Effie

You don't see a lot of games like Effie anymore. This is a throwback to the mid-tier action/platformers that were so popular during the days of the PlayStation 2, like Maximo and The Mark of Kri. It's simple, straight-forward and a little shallow, but it's also good-natured, well-executed and a great reminder of how much fun a solid 3D platformer can be. And did I mention that you can surf around the countryside on a hoverboard? If that doesn't sell you, then nothing will.

The Effie in question is none other than a precocious young girl with boundless energy. In a nod to The Princess Bride, Effie's grandfather tells her the story of a lazy knight who was cursed when he refused to help a witch named Melira. This selfish knight was Galand, and the evil witch put a spell on him that turned the youthful fighter into an old man. Unwilling to accept the punishment, Galand travels far and wide to have the Elder Protectors intervene, but is turned away due to an impure heart. It's now up to our aging hero to prove that he has a pure heart and reverse the curse once and for all.

As he comes to find out, Galand is far from the only person to be cursed by Melira. In fact, she's been spreading evil all across the land of Oblena, and the Elder Protectors don't like it. They give the greying knight a magical shield to help him defeat the evil witch and restore peace to the land. This sets up a fairly straight-forward adventure where Galand fights through four different themed stages to prove his worth.

Aside from being able to surf around on a hoverboard, this is a pretty standard action/platformer. You'll jump around the different stages picking up experience points, finding keys and smashing all of the ghosts and goblins with your magical shield. It never gets more complicated than jumping over firepits and walking over buttons on the floor. Once you'll solved the platforming puzzle and collected as many items as you can find, it's off to battle Melira in one of four boss fights.

On the topic of combat, Galand has both a weak and strong attack. He'll also learn a number of special moves as he unlocks the different parts of the shield, including a boomerang and earthquake attack that hurts multiple enemies. You can also use the magic of the shield to double jump and dash through the air, as well as shield our hero from swarms of bad guys. That said, the game's easy difficulty meant that I never got around to using the shield, so it might as well not even be an option.

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If all this sounds like standard fare for the action/platformer genre, then it's because it is. With the exception of traveling from place to place on a hoverboard, there isn't much here you haven't seen countless times before. The reason the game gets away with it is because Effie manages to nail all of the fundamentals. The platforming sections are always easy to control and never cheap, while the beat 'em up sections are usually fast and not very long. It's also a short game, knowing to wrap things up long before the repetitive action and platforming grows stale.

I had fun fighting the monsters and tracking down Melira, but I have to admit that a lot of this is simply because this is a winning formula. It's hard to mess up this kind of 3D platformer, especially if the controls are tight and the hero is likable. It also helps that we don't see a lot of games like this anymore, making it easy for me to overlook the lack of challenge, the lame boss fights and a few technical problems. This is a game I enjoyed in the moment, but liked less the more I thought about the individual parts.

Between the cartoony graphics and easy difficulty, Effie was clearly designed with younger players in mind. This works well as both a good introduction to 3D platformers and a nice reminder of what made the genre so much fun in the first place. It has well-crafted level designs, a nice variety of locations, a speedy pace and a number of side quests. And did I mention the hoverboard? On the other hand, it's not especially ambitious and you've seen most of these elements in countless other games. If you're looking for a game that evolves the genre in meaningful ways, then you may want to look elsewhere, because Effie is good, safe and familiar fun.