Wenjia

How far would your cat go in order to save your life? You might as well not even answer that rhetorical question, because it's clearly not as far as the lead kitty goes in Wenjia, the 2018 platformer that is just now scratching its way onto the Nintendo Switch. This is a short yet effective side-scroller that sees our feline hero jump between two different realms in order to save a bunch of rabbits. It's like Ikaruga, only without all of the bullets.

We learn at the start that the LocoRoco-shaped bunnies are in danger after an evil force has brought death and destruction to their peaceful forest. With volcanos erupting and lava burning everything in its path, they turn to a cat-shaped energy entity for help. This was a good idea, because this is not your usual kitty. It's agile and able to double jump to safety. More importantly, the cat is also able to switch between the material world and energy world with a blink of an eye, utilizing the different realms to successfully avoid the game's many obstacles.

As a mechanic, this isn't all that difficult to wrap your head around. The typical puzzle involves you having to switch between realities on the fly in order to jump into portals and open up gates. A common difference between worlds is that one will have our hero floating high above platforms on a heavy gust of wind, while the other realm will be completely calm. There are also enemies to look out for and traps to be avoided, but these types of puzzles make up a bulk of the two-hour run time.

And that's the rub. Although it's gorgeous to look at and the story is more thought-provoking than I anticipated, I found that Wenjia was too short and ended just as it started to get good. With only a couple of locations, the kitty's adventure didn't feel as epic or substantial as it should, and the puzzles didn't evolve far beyond what you see in the first few minutes. It was exciting when I earned the ability to double jump, but disappointed when I realized that this was it for new moves.

Even with the power to jump between two different worlds, Wenjia feels awfully familiar. You've seen these obstacles, enemies and puzzles before, and not enough is done with the admittedly cool special abilities. That said, there's no denying that the graphics are stunning. I love the hand-drawn look of the forest, and the lava-filled volcanos are genuinely terrifying. Wenjia is a solid 2D platformer with a gorgeous presentation and familiar puzzles. It's not an essential purchase, but definitely worth playing when it goes on sale.