Big Hops

Did you know my mother really likes frogs? I’m not joking, she loves frogs. Not enough to own one as a pet, but enough to collect dozens of merchandise and house decorations themed around frogs. My house is practically littered with frog statues and porcelain, but I’m not angry. It's nice to have parents with interests and hobbies. Shows you they are their own individual rather than another cog in the machine. Working eight hours a day, five times a week before turning into that one SpongeBob scene. Which one you may wonder? I’ll let you decide. The greatest thing about Spongebob is that any clip can describe the monotony of life, even ones that are out of context. So my house is full of frogs. Why not tell you about some of them? We got frogs in coats holding umbrellas. A frog sitting down and reading a book. Teacup frogs and frog plushies. A frog that’s trying to blow a bubble out of a wand. Yoga frogs, bronze frogs, frogs holding scented candles, tiny frogs, beach frogs, and a couple frogs sitting on toilets. That’s a lot of frogs. My mom loves her frogs, but she loves my sister and I even more. Mainly because she’d give anything to make sure we grow successful in life. Also because she spent a couple hours painfully pushing us out. 

She cooks, pays for half the stuff in our house, works several hours in a cold dark pharmacy, and offers us advice during troubled times. Sometimes she gets a bit too paranoid, but she’s my mom and you understand why she does that much like any other parent. A bittersweet way of opening up a game review and sharing a bit of my personal life. Whenever I think of frogs I think of my mother and all she’s done for me thus far. Anyways, here’s Big Hops. A recent 3D platformer by indie studio Luckshot Games. One of few games to start as a Kickstarter campaign, obtain all the funding needed, and come out in a complete instead of absolutely busted. That or it’s a scam and the developer runs off with a sack over their shoulders slowly leaking out thin slips of green. The way I heard about Big Hops was through a clip awhile back. How the project started and shaped into what we have now. I watched a few seconds, then a full trailer, and thought to myself: “This looks good. This looks like something I’d rather be playing right now, so screw it!” Bought the game during a sale, blasted through its world, and can safely say it's great as I hoped it would be. As a matter of fact it’s one of the best indie 3D platformers I’ve played.

If you’ve kept up with some of my reviews then you know I have a bias toward certain genres. If not then congratulations you know that fact now. 3D platformers is one of those genres, because of growing up on them alongside other platformers. There was a period this genre wasn’t active, because of technology advancing and people inventing most of the popular genres we see now. 3D platformers are niche by today’s standards with the only series carrying the genre being good old Mario, but we have been getting more of them. A sorta 3D platformer renaissance. With old franchises and new ones hopping into the fray. Psychonauts returned, Astro Bot blew up bigger than expected, several remakes of N64 and PS1 titles, and of course the indie scene. Demon Turf, Blue Fire, Corn Kidz 64, Penny’s Big Breakaway, Pseudoregalia, A Hat In Time, Tinykin, and of course this one now. I’m happy this genre is still kicking despite not being successful, because it shows how simplicity can still succeed. I may love my RPGs and metroidvanias, but sometimes a good five to ten hour long adventure that doesn’t ask much from you is good once in a while. Big Hops is great, and I pray by the end of this year it remains one of my top twenty games for 2026. There’s a lot it does really well and I think it’s one of my gold standards on how to make one of these games. Let's talk about Big Hops and why it deserves your attention.

Story

Our journey follows Hop, a young frog kid who lives out in the forest alongside his little sister & mother. Hop’s life is pretty peaceful for the most part. Play games with his sister, catch insects, take long walks, and after a long day he can go home to enjoy a family meal. As to whether more people live out in these woods is a good question. Does Hop go to school? What happens if there is a fire? Is there a town they can go to in case of a medical emergency. It’s a game aimed toward younger audiences, so don’t think about it too hard. Hop loves his life, but one day while playing with his sister he falls into a deep hole. Tumbling into ruins located miles below the first. A few ancient spirits guide him toward collecting relics and bringing them back to an altar. Hop does just that and is transported into a strange realm. Where reality is distorted, bits of the forest are torn into floating islands, and only one other individual lives here. A paranormal creature named Diss, and he has a lot to ask of Hop. Way more than his kiddy little brain can understand.

Diss needs help collecting a resource called Dark Drips. Liquid from the void they are currently in, but they’ve slowly begun to leak into the real world due to portals uncontrollably opening. It’s a problem Diss doesn’t feel like handling, but now that Hop is here he can toss his problems onto him instead. Diss opens a portal and sends Hop in. Transporting the stubby frog into the desert where he detects Dark Drips lies. Hop demands Diss to take him back home, but Diss refuses till Hop completes his assigned task. Hop navigates the dry sands, locates a research lab, and chats with a friendly scientist. Learning the intelligent mind can build an airship for Hop to travel back home, but first Hop will need to locate three parts. One of which may lie in a nearby town. With no other choice left, Hop begins locating the airship parts while occasionally Diss with the task forcibly assigned to him. An adventure for a little frog, and nothing ain’t gonna slow him down.

Gameplay

Your adventure is divided into four different worlds. Technically three as one of them is a short tutorial. These worlds are big, contain multiple sectors, hazards to traverse around, and items for Hop to collect. The important ones being Dark Drips, droplets, and airship parts lying at the end of each world. Dark Drips are similar to Power Stars in Super Mario 64. Given to the player for overcoming challenges or helping with specific favors. Maybe they’re lying in the open, or they are hidden within these pocket dimensions. Each containing their own obstacle courses. If you think Drips are the only thing awaiting you there’s also the droplets. Smaller droplets that when enough are collected it shapes into a whole drip. Everytime you collect a drip a new perk is then offered by Diss. Usually found at one of the stations he resides at. These perks can be equipped onto Hop’s backpack and offer a multitude of benefits. Such as a stamina boost when swinging, being able to heal by consuming any small enough item instead of just food, reduced stamina use when climbing, etc. Some may make certain sections easier, and others are just good to have at all times. You may even occasionally be offered stronger versions of perks you earned.

Hop has quite a few tricks up his sleeve to navigate the world and tackle problems. Alright kids, what is something frogs have aside from the ability to jump? That’s right they have their tongues. Why am I talking like this? Half of you readers are grown adults much like myself. Hop has his tongue and he can use it to interact with a lot of things. Swing on certain objects to either reach new areas, cross gaps, or build up momentum. Zip toward points like a grappling hook. Pull an item towards him, so he can carefully aim and toss it. If the object is too big sometimes he can pull it along. Hop can even pick locks, which is not something you’d expect but awesome! The tongue is not the only magical trick Hop can do. Hop can climb on walls…….that sounded more impressive in my head. He can climb similar to Link in Breath of The Wild, but stamina dictates how much climbing he can do. Before losing grip and slipping. You can earn more stamina by consuming stamina positions or bugs if you manage to find them, but the extra stamina is only temporary and can’t be regenerated. Finally there are the multitude of seeds Hop can throw. As you progress you encounter different types of seeds. Some will grant status effects like being on fire or an air bubble to breathe. If thrown they can create objects or platforms for Hop. Such as mushrooms that act as trampolines, or cactuses to create tightropes to walk along. You can even store them in your backpack for future usage. All is hopping mad in this fun lil game. Hope you can return after this one man odyssey, or in this case a one frog odyssey.

Thoughts

Big Hops is exactly the indie 3D platformer I’ve been needing for a bit.  Last one I covered was Penny’s Big Breakaway back in 2024, so it’s truly been awhile since. Part of me wonders if my love for the game is due to how long it’s been since I played a 3D platformer. Most of the people who’ve played this game think it’s good but not great, which is a bit shocking. I think Big Hops is doing a lot of things right, and while not perfect it’s impressive to see what this team achieved on their first attempt alone. Big Hops has some of the tightest controls I’ve seen since Astro Bot, and the funnest movement set since Super Mario Odyssey. A lot of this game’s influence came from Super Mario and it’s very clear the developers took influence from the best. Swinging and mastering when to launch yourself out of the swing similar to Penny’s. Zipping between different grapple points and lunging towards where you want to be next. One trick I love that isn’t really a trick is the dive hop. Similar to long jumping in Super Mario 64 where you gotta time it well to build up speed. You jump, dive while in midair, slide a little, then quickly jump. Repeat this and Hop can build up much like in Super Mario 64, even faster than it! You can even earn a perk that lets you see how much speed Hop can build up and it keeps going up and up and up.

The level design in Big Hops is splendid with each world ramping up in difficulty steadily. What I love is how many mechanics they’re willing to throw at the player despite the limited moveset. What I love even more is how they expand mechanics in two ways: seeds and levels themselves. Here’s a level where you must navigate a collapsing oil rig, and you gotta figure out how to get to the three oil pumps. Here’s a level where you gotta bring battery charged minecarts to specific spots so you can open the way forward. Here’s a level where you grind down a canyon just like in Sonic Adventure 2, but you gotta quickly pick up rocks to throw them at contraption buttons. Heck, they don’t have combat but we found a way to incorporate two boss fights with their own unique gimmicks. Then you got the seeds and how they change the way you interact with each of the levels. Here’s a fire pepper and platforms that burn up when set ablaze. Here’s sponge fruit that transforms into a platform when thrown at water. This one creates bouncy balls that launch you upward if you zip toward them. Then they start combining both level mechanics and seeds to create these fun and zany challenges. It never got too crazy though. There are times Big Hops rewards out of the box thinking. You can store seeds for later use and if used right you can make future challenges easier even if the seed from before isn’t needed now. Some sections you can even cheese, but you can’t just cheat everything. It’s not like Penny’s Big Breakaway where you can ignore the level design. Some challenges want you to play in a specific way. You interact with it the way you wan and it feels incredibly rewarding.

Always throwing new ideas across the nine or so hours it runs on for. The only complaint I have gameplay wise is that I don’t see Big Hops being as replayable as some of the genre’s best. The areas are big, full of content, and side activities to participate in. However, the way you progress through the story is quite linear. There’s stuff, but not enough stuff for me to want to come back and clear out every area. Plus having to backtrack to specific zones you want to clear out is kinda annoying. I just collected what I saw and had fun doing so. There’s also a couple glitches due to this being a very physics based game from a small studio. Such as this instance I dropped l right through a trampoline I was supposed to bounce off of, but this was only one time. Other than that it’s a stable game. Runs well, looks good, and I like the colorful cartoonish look. Art direction is gonna be a massive selling point for people. Goofy little frog running around deserts, caribbean islands, and caverns. Helping otters, rabbits, bats, raccoons, and more. Everything is a 3D model, but is done in such a way that it looks almost like a cartoon. Not exactly like one, but it’s almost there so that’s good for me. The game could’ve gone the route Tinykin did where every character is a 2D hand drawn sprite, or what the recent Mouse: P.I for Hire did. No, they went the route of stylizing every 3D character, model, and surface which is awesome.

The story I didn’t really care for at first. Simple premise about a kid wanting to get home, but it turns into a wondrous odyssey where the kid gets to see exciting sites and do heroic deeds. Each of the three have their own unique stories you play a part in. A western town of rabbits with a conspiracy lying below the surface, two otters argue whether they progress or preserve the past, and an emo bat wanting to unravel treasure. All three stories are fun, have a good progression structure, and conclude on good notes. Each seeing a character you’ve helped move on and seek their own path in life. Then you get this final bit, and I’m surprised it's a lesson the devs wanted to teach despite Big Hops being geared toward younger players. Remember that game I covered late last year called Possessor(s). Not the best metroidvania as it’s weak on the gameplay side, but while an okay experience for many I really liked it for the message it had to say. About people stuck in toxic relationships, but afraid to step away and move on because of the troubled person they feel like they owe something to. Big Hops basically tells this message to kids. That you can help people through their problems, but if they don’t improve and keep asking you the same thing again and again then you need to break off. This person isn’t good for you, doesn’t want to change, or think change is a good idea. Further represented with how the three NPCs you assist during your journey choose to move and give up things.

Not saying children should be raised on cruel principles, but I wish more media aimed towards younger audiences are willing to tell mature themes and topics such as this. In the same way my favorite 3D platformer, Psychonauts 2, explores mental health and trauma. Regular Show has an episode where Mordecai and Rigby’s ‘mean’ boss breaks down due to all the pressure he is going through, and what he is about to lose due to their choices. The many ways Adventure Time has explored love, loss, and letting go. (I’ve been rewatching cartoons I grew up with recently. Kinda happy and sad they were brought back, because kids can’t have their own original media now.) Anyways, Big Hops is a strong recommendation in my book. A fun 3D platformer that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, is of high quality, and not as expensive as a lot of other genre entries I’ve played. Pick this one up if you love 3D platformers, because it sets another high bar for what the genre can achieve. In the end I am going to give Big Hops a 9/10 for excellence at best.

9/10, Excellence