Pankapu is an action platform game crowdfunded on the popular website Kickstarter, by indie developers Too Kind Studio. The game first came out on PC, Mac and Linux back in September of 2016. If the kickstarter were to be a success they would release console versions. Pankapu quickly exceeded the goal of €40.000 and gathered a total of €53.120. With this amount of extra money, they decided to invite Kai Kennedy to be the narrator and were able to make a console version of their game for PS4 and Xbox One. These versions have now been released together with the second episode of the storyline.

Too Kind Studios was planning to bring back an old-school action platformer as the ones we played when growing up. The gameplay does remind me a bit of the first Rayman games, which is – with no doubt – a good thing. The art work’s awesome and there is a great storyline in this game. The levels are designed to be replayed when new skills are unlocked to find new weapons and perks that will help you get through the tougher levels.

Pankapu takes place in a universe the developers were already creating years before even thinking of making this game. They took some influences from the Lakota culture and games like Final fantasy. The story is a dual-narrative. On one side it’s a story about Pankapu, a cute little knight who keeps our dreams safe from nightmares. But if you look a little closer, you will see the story is all about Djaha’Rell, a child troubled with nightmares that is using his imagination to deal with traumatic experiences.

Pankapu was created by the Hymn of dreams called Iketomi – a godlike being – when he saw that the nightmare creatures were trying to invade Omnia, the dream world. He gathered all remaining dreammatter and birthed Pankapu. Soon you’ll notice that the Hya’Nagis or nightmare creatures have already infiltrated more of Omnia than first thought. Together with Chii the magic spider, you will cross the land and beat al the nightmare creatures to return Omnia to its former glory.

When you start the game, Pankapu has next to no abilities and can just swing his sword, defend himself and jump. As you progress through the game he will learn a number of new skills and even get different forms each with different strengths and weaknesses. You will have to switch between them to get through the ever more difficult growing levels. You can also find a lot of collectibles for the completionists under us.

Now this review is of course about the console versions of the game. I’ve tried it on PS4 and I have to say, within the first hour of playing the game I’ve already stumbled upon a number of glitches:
– A cut scene that didn’t load, I had to restart the game completely to move on.
– An enemy that was supposed to disappear after dying remained on screen and just stood there, I was able to pass through him, so not a real big deal, but still…
– Dying and not respawning, so you have to start the level all over again.
– Not being able to change the screen width and height. A small part of the health bar was off screen. I couldn’t change this, it really stings in my eye once you take notice of this.

The controls aren’t entirely what they should be either, in my humble opinion. The game gives kind of a Rayman-vibe, but when you throw your sword your character becomes completely stationary and vulnerable for attacks until he retrieves the sword. This was definitely not the case in the older platformers. Nevertheless, the game really makes up for its flaws with sheer beauty, a dreamy atmosphere and a fantastic story. It gives hours of fun and is quite addictive. It’s is definitely worth playing and the developers did a great job in creating this. Maybe some patches here and there but nothing too bad.

7/10

Tested on PlayStation 4

“I’m out!” – nightmare creature