Penny’s Big Breakaway Review – Yo-Yo’ve Got To Play This

For as long as I’ve been gaming, 3D platformers have always been my favourite genre. Something about bounding through colourful areas with charming characters, trying to find every doodad along the way, has always tickled my brain just right.

I’ve got a list as long as Kazooie’s legs of all the platformers I’ve enjoyed over the years, but the ones I’ve fallen in love with are the games that offer unique movement mechanics to master and mess around with in ways that feel creative and natural. You’re not playing a platformer right if you don’t occasionally feel like you’ve broken it. This is something that Penny’s Big Breakaway understands better than most 3D platformers of this generation, even if it does take some time to see its true potential.

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Penny’s Big Breakaway Is The First Game I Want To Speedrun

Penny’s Big Breakaway is at its best when you’re going lightning fast – which makes it perfect for speedrunning.

Right off the bat, Penny’s Big Breakaway had my heart with its colourful, blocky visuals and jamming soundtrack (including several bangers from Sonic Mania composer Tee Lopes, shoutout to Industria), which look and sound straight out of a Dreamcast game like Sonic Adventure or Jet Set Radio. Hints of those simple vibes can also be seen in the story, although to much less interesting results.

As charmingly animated and energetic as Penny and the rest of the characters are, they aren’t that memorable and feel like they’re carried by aesthetic instead of personality. It’s a damn good aesthetic at least, but don’t go into Penny’s Big Breakaway expecting more than a few chuckles.

Penny might not be the next icon of the genre, but that’s okay because the real star of the show is the sentient yo-yo you use to get around. On her own, Penny can’t do much other than lightly jog and hop, but with Yo-Yo, she can dash, flip, create swinging points from anywhere, spin around like a Beyblade to attack enemies and, best of all, ride it around like a vehicle when you gather momentum.

All of these movement options can be a little overwhelming and clunky at first as you get used to how everything works. My first few levels were spent slowly trundling along on top of Yo-Yo, barely able to get up ramps, and having my momentum ruined every time I tried to get a little fancy with my movement.

Combine that with King Eddie’s penguins (who appear in every level and chase you around through specific sections, causing you to respawn if too many grab you at once) stopping me from smelling the roses too much, and I had a tough time getting into Penny’s Big Breakaway at first. That was until I played one of the final levels of the first world, which has a massive ball of penguins chasing you as you run towards the camera.

Every other level I’d played up to that point was pretty easy and didn’t push me too much on what I’d learned so far, but being chased around forced me to get good fast or risk being crushed by a giant waddling ball. That’s when Penny’s Big Breakaway clicked for me, and I went from struggling to get any speed at all to seeing the world as a blur while I effortlessly comboed my way through levels like it was Tony Hawk’s and became a master of momentum.

Once you get Penny’s Big Breakaway and its focus on chaining together tricks and always moving, it’s one of the most satisfying 3D platformers since Super Mario Odyssey, which is still the peak of the genre. Penny’s Big Breakaway feels like a 3D Sonic game done right, not only because of the momentum-based focus that’ll make hills your best friend, but because levels are so intricately crafted and allow for a ton of different and creative ways of getting through them, just like the best of the 2D games.

When you’re racing through its levels (which makes it perfect for speedrunning), there’s nothing quite like Penny’s Big Breakaway. But that’s not all there is to it. Each world introduces a new item that Yo-Yo can eat for a temporary effect, such as a burger that turns you into the equivalent of a wrecking ball, and a cake that makes you jet into the air and hover, which helps keep things fresh from world to world.

Stages also have hidden collectibles off the beaten path to discover and even some optional missions you can complete for civilians, which usually involve collecting something and taking it somewhere in a certain amount of time, or not getting hit while making your way through a certain part of the level. Like the gimmicks and boss battles you encounter at the end of some worlds, they’re a nice way of keeping things from getting tired, even if they sometimes get in the way of zipping through levels.

As fantastic as Penny’s Big Breakaway feels once it all clicks, there are a few things that slow the momentum down, like the sheer number of bugs. Side missions wouldn’t register as complete, Penny would get stuck on walls, and the camera would refuse to follow her in certain instances.

These were all fixable with a checkpoint restart, but I was still surprised at how many issues I ran into, especially since the game was essentially shadowdropped and clearly could have used the extra time. Couple that with an occasionally troublesome camera and some mechanics that feel a little less refined than others, like swinging from poles and bouncing on nets, and Penny’s first performance can be a bit of a tumble sometimes.

Penny’s Big Breakaway might be a bit unrefined, but behind the occasional bugs and argumentative camera is one of the best momentum-based 3D platformers I’ve ever played, with unique movement mechanics that rival Sonic at his absolute best.

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Reviewed on PS5.

Pros

• Masterful movement mechanics
• Fun gimmicks that keep platforming fresh
• Charming style and bopping soundtrack

Cons

• Bugs and glitches slow the momentum down
• Mostly forgettable story and characters

Score: 4/5. A PS5 code was provided by the publisher.

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