Almost there.
UPDATE 1/14/2026: As of 48 hours post-launch, no patch has materialized. We are going to subsequently be assigning a rating based mostly on model 1.0.1. Substantial stability points persist on each Change and Change 2 that will impression your capacity to finish the sport and important efficiency points are current on Change 1. Whereas the underlying recreation is great, sadly too many technical points exist with the Change launch to advocate taking part in it on that platform. Whereas the efficiency points are largely addressed by taking part in on Change 2, stability points stay, significantly on the very finish of the sport.
Authentic overview textual content:
Every now and then I overview a recreation the place assigning a overview rating proves extremely troublesome. Massive 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 Change which might be solely considerably mitigated on Change 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 Massive 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. Finally Diss units Hop on a path by way of a number of distant lands as Hop struggles between discovering a means residence and uncovering what Diss desires from him. Whereas I by no means felt the general story actually paid off in an fascinating means, particular person characters in every area have been compelling. Each line of dialogue is absolutely voice acted and the solid consists of some surprisingly nice expertise corresponding 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 just a few legitimately compelling characters.
Hop’s core move-set feels closely influenced by Tremendous Mario Odyssey, however with a variety of originality stacked on high. As a frog, Hop can use his tongue to grapple and freely swing, zip to sure factors, decide up objects, and in any other case work together with the surroundings. He’s in a position to climb on vertical and even absolutely inverted surfaces at the price of stamina which might 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. Massive Hops locations a heavy give attention to advanced platforming and momentum, however permits the participant room to experiment. Hop has a backpack so you’ll be able to 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 varied mechanics. In your entire recreation I solely discovered one spot the place a problem compelled me to resolve an issue in a particular means regardless of a vegetable I had introduced with me theoretically permitting for an alternate answer. I repeatedly 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, Massive Hops consists of three large environments which might be every constructed round a self-contained sequence of quests. Your mysterious companion, Diss, will ship you after Darkish Drips, which he’ll alternate for upgrades. At the beginning you’ll solely be capable of equip two upgrades at a time, however by the tip (assuming you’ve been searching for out problem phases) you’ll be swimming in all kinds of upgrades and loads of slots. It’s value noting that the sport doesn’t actually drive you to interact with its collectibles and makes these upgrades completely non-compulsory. 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 after I noticed a possibility.
Massive Hops is a particularly engaging trying recreation no matter platform. There isn’t a devoted Change 2 model at present, however the Change model performed by way of backwards compatibility is a particularly clean expertise the overwhelming majority of the time. I did discover just a few instances in bigger areas the place I might get some body stutters, however I solely discovered this impactful to gameplay in a single late recreation part. Evidently, these occasional hitches are considerably extra noticeable on Change and might be felt in a number of of the bigger areas.
The one important concern Massive Hops faces on Change and Change 2 comes within the type of stability. When taking part in for an prolonged time frame I’d typically get a loading display screen crash after just a few hours. A stable autosave system meant this hardly ever harm my precise development however it was a gentle annoyance. Nevertheless, 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 Change and Change 2 as I discovered they might crash at completely different factors, and I might leapfrog (no pun supposed) round them by making use of each techniques. I’ve reached out to the developer and been knowledgeable that they’re conscious of the problem and {that a} patch is incoming, hopefully at or round launch.
Within the present pre-launch state through which I’m reviewing it, Massive Hops bounces triumphantly as much as the end line earlier than tripping on a pebble. With stability addressed I’ll have little doubt recommending this as an early contender for indie of 2026 on Change and Change 2. Till then, contemplate different platforms or double test that the launch day patch has hit. I’ll be checking again in on Massive Hops with the hopes of giving it the optimistic rating it deserves, very quickly.
