MARSUPILAMI - HOOBADVENTURE

My expectations going in were low. A licensed platformer from a Belgian comic IP that never fully cracked the English-speaking market is exactly the kind of game that usually coasts on nostalgia and delivers nothing. Hoobadventure is not that game. Ocellus Studio built something with real craft here, and the community has noticed: the game holds a Very Positive rating on Steam across hundreds of user reviews, which for a title this niche is a genuine signal worth paying attention to. The setup is paper-thin. Three young Marsupilamis named Punch, Twister, and Hope accidentally crack open an ancient sarcophagus on a beach, release a ghost curse, and spend the rest of the game chasing it down through jungles, coastal cities, and abandoned temples. You can pick any of the three characters, but they all control identically, so treat it as a cosmetic choice rather than a meaningful one. What you actually get is a crisp 2.5D sidescroller heavily inspired by Donkey Kong Country: your marsupial can run, jump, roll to gain midair height, wall-jump, ground pound, and use a prehensile tail to latch onto suspended rings. That tail-grab mechanic starts as a simple traversal tool but by the later levels demands precise timing under pressure, which is the game's most interesting design trick. Bird launchers double as the DKC barrel-cannon equivalent, and a Super Mario-style overworld map connects the stages. Each level hides collectible feathers that unlock secret bonus levels, and dojo challenge rooms task you with running every gold ring in a set time without taking a hit. Time trials unlock after you complete a stage the first time and represent the game's sharpest replay hook. The level design is where Hoobadventure earns its goodwill. Stages introduce new enemy types and obstacles at a steady pace, difficulty ramps up meaningfully world by world, and the final stretch has spikes that will catch adult platformer fans off guard despite the game's kid-friendly marketing. The visuals are genuinely vibrant, with layered foreground and background detail that gives each stage real depth. Audio fits the mood closely, swapping from breezy tropical themes to more urgent tracks in the tenser sections. Post-launch, the developer added a free Hidden World DLC adding 10 Jurassic-themed levels plus harder Cataclysm remixes of those same stages, which substantially extends the challenge ceiling for anyone who burned through the base game too quickly. The criticism is real and consistent across reviews: the base campaign is short. A casual run at around 50 percent completion can clear in roughly two hours, and extra lives pile up so fast they lose all weight. The three characters are palette swaps with no gameplay difference, a co-op mode is absent despite DKC comparisons making it an obvious ask, and some level environments recycle assets in ways that feel repetitive mid-playthrough. If you need 20-plus hours from a single purchase, this will frustrate you. But if you read the word 'completionist' with a glint in your eye, the feather hunts, time trial gold medals, dojo challenges, and Cataclysm levels offer a more substantial total. Bottom line for anyone browsing right now: this is a tightly constructed platformer that chose quality over quantity and mostly won that bet. It is not the longest ride, but almost every minute of it is mechanically pleasant. Platformer enthusiasts and parents hunting for genuinely playable family fare will find more here than the box art suggests.

Alex · Scout Team

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