PS5

Published on October 15th, 2024 | by Nay Clark

Nikoderiko: The Magical World Review (PS5)

Uncover a magical land and save the island’s tribes from a corporate evil in this lighthearted adventure starring a couple mischievous mongooses! Nikoderiko: The Magical World is a colorful platformer published by VEA Games, published by Knights Peak, and released on October 15th of 2024. The game is heavily inspired by classic platforming staples from Donkey Kong Country and Crash Bandicoot to Rayman and Yooka-Laylee. The music is even composed by David Wise, cementing the genre’s essence into its framework from the jump. Swing, run, slide, and collect in this journey to find hidden treasure and kick crass cobra caboose!

Niko and Luna have found a great treasure on an island suspended in the sky. Unfortunately for them, Grimbald and his Cobring minions snatch it up from underneath their snouts. The Cobring Gems Company along with Grimbald’s snake army is stealing all the treasure they can get their scaly hands on. The determined Niko and Luna decide to track Grimbald down to take back their riches while also defending the inhabitants of the island from the slithering fiends. The story is pretty mediocre, but is told wonderfully through amazing animation and impressive cutscenes. The game is fully voiced and all of the characters are charming and have a magnetic attitude. Thanks to the wonder of adventure, phenomenal graphics, and lively characters, the game emits a storybook aura that fits well with its themes and purpose overall.

You can choose to play as Niko or Luna and can switch between them as you please. The game also has local co-op so two people can squash baddies and find hidden coves together while romping through these colorful levels. As Niko or Luna you can jump, ground pound, swing or climb, pick up barrels to throw, and are equipped with a kick attack that you can also use to slide into tight spaces. Throughout your travels around the island you will be jumping on bad guys, hopping across platforms stationed between perilous pits, and timing wall jumps accordingly to not get injured. This is a platformer through and through so half of the challenge is going to be getting good at controlling these critters across muddy jungles and icy mountains.

Nikoderiko is very kid friendly and will probably prove to be a lot more endearing toward the younger crowd. There is a cartoony veneer that reminds me of games like Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Kao the Kangaroo, and Neopets: The Darkest Faerie. You start each level with two hearts and usually there is a health potion nearby to make it three. While you have hearts that you can lose, resulting in a reset back to the last checkpoint if you lose all of them, you don’t have any actual lives so you can never actually fail. This streamlined approach to a platformer is very welcomed, especially for something like this where it is supposed to be super approachable for all and anyone can just jump in and have a fun time. 

There is a Normal mode and an Easy mode to purely explore and enjoy the adventure at a leisure pace. Like most platformers, the game has plenty of collectibles. You can collect the letters of Niko’s name, there’s a hard to reach purple gem on every stage, fireflies, golden coins and totems, giant keys, and potions. There are mounts that you can ride on like a giant frog that can jump high or a hog that can serve as a battering ram. Bonus stages are well hidden and are actually well varied, providing skillful challenges. At the end of a stage, you button mash a cage filled with fireflies ultimately destroying their prison and freeing them of their captivity.

Enemies are expressive and diverse. You’ll run into crabs that can only be jumped on because their claws will damage you if you approach them from the side. There are enemies that you can only slide kick into because they have a spiky top. There are larger enemies that block your jumping path and birds that shoot projectiles at you. While the enemies look cool, they don’t feel threatening at all. They are easily skippable and only serve as another obstacle to blast through. There are also one shot moments to get items and if you miss your chance, make a careless jump, don’t understand the platforming section until after the fact or after the extra enemy jump is destroyed then you’ll have to come back and try again.

Levels feel like characters themselves and the music amplifies this by creating tunes that clearly express the environment you occupy. Caves have more mysterious tones, metallic workshops will have a hollow accent to its melody, and jungle jingles will be more upbeat and lively. Some levels you will be riding karts across harrowing danger and in others you will be barrel blasting over large plains. Something I liked a lot is that sometimes the level will switch from a 2D perspective into a 3D playing space where you can run around more freely akin to something like Crash Bandicoot. Sadly, these moments are few and far between and only makes me wish for the next installment to play like this the entire way through because of how enjoyable these sections are.

Not only does Nikoderiko revolutionize the platforming genre through its implementation of level design, but also the way it handles its collectibles. There is a shop in the game that you can access on the world map. You can use what you collect throughout the levels to buy treasure like character models that you can view, coins you can use to buy mounts to summon while going through a level, or music that you can listen to. I found it smart that what you are doing and collecting in the levels directly go into the rewards that you can unlock for yourself or mounts you can use that then make levels easier to traverse. Something else that Nikoderiko does commendable is the sound design and rumble through the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller. The little blips and twinkles of collecting the fairies and the sensation that surges through your hands when a structure collapses is quite like no other. Many PlayStation games don’t use this functionality so not only is it a treat when a game does, but it is great when it is actually done well.

The game is incredibly entertaining and the levels are laid out in a great way. Playing this game reminded me of Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, but without the game ever getting harder. The game adapts its difficulty into new obstacles and new ways to engage with the environment in clever ways so you are always thinking differently and actively participating, but there is no learning curve which is nice for a change for a platformer to do and commit to in such a well rounded way. There are harder sections like bonus stages or more advanced maneuvers you can pull off like sliding into a death pit to collect something and then jumping while in midair to land safely on the next platform, but if you are just playing at a normal pace, the game is a breeze all the way through. The only troubling parts are the bosses, but that’s only because their attacks and layout of the fights are confusing and unreadable at first, so some needless deaths may be appropriate to complete them.

The controls are acceptable overall, but there is a slight issue with actually connecting with the characters. In Donkey Kong Country, the characters feel like they have weight and it makes pulling off platforming feats feel rewarding. Here in Nikoderiko, the characters feel a little too floaty. When jumping on enemies, sometimes you just won’t land in their hitbox properly which may lead to you getting hurt. The enemies in Donkey Kong Country also have great death sounds. In this game, whenever you defeat an enemy it makes a bounce noise and they go flying off the screen. That disjointment is really noticeable when you are trying to get into the groove and perform specific actions such as platforming off of multiple flying enemies back to back. That detachment doesn’t feel good.

Some other things that I took note of while playing is that there is a small circle underneath the characters so you can tell where you will land after a jump which sounds good on paper, but the way it is implemented here is sort of moot. The way the characters control are too sluggish and you aren’t going to be making any tight jumps like in Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time where it was practically needed. I had a glitch on the first level where dismantling my animal companion made me keep running towards the right even when I wasn’t touching any of the controls. After fidgeting around, I was able to make it stop, but it was still an odd occurrence during the very first level of the game. The voice acting is really well done, but the sound quality is inadequate. The mixing of the sound is off and dialogue peaks awkwardly at times. At multiple points during my playthrough, my character would phase through objects or even the ground. During a platforming section to get to a bonus barrel, I needed to slide, but every time I slid on this moving platforming, my character would fall through it and plummet to their death. I also thought that there weren’t enough branching paths in gameplay and on the map. The world map strictly acts as a domain to reach the levels; it is a straight line between stages. With how thorough and conclusive the game is in other departments, I think it would make sense to expand the paths so there is actually a purpose to the paths in the first place.

Final Thoughts?

Nikoderiko is the perfect step in the right direction, but it needs a little more buffering to stand tall among the best of the best. This game is a good introduction into this genre if you haven’t played anything like this before. It blends multiple playstyles, elements, and mechanics, from past platformers to conjure up a unique experience that overshadows some aspects of its predecessors. Easy-going and addicting gameplay create an engrossing loop of never-ending fun. Gorgeous graphics and animations mixed with a pronounced soundtrack that adds flavor to the already engaging levels create an unforgettable game that you’ll have no problem coming back to play over and over again. The well polished and fully realized design and fantastic platforming implementation has created one of my favorite games this year. If you need a game with lots of heart, then pick up Nikoderiko: The Magical World.

About the Author

Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.

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