tissue of the entire story and also something I kept forgetting about entirely, despite it having some presence in every facet of the game. Dark Drips, the main collectible in Big Hops, must be collected in one of two ways: either straight up finding them after notable side challenges (similar to finding moons in Super Mario Odyssey) or gathering small fragments of Dark Drips until they combine into full ones. The fragments are basically everywhere, and when you collect enough of them to create a Dark Drip, Diss rewards you with a patch Hop puts on his backpack, which comes with various buffs or power-ups. Still, despite all the Void stuff permeating the whole game, the actual narrative side of it is hastily explained and largely uninteresting.
I can’t say in good faith Big Hops is a great game, but there are absolutely times where it feels like a great game is in there.
Honestly, I might be explaining too much about the story and concept of it all, because it really just doesn’t matter. The smaller stories in each region are somewhat engaging, but you don’t really build lasting or notable relationships with anybody once they’re done. It certainly doesn’t help that Diss refuses to fully explain the overarching plot (and purpose of the Dark Drips) until very late in the game (right before The Final Showdown), and at that point I was just ready for it all to be done.
Overall, the times I enjoyed playing Big Hops the most were never during conversations or cutscenes, since those aspects of the game had basically nothing to offer me. To some extent, I appreciate that the folks at Luckshot were somewhat ambitious with their approach to story in a game where you play as a talking frog, but nothing in the plot really sticks the landing.
Colorful but Boring
In fairness, I don’t exactly need much of a strong narrative backdrop in my 3D platformers. Hop being a largely one-dimensional protagonist isn’t much of a bother to me. What’s less forgivable is the overall staleness of Big Hops’ presentation, both visually and sonically.
The graphics in Big Hops are mostly fine. The game utilizes a somewhat cel-shaded design, with solid shading and textures. The color mixing works well in this style; at no point in the experience was I unsure of objects I could interact with or what surfaces I could climb. Everything looks like what it’s supposed to look like: A tree looks like a tree, a cliff looks like a cliff, etc.
From a creativity standpoint though… All I saw was anthropomorphic animals wearing clothes and having big eyes. Big Hops never tries anything interesting with its colors — the desert is mostly brown and red, the ocean is bright blue, the Void is mostly purple — and doesn’t seem particularly interested in making its chattiest characters express much emotion outside of some arm waggles and the occasional foot stomp.
How is the player supposed to care about any of this when the characters don’t seem like they do either?
Some of this would be easier to ignore if the voice acting weren’t so flavorless. None of the characters has much charm; Hop just sounds like a bored child, and Diss never comes off as evil, conniving, or even the slightest bit menacing at all. If anything, he (much like Hop) just sounds like he doesn’t even want to be there or do anything. How is the player supposed to care about any of this when the characters don’t seem like they do either?
Jagged Edges
It also bears mentioning that Big Hops — at least the version of it that I played on Nintendo Switch 2 — is noticeably unpolished. At its best, the game runs at a clean 60 frames per second, which is ideal for a platformer. But whenever things get too busy on screen, the game chugs, never really finding a consistent footing.
I could potentially look past that, since the lack of combat in Big Hops (outside of two largely forgettable boss battles) means the slower frame rate doesn’t affect the gameplay all that much. But I experienced at least one crash every single time I picked up the controller for a play session, sometimes with a crash followed immediately by another the second I restarted the game. I try not to harp too much on flaws like these when it comes to smaller games by smaller teams, but players deserve better than the constant fear that their game will send them back to their console’s home screen, killing momentum and potentially erasing progress.
But the Actual Platforming…
If it sounds like Big Hops is a total disaster, I assure you it’s not, if for no other reason than the platforming gameplay is truly outstanding, and far better than I expected. Platformers can be difficult to write about, because A) you can only really understand them by playing them and B) to some extent, developers get it “right” or they don’t. To be clear: Luckshot absolutely got it right with this one, if nothing else.
Big Hops is structured a lot like Mario Odyssey: The game transports the player to a new world, and they can either dart toward the critical path and play out story missions or wander around searching for hidden goodies, mostly in the form of Dark Drips. There’s no specific number of Dark Drips you need to advance through the story, but the more you collect, the more patches you can equip to make things a little easier (e.g., give yourself more health, more stamina, etc.).
The vast majority of gameplay challenges involve classic platformer fare: jumping from platform to platform, climbing up walls and mountains (with a limited stamina meter), crouch jumping to reach higher ground, diving mid-air to extend the length of your jumps, and using your basic moveset to get to difficult-to-reach spaces. In addition, since Hop is a frog, he gets to use his long tongue as a way to grab items (including various “foods” that aid in his journey, such as an acorn that can create a vertical vine to climb or a mushroom that create a trampoline) and even as a grappling hook.
Hop’s suite of abilities reminds me so much of the best of 3D Mario and even at times of some of the traversal mechanics in Breath of the Wild. The actual platforming challenges force the player to be smart about stamina management and experiment with whatever is available to them at any moment. There were so many instances where I wasn’t sure if I could cross a wide chasm, only to roll off the ledge, leap forward out of the roll, grab onto a nearby wall, jump off the wall, grapple onto a particular surface, and climb up with just enough energy to get to a new ledge safely.
Hop’s suite of abilities reminds me so much of the best of 3D Mario and even at times of some of the traversal mechanics in Breath of the Wild.
Moreover, as the game introduces new food trees to aid you in your journey, you can store some of these berries and veggies in your backpack and use them at any time. As a result, an acorn you found in the desert area could serve you well much later in the game when such an item isn’t immediately available.
All the different mechanics and items you find in Big Hops come together to present what is at times magical platforming gameplay. Besides certain puzzles that have to be solved a particular way, how you choose to get through each level is largely up to you and what resources you have at any time. You can eat bugs to gain more temporary stamina and use bouncy mushrooms or chili peppers you stored in your backpack to complete levels in unique ways, but you’re never screwed if you’re not that kind of prepared. You can always figure out the best surfaces to climb, roll on, or jump from to get you anywhere you need to go.
Big Hops clearly understands the successes of its forefathers, and I felt it whenever I picked up the controller.
The actual level design also lends itself well to this kind of platforming variety. While there’s typically one clear path to wherever you need to go, how you approach it is entirely up to you, and most foods you bring with you can help you out in just about any situation. Plus, like any good 3D platformer, there’s tons of extra content just waiting to be found, from extra collectibles to secret Void-based platforming challenges. Big Hops clearly understands the successes of its forefathers, and I felt it whenever I picked up the controller.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, the tragedy of Big Hops is that it’s clearly so close to being a remarkable game. The gameplay mechanics and level architecture are fantastic, and I hope the team at Luckshot can bring over that same philosophy and design ethos to something a little more refined. Even if Luckshot fixes the crashes and frame rate issues, Big Hops has little to offer outside of its great gameplay mechanics. That’s not nothing, but it’s also not enough.
Score: 6.5/10
Big Hops, developed and published by Luckshot Games, released on January 12, 2026, for PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 1 & 2. MSRP: $19.99. Version reviewed: Switch 2.
Sam has been playing video games since his earliest years and has been writing about them since 2016. He’s a big fan of Nintendo games and complaining about The Last of Us Part II. You either agree wholeheartedly with his opinions or despise them. There is no in between.
A lifelong New Yorker, Sam views gaming as far more than a silly little pastime, and hopes though critical analysis and in-depth reviews to better understand the medium's artistic merit.
Twitter: @sam_martinelli.
