Snake Pass is an intriguing game. At first glance, it looks like a platformer ripe from the golden age of Rare – think Banjo Kazooie or Conker’s Bad Fur Day. But playing Snake Pass highlights a crucial difference. Noodle, the snake you play as, has no legs. He can’t jump. He can only slither. Therein lies the crux of Snake Pass’s unique premise. It’s a platforming game that has all the intricacies of a retro inspired platformer but one in which you cannot jump. It sounds aggressively unfun, but it’s much better than it sounds on paper.
There is a story here but it’s very minimal. Noodle the Snake and his best friend Doodle the Hummingbird are woken one day when their world is threatened by a mysterious force. Noodle must traverse several gates, or “Snake Passes” to restore the worlds to their former glory. It’s an elemental storyline with little to no surprises – what’s worth mentioning instead is Noodle and Doodle themselves. As characters, they never speak any lines of dialogue and yet their characterisation is so well executed. Those expecting the back and forth bickering of Banjo and Kazooie should look elsewhere, but the way these characters are animated and brought to life without voice is just as impressive.
By default, you move Noodle forward by holding a trigger, and gain speed (or momentum) by slithering him to the left and right. It’s strange and unusual at first, but you’ll slowly grow accustomed to it. Noodle can wrap himself around posts to ascend and clear vertical space or (in a more convoluted process) fling himself from post to post. You can tighten your grip around certain objects (purely to stop yourself from falling off) or even call in Doodle to lift your back half if it weighs you down.
Like puzzle platformers similar to Captain Toad, Snake Pass is course based. Each level throws Noodle into a world and asks him to find everything in it before reaching the exit. Collectibles come in three flavours, but only one set (three keystones) are required to move on. Only requiring a few collectibles to progress does make progression feel much more manageable, but it does mean that it’s a little bit too easy to breeze through Snake Pass quickly.
Snake Pass feels reasonably paced. It never outstays its welcome and introduces smaller obstacles along the way to keep you interested. The idea of playing as a Snake invariably would have started out as a basic tech demo of some sort, but Snake Pass takes such a concept and elevates it to feel like a fully fleshed out game. There are times where you’ll be wrestling with the physics, which can be slightly frustrating, but you’ll finish Snake Pass feeling satisfied but still thinking about what more could have been done.
From a presentation perspective, Snake Pass is beautiful looking. I played the game on the Playstation 4 Pro and was met with two options – one to play at 30fps but in 4K and another to play in 60fps but in full HD. I chose the latter option, as the smoother framerate felt like it suited a game about a slithering snake better. Make no mistakes, Snake Pass is colourful, vibrant and dense with life and essence. Locales like jungles, lakes and clouds are all beautifully stylised and rendered to create a world that could easily be mistaken for a modern Donkey Kong or Banjo-Kazooie. Noodle himself is scaly and glistens in the sun when wet. There’s a lot of polish and attention to detail in Snake Pass which is to be commended.
Snake Pass is a delicious combination of interesting concept, a solid execution but with room for future potential. A platformer without a jump button sounds absurd, but Snake Pass uses a kooky physics engine and great level design to make it feel as natural as ever. Though sometimes frustrating, Snake Pass is charming and simple, a different experience, even if it feels like it’s over a little bit too quickly.
The Playstation 4 version of this game was played for the purpose of this review. You can read our review policy HERE.