Pseudoregalia Review

BACKER

reviewed Pseudoregalia

★★★★★
★★★★★

on

"If it feels like you're suffering, you're probably missing a movement item," my friend Aura tells me as I throw myself against a nearly-impossible platforming section. "Oh, I know," I reply, "but what if I can do it anyway?" And, dear reader, I could.

If you play Pseduoregalia and unlock every movement mechanic in the expected order and solve every puzzle using the intended solution, you are experiencing a fundamentally different game than I. To me, this is a game of getting away with something, piecing together the tools you have on hand to sneak through challenges designed for different tools and steal rewards meant for another you in another time. The movement is so deep and so powerful once you push it to its limits that you can go almost anywhere with only a few mechanics.

This makes me wonder: why are there so few 3D games that really focus in on the technical complexity of motion in 3D space? Where is the evolutionary branch of 3D platformers that zoomed in on the platforming instead of the world around it? Did I miss them, or does Pseudoregalia really stand alone?

One thing's for sure: this is going to have the absolute sickest low% speedruns you've ever seen.


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in reply to @nex3's post:

Feels like every time AAA gets close to doing cool 3D movement games the brand gets consumed for some other industry trend. Assassin's Creed became generic open world adventure. Mirror's Edge became a worse game and Dice was consumed to make Battlefield Infinity+1. Titanfall consumed by Apex. Glad to see some indie in the space.

This was already on my list but your review has made me even more excited to play it. I love when games take a few mechanics and really add some depth to them. Like, I feel celeste did a great job of that

This makes me wonder: why are there so few 3D games that really focus in on the technical complexity of motion in 3D space? Where is the evolutionary branch of 3D platformers that zoomed in on the platforming instead of the world around it? Did I miss them, or does Pseudoregalia really stand alone?

The movement feels like they took Mario 64 as a starting point, but it's much more deliberate about the flow of the movement options than Mario 64 ever felt to me and it's certainly a lot more focused on how you move around the world than anything else. Feels like Mario abandoned those kinds of ideas immediately, but Pseudoregalia's picking up from there.

I think Sunshine also has some interesting technical movement but I'm just baffled that aside from those two games specifically I'm hard pressed to name any 3D platformer that's pushing in this direction