Video Game Review: Puppeteer

Sony

Puppeteer for the Sony PlayStation 3 isn't your average RPG.

LOVED IT: Innovative and fun, unique art style, smartly reinvents classic platforming gameplay elements, unique story, great value at $39.99

HATED IT: Limited sense of momentum, can grow dreary at times

GRAB IT IF: You enjoyed Kid Chameleon and classic platforming from back in the day

It hardly seems like your traditional blockbuster, but boy is it fun.

Welcome to Puppeteer, the latest gutsy project to appear in these last days of the PlayStation 3. While the Nintendo Wii U continues to establish itself behind those trademark Nintendo names (think Mario and Zelda and Pikmin), and the Xbox 360 rather quietly heads off into the sunset, Sony is busily churning out unique project after unique project, establishing PlayStation as the brand for all indie games.

A few weeks ago, Sony gave us Beyond: Two Souls and Rain, and earlier in the year, there was The Last of Us. And now, there is Puppeteer, a unique game that casts you as Kutaro, a boy trying to rescue his head and soul from the Moon Bear King.

Yes, it sounds like the start of a zany fairy tale for kids, and the entire game feels like a puppet show being staged for a seven-year-old, too. At the beginning and end of every area, curtains rise and fall, characters animate with a certain level of stiffness, and developer Sony Japan works hard to make each level seem as if it’s playing out on one tiny stage, even as Kutaro runs and jumps and platforms his way through some pretty sizable areas.

Kutaro has some unique abilities, too. The left stick controls Kutaro while the right stick controls one of his sidekicks. Those sidekicks can interact with the environment, revealing coins and, more importantly, temporary heads for our headless star.

Kutaro must always have a head on, and each unique head allows him to interact with the world in new and unique ways. You can store up to three of these heads at a time, and when your current head is knocked off, in classic platformer fashion, one of your stored heads will drop from the sky, and you’ll get a chance to recover your old head.

It’s fun to see uncover each of the heads and see what they can do. You’ll start with a skull, but there are bats and bananas and caterpillars to uncover, and there’s a fair bit of replay value here, too: If you don’t have the right head at the right time, you’ll miss out on coins or other things.

Kutaro also nets a handful of special abilities, including a pair of mystical scissors, the Calibrus. You’ll quickly learn to use these scissors as a platforming aid, sheering through bits of curtain and other things to climb higher, or avoid chasms, or do other things, adding much-needed spice to the simple running and jumping. Boss battles often rely on the Calibrus as well, adding a slightly new spin to the classic formula of banging away at a weakness by forcing you to cut through to that weakness first.

The largely classic gaming experience fits perfectly in Puppeteer, insuring that you never feel overwhelmed and making it that much easier to revel in the colorful beauty and variety of each and every world and the fun of a story that’s truly well-told.

It all adds up to another special gaming experience from Sony, which is firmly positioned as the indie leader as we head into the next generation of consoles.

Want something other than your traditional blockbuster shooter, your big-budget sports game, or your typical RPG?

Then you want Puppeteer, and you want to pay close attention to PlayStation in the coming months.

Reviewed on Sony PlayStation 3