A Hat in Time Review (Switch)

I will never leave Snatcher! NYAHAHAHAHAHA!

Well, it’s about time I picked up A Hat in Time and finally see what everyone was raving about. Luckily for me, I somehow managed to avoid spoilers this whole time. Here you play as a girl named Hat Kid who has been traveling through space in her ship. It turns out that she’s heading home and the fuel she uses seem to be hourglasses (or Time Pieces as we’ll soon learn). All is going well until she hears a knock on her window door, bringing her face to face to a strange man demanding her to pay a toll for passing by Mafia Town. After expressing a “No” answer, he breaks the window, causing Hat Kid and all of her Time Pieces to fly out of her vault and scatter through space. Hat Kid finds herself landing in Mafia Town and comes across another girl with a mustache (or Mustache Girl). They both do end up clicking really well throughout Mafia Town, though when the revelations on what the Time Pieces are come to light, their disagreement about them caused their friendship to plummet.

Hat Kid doesn’t seem to care that much, as she’s focused on getting those Time Pieces back. And that means platforming and traveling through the 5 chapters that this presents. With each chapter having at least 6 acts (apart from the last one) and each of them having a goal for you to achieve to get the Time Piece and to progress the story associated with the chapter. And of course, you’ll be platforming through them all. Movement is simple, but you’ll quickly get the hang of it and have fun while doing it in no time. I only had difficulties getting Hat Kid to land on ropes, and sometimes to a balloon, but I did find myself getting better as time went on. Even the combat is pretty simple, as you’ll smack enemies with the umbrella you get early on and have a jump attack. Other than your goal, there are collectibles scattered around each chapter, some important and some not so much.

One of the important collectibles are balls of yarn, which helps you create hats for Hat Kid to wear. There are different kinds of yarn, but luckily it doesn’t really matter as it’ll count towards any hat. You just need to pick it up to unlock the option to craft it. These hats are essential as wearing a hat grants you the ability associated with it. Like the ability to sprint with the Sprint Hat and the ability to throw explosives to break heavy duty boxes (or just to have another attack option) with the Brewing Hat. And Hat Kid’s personal hat even points you in the closest point of interest (which is mainly your current goal). There are Relics which act as a puzzle as you’ll assemble them into a completed Relic in your ship. You’ll also find Rift Tokens which will let you gamble at a slot machine for a cosmetic (either a new color palette, hat flairs, or a remix versions of a act’s music). There is also currency here so you can buy badges (which unlock different abilities or enhance them) from the… creepy badge seller or other things.

Though, I do wish you did get a way to keep track of how many things you collected and if you’re missing say a yarn or a Rift Coin in a chapter or act. At a point it doesn’t really matter, but I’d still like to know.

Each Chapter also has it’s own theming, making each one unique from one another. Though that’s not all, as most chapters will surprise you. Not only in what happens in it, but the characters you meet that are strange, but easy to love. Often times when you think you got the chapter all fingered out, it surprises you with an even better experience. Like the murder mystery detective train act or The Snatcher from Subcon Forest. And the boss battles are just amazing, giving you that challenge of learning your enemy’s attacks so you can dodge them and spot when you can do your own. It even gets harder as the bosses have different phases. While dying will pretty much put you back at the beginning, I do feel like it gives you some slack so you can get to the phase you were on (that, or I just got better at dodging and attacking). All these chapters have aspects to love and are all great, but personally, my favorite chapter was Subcon Forest; with the one I enjoyed the least was Alpine Skyline.

I also have to say that I really like how most of the chapters doesn’t tether you to an area based on the act. Alpine Skyline is the official free roam chapter, as you don’t need to return to the ship to finish it, but most of the others let you roam around the area no matter what act it is. Secretly encouraging you to explore around as it shows you that it has other areas with secrets. You need to find Relics or Rifts? Use an act to put you closer to where you need to go.

Of course, doing the various acts in the chapters aren’t the only way to get Time Pieces. While you can complete the game with just going through the chapters, as you don’t have to get all 40 back, those that want to get all of them have some more leg work to do. The rest of the Time Pieces are located within Time Rifts, which are created when the Time Pieces were smashed when they originally landed after being sucked out into space. These Time Rifts are opened up after you collect a certain number of Time Pieces in that chapter and assembling a Relic. However, you can’t just automatically go to them as you’re only given a photo showing you what’s surrounding the rift and it’s up to you to track it down (or look it up). Once you do, having touching it will send you inside the rift. There are two different kinds of rifts that will determine what you’ll be facing. There are Blue Time Rifts which are basically platform challenges as it’ll task you with getting through an area with floating blocks (and sometimes cookies!), with the Time Piece being at the end ready for you to pick it up. These are mainly easy, as you’ll most likely already have the hang of the controls by the time you find a rift, but there are some challenging ones for sure. The other kind are Purple Time Rifts, which have you go through the thoughts and dreams of an enemy or character and have multiple different levels. Here, you have go through the level to find and collect special Rift Pons so you can open a pipe that will let you progress, as the Time Piece is at the last, or deepest, level. Though, you will also find these storybook pages hidden around which serve as a way to get the backstory of certain characters and/or the location.

Though, if you do need a bit more incentive other than Time Pieces, you do get a chance at the slot machine without paying with Rift Tokens.

The humor here is also wonderful and managed to bring a laugh out of me more times that it didn’t. Not to mention the voice acting is great and really does make the whole experience better, and funnier, by the way the lines are expressed by the voice actors. This game never failed to make me smile.

Also can I just say that the title cards were a very nice touch to the beginning of each chapter. I was not expecting there to be one for each chapter, but the artist(s) really hit it out of the park for all of them.

I also got the two DLCs when I picked up A Hat in Time, which mainly was because the copy I got already had Seal the Deal packaged with it. After playing through them, would I recommend picking them up? Well, maybe? It just depends on what you liked as both DLCs are decent additions. Once they are purchased, and of course downloaded, they are already added to Hat Kid’s spaceship and all you have to do is progress and require the needed amount of Time Pieces to unlock the rooms. No need to have it be post-game content. Though, considering I had no idea what to expect, I went by chapters. The first one that was released was Seal the Deal, which introduces two things: the Arctic Cruise chapter and Death Wish. The Arctic Cruise, first of all, puts you on a cruise that you managed to get on as well as some familiar faces. Some familiar faces that aren’t so happy that you’re there. Nonetheless, you’re there. However, I found myself disliking this chapter mainly due to the confusing layout (granted, I never been on a cruise before) which made it a pain to find where you had to go. It’s even worse in the other 2 acts (this only has 3). The next one, which I thought would be fun considering there are similar acts in the main game that I enjoyed, is where you have to do 18 tasks without having the captain get too angry and as you can guess, it takes you all over the ship. This has a guide arrow, but it does feel like it’s taking you the long way at times and it can mess up and point you in a direction you can’t go unless you can noclip through. It took me a couple tries before luck shined on me and I had tasks that were relatively close. With the last one having you navigate through the boat on it’s side. It also has a weirdly difficult Time Rift which does not have a lot of health pick ups despite being one of the longer rifts and having a lot more hazards. Which is weird considering the one I found in Nyazaki Metro fell more in line with the difficulty of the main game Rifts.

This also brought Death Wishes, which are basically harder versions of levels that have challenges attached to them. To unlock more Death Wish levels, you need to complete these challenges. Though, completing certain levels will grant you more cosmetics for Hat Kid. There are also Candles, which put up a general goal that you can do while in any level, like defeating so many of a certain enemy type. Personally I wasn’t really interested in the Death Wish levels, but if you wanted more of a challenge there you go.

The other DLC is Nyakuza Metro which I found myself enjoying after having some frustrations with it at the beginning. It’s basically Alpine Skyline but better, as it’s another free roam chapter. Here you can really tell how much the team grew and improved. This takes us to the Nyakuza Metro which is a large and beautiful level with the theming of cats. Even the citizens here are cats and the trains here are being pulled by giant cats. After the wonderful beginning that has that “woah” factor as you’re traveling to what you can consider as the hub, you come in contact with The Empress and her gang members (which it seems like damn near every cat here is a part of). The Empress ends up exploiting you in finding and gathering the various Time Pieces for her jewel business. You’re then set off to explore and there is a lot of new aspects here and a lot of area to cover. First of all, what was introduced. Stickers were introduced and is the only area you can get more as they’re all scattered around for you to spot and pick up. Stickers can be put on Hat Kid’s umbrella or be used when in Photo Mode. You can also stop at Restaurants and buy food to raise your health and even find combinations to give yourself an extra point. And there are sellers, which are Empress’ gang members, selling cosmetics. These sellers are scattered around, so might be hard to track down the one that has what you want, but this has the cat ears and mask brewing hat (which also changes the potion explosion to money), the cool varsity jacket with a cat tail, and a bat. I honestly wish I went here right when I unlocked it so I could have played the rest of the game with that outfit.

Anyway, the Metro is a confusing and complicated place to travel through and figure out where you need to go. But you’ll basically be going through the 4 stations that make up this metro. Luckily, you do get a heads up on what you already got or didn’t get when entering a station, which includes the Time Piece and the metro card. The stations, other than the first one, requires you to have a metro card so you can pass through the corresponding color gate blocking your way. And to get those, you’ll have to find the seller in the station that is unlocked to you. If you are lost and have no idea where to go for the next Time Piece (or no idea how to get that Time Piece you see) you can buy a Metro Guide for 100 coins to have a line pointing to the route to it.

A Hat in Time is perfectly fine if you choose not to pick these DLCs up, but it will give you even more to do if it appeals to you. Personally, I didn’t really enjoy Seal the Deal, but I have seen people that expressed love for Arctic Cruise and those that like the extra challenge that Death Wish provided.

I was also originally reluctant to get this on Switch, and at the time the DLCs weren’t on PS4 yet, due to others speaking about the performance, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. There were some stuttering and the fast turn-blur that I experienced in a couple areas, but it was overall fine. I also didn’t find any of the loading screens long other than the one when going to the main menu when you open up the game (which was also the only point the game crashed on me).

Verdict

A Hat in Time is rough in some areas, but it is a lot of fun and I can really tell why this was loved so much when it came out. I pretty much played this in every moment I had free time (and that my Switch was charged) and I couldn’t stop until I was satisfied (which was completing each chapter and most Time Rifts). If you haven’t gotten this already, and like 3D platformers, I highly recommend picking up A Hat in Time. You can’t just not play this one.