Potata is a solid puzzle platformer with a great art style, well thought out and varied, puzzles and rage inducing boss battles.
Type: Single-player
Genre: Puzzle Platformer,
Adventure
Developer: Potata Company
Publisher: Potata Company
Release date: 17 Dec, 2019
Intro
Potata is a 2D puzzle platformer that features a colorful art style, some challenging bosses and very well thought out puzzles. You play as a young girl named Potata as she travels the world around her village. If you’re a fan of platformers, do read on because the game has some pretty great gameplay.
Story, Characters and Puzzles
The story revolves around a young girl named Potata whose obsessed with dewberry pies and getting into trouble. While out collecting dewberries for a pie, Potata unwittingly destroys a golden flower which had been used to protect her village from monsters. Thus begins her journey across the world to collect the 6 golden petals of the plant to restore the protection and to make up for her mistake.
Another girl named Luna acts as Potata’s antagonist and frequently blocks her path, often requiring you to pay her or acquire an item to get past her. She also appears during some puzzles to allow you to pay her with stones in order to get a hint on how to solve the puzzle. There are other characters that you meet over the course of the game which aid Potata in her quest, but often require her to run an errand for the required item or task.
The puzzles in Potata are surprisingly varied and are easily solvable by players of any skill level. They do require some thinking to get them correct though, some of them were more difficult than others but each one was fun to solve.
One thing I enjoyed about this game was its characters. At the start of the game Potata is a brash and often prone to trouble. As the story progresses, her character evolves a bit and she becomes more helpful to those around her and less prone to causing trouble. She becomes a better person and its a bit of a coming of age kind of thing. She feels bad for what she did to the world around her and is keen to make up for it. The other characters that she meets in the course of her journey were pretty interesting as well. I liked the Black Mage the most because he seemed pretty interesting, even though he seems like an edge-lord with his story regarding the darkness. Still, he aids Potata in her journey by opening portals for her, because she can’t open them herself yet.
I also felt that Luna made a pretty decent antagonist as well, even though I sometimes found her to be kinda unlikeable due to her overall attitude and her utter dislike of Potata. I also found her to be pretty suspicious throughout the game too.
Combat and Boss Battles
Truth be told, combat takes a bit of a backseat in this game and mostly acts as a way for you to progress through an area. Potata is equipped with a wooden sword which doesn’t do a great deal of damage, as you might imagine. You mostly use it to bash crates, gems, and destroy slow-moving or floating enemies that lay in your path. There’s very little depth to the combat but this was expected, as the game is a puzzle-platformer and not a metroidvania game.
The games boss battles are surprisingly challenging. I died countless times fighting the giant spider boss. Each boss has its own unique method of completion. As an example, the water spirit you have to make your way through a trap infested area while water continues to rise beneath you. The spider boss drops down repeatedly, then has a purple spider shoot balls of light throughout the map so you have to fight both of them. That one proved difficult but it was quite satisfying when I finally won.
The boss battles in Potata were one of my favorite parts of the game, even though I found them to be pretty aggravating. I liked the fact that no two boss battles were the same. There were even some bosses who you didn’t need to fight at all but they weren’t any less challenging. You also don’t actually kill any of the bosses either, you just simply have to survive until the end. They’re very family-friendly bosses so kids who can read can easily enjoy fighting them.
Art and Audio
One of my favorite parts to Potata was its colorful and rather impressive artwork. I especially loved how the devs designed each of the areas. They felt like they had a lot of depth due to the layering used. I also loved the character designs as well. They all fit the game world perfectly and gave off a very fantastical feel. Its also worth mentioning that the game was nominated for multiple awards in the art category too. This was unsurprising considering how pretty everything is.
Verdict
Overall, I enjoyed Potata quite a bit. I’m not normally very fond of platformers because I find them quite rage-inducing but I can tell when something is well designed, and Potata is that. From it’s well thought out (And challenging) puzzles to it’s gorgeous, and colorful, art, Potata has been an enjoyable, if aggravating, experience. I’m going to save this one, I can happily admit that this game should definitely please genre fans of all ages. It’s also an excellent game for children as well due to its family-friendly nature, the ability to read is definitely required to enjoy the story, but it’s not mandatory to enjoy the platforming and boss battles.
Bonus
If you’re interested in playing Potata you may be in luck! Ask JimDeadlock on our Discord server and he may have a free key for you, if you’re quick!
