Promenade charmed me, taking me back to a childhood sense of fun, wonder, and excitement. Very few recent titles managed to capture that for me. French indie developers Holy Cap Studio achieves something special with Promenade — it updates the 2D platformer sub-genre with classic 3D platformer elements inspired by Super Mario 64, Super Mario Odyssey, and Banjo-Kazooie.
Promenade impresses with its gameplay diversity, great level design, inventive puzzles, supremely charming presentation, outstanding soundtrack, and great technical Switch implementation. A light story and character development alongside several small technical mishaps put a slight dent into this otherwise outstanding romp through the fantastical.
The end result is a superb and confident single player title, which is especially impressive given the small development team. Promenade represents a benchmark for the sub-genre and a testament to what the 2D platformer can achieve when a great deal of passion, love, talent, and ingenuity is at play.
While playing it, I lost track of time… several times. That’s because it brings out the kid in you as it did with me. And if you are not careful enough, it will surely hop its way to your heart.
Story
Promenade is a coming-of-age story told through environmental storytelling, wrapped in a whimsical, colorful, and dreamlike world. It follows the story of Nemo and his little poulp (octopus) friend with many special abilities. Suddenly dropped into this new world, Nemo is confronted with the mission of repairing the Great Elevator, whose cogs have been scattered all around the world by a mystical figure. It is up to you to find out these cog fragments, fix the Great Elevator, and find out where it leads!
The story is fun, engaging, and sometimes emotional. It is mainly told through environmental beats, taking us through the various levels or worlds of the Great Elevator. While I enjoyed it, the narrative experience as well as the character development for much of the game is light. It is clear that the focus of the game remains on its excellent gameplay and presentation.
The same can be said about the character development and interactions between Nemo and his octopus friend. The beginning of Promenade shows the two bonding together in several heartwarming scenes. Nemo and his friend rely on each other to make it through the Great Elevator… and they do go through a lot together. Nonetheless, I wish there was more potential for character development and interactions, especially after boss fights, and as we travel between the levels. The game does not feature enough of these moments between our protagonists to fully flesh out their personalities and friendship.
Promenade relies on its background and environment to tell the story. The NPCs are a highlight of this. There are memorable NPCs that show up throughout the adventure, all blessed with very funny characteristics. Holy Cap truly brings its ingenuity here. That’s because we have a supporting cast imbued with whimsical and efficient characterisation — a lobster painter called Da Pinchi (my favorite), a speedster penguin strapped to a rocket who too eagerly races you for cogs, a kid rock (not the country singer!) who challenges Nemo at hopscotch, and others.
The world itself has a dreamlike quality that extends beyond its characters. The environmental design is a standout. The Great Elevator takes us through floral settings, jungle backgrounds, dimly lit caves, above the clouds, and well into the cosmos! The whole universe is explored here. I felt that this world just made sense despite its surrealness due to the cohesive vision. In fact, you can fall from one level of the Great Elevator to the ones below (and even survive!) without any loading screen to break the immersiveness.
Promenade allows its background and environment do most of the talking… but they sure have a lot of good to say.
Gameplay
Promenade updates 2D platformer gameplay mechanics with 3D elements found in classic platformers like Super Mario 64, Super Mario Odyssey, and Banjo-Kazooie. These include the focus on the collect-a-thon as a progression vehicle, inventive puzzles, diverse traversal, and dungeons. Its gameplay is fun, addictive, and most importantly, varied as a result.
This is most evident in its traversal mechanics. Promenade features a normal jump mechanic that becomes a double jump by using your little octopus friend that you throw at objects and enemies as a way to propel upward right after the normal jump. This is the core mechanic. However, it introduces nifty variations to this, including a roll and jump for higher speed jumps, jumping and attaching to a stationary or a moving hook that propels you faster, sliding, a standing vertical jump to get to higher platforms, and more. Nonetheless, I found the standing vertical jump to be underutilized and more of an afterthought compared to the other moves given the level design.
The traversal options do not stop here. You may use objects, beings, and enemies from the environment. For example, you will use birds to glide your way down and across platforms. You will use rockets representing a nod to Mario’s Bullet Bill to propel Nemo across gaps. Besides the vertical jump, the traversal mechanics are utilised marvelously and provide for a dynamic move set which keeps you on your toes.
Combat is present when encountering bosses and other enemies in the environment. Combat will test your traversal and octopus throwing skills as it should be seen as an extension of the move set. This is why boss battles are an especially great time. These battles combine most or all the skills you learned. You will find yourself jumping over obstacles thrown at you by the boss, use enemies to double jump for bombs, and find an immediate way to ignite these and throw back at the boss. This is just one example as there are variations depending on the level. Yet, it always feels satisfying.
Promenade is teeming with fun mini-games, puzzles, and dungeons to explore. These are diverse and optional. The time trials are perhaps the most challenging. Nemo and his friend must traverse more difficult environments before time runs out and be rewarded with cogs if he succeeds. The time trials are highly recommended. They are fast, inventive, and are best seen as a proving ground for consolidating traversal move sets. The puzzles are a welcome breather from the action. Da Pinchi, the artist lobster, will ask your help with painting his masterpieces. Kid Rock challenges you to a hopscotch memorization game, with puzzle pieces also scattered across the environment that you can find a matching place for them. Food recipes that you have to search ingredients for and cook, treasure maps, and more. There are also dungeons where you may have to sneak past funny carrot-loving moles rocking miner head lamps. The end result is an unexpected “Mission Impossible” heist. All of these mini-games, puzzles, and dungeons work so well because they are imbued with charm, character, and a special attention to a cohesive level design.
Promenade also shines in its gameplay accessibility. The auto-save function is so well implemented that I didn’t feel punished for trying and failing… repeatedly. In this sense, the game sides with the player. It never feels unfair or impossible. The difficulty is just right. This is further supported by the choices the game allows its players. You don’t have to collect all the 180 cogs present in the game if you don’t want to (although you may eventually do so as you may receive something special!). You don’t have to be stuck in one level to collect cogs as you can move between the different levels of the Great Elevator as long as you meet a minimum requirement.
If you deplete all your five lives, Nemo will still be “resurrected” very close to the action making sure you are not losing any momentum to backtrack. There is also another accessibility feature in the Options menu by which the player may choose to automatically have their health regenerated periodically for those wanting a cozy and relaxing time through Promenade. Players looking for a challenge can toggle the speedrun mode in Options. This will display the timer, as well as skip animations and cutscenes. In this sense, its difficulty can be tailored to your liking.
Promenade’s gameplay achieves a great balance between diversity, fun, and accessibility that is sure to make you feel welcome in the way you approach Nemo’s journey.
Presentation
Promenade’s presentation is supremely charming, cozy, and colorful. Its distinct warm color palette brings out a childhood sense of playfulness and joy. The art style beautifully highlights the environments by strategically lighting the foreground with warm rays. When the scene gets darker, the background receives light to create a moody contrast. You will see this exemplified during the “Jungle jaunt” level. The character designs are also beautifully created and often feel color-coded. Nemo and his friends are presented in brighter colors, while enemies are often depicted in darker violet, grey, and black. I often stopped to admire these beautiful visuals on the handheld Switch OLED.
The original score backs up these visuals with aplomb. Composer Yponeko does not hold back on creating the catchiest tunes to hype up the gameplay during combat. When the setting demands it, the game is also not afraid to be more minimalistic or subdued in its composition as a means of evoking suspense. Each level benefits from different arrangements that are distinct and fit the setting, from the use of bongos during the jungle level to the woodwind instruments around several sections of the Great Elevator.
Technically, Promenade feels right at home on the Switch, especially in handheld mode. It feels great to play Promenade on the go given its accessibility and platforming elements. Promenade is also a very polished experience as I did not encounter any functionality or localization issues in the review copy. The visuals are as great in docked mode as they are in handheld. The game runs in 1080p at 60 fps in docked and at 720p 60 fps in handheld. Holy Cap also makes great use of the Switch, something that has been missing in a lot of recent multiplatform titles. This is because Promenade features an adjustable rumble function that adds an extra layer of player interactivity for handheld and docked modes. I recommend setting this at 80% or 90% intensity for a more pronounced effect. Promenade also has the possibility to remap the buttons to your liking for increased accessibility.
I did, however, encounter several small technical mishaps. When I first saw the pitch black loading screen, I thought my game had crashed. I was relieved to find out this was not the case. Nonetheless, the loading screens do not feature the loading symbol to indicate this to the player. I hope Holy Cap implements the loading symbol during these screens. While the framerate is generally stable at 60 fps across docked and handheld modes, I found several framerate slowdowns or drops in specific sections of the game. The sunny rays of the ‘Verdant voyage’ level slightly affected the framerate, while being in the proximity of bomb explosions caused a sudden and short-lived framerate drop. Nonetheless, these limitations do not appear often enough to spoil the fun.
Summary
Promenade is a surprise hit of early 2024. I hope it will be on the radar of many as it deserves so given its gameplay diversity, great level design, inventive puzzles, supremely charming presentation, outstanding soundtrack, and great technical Switch implementation. A light story and character development alongside several small technical mishaps do little to challenge this otherwise outstanding childhood fantasy.
It’s a superb 2D platformer and indie benchmark for the sub-genre. I am impressed by the talent, passion, and ingenuity of the small Holy Cap team in delivering such a well-crafted title. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Promenade. I hope this will inspire other independent developers to take more chances and push forward this sub-genre. I, for one, can’t wait to hop back in and continue my adventure!
Promenade releases on February 23 for the Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One. Promenade can be purchased on the Nintendo Store.
The Review
Superb
