Iggy's Egg Adventure is a good 2D platforming game with a great "prehistoric" art style and an amazing soundtrack that just feels 100% right. You can choose between a variety of characters with different skill sets (though I still went for Iggy 99.9% of the time because the levels are mostly built for that character). The graphics and animations are very nice and the "2.5D" look of the game is spot-on. With DS4Windows the game immediately recognized the PS4 controller and you can also customize the buttons (D-Pad, X for jump, Square for run, R1 for bite and R2 for long-range attack worked for me). But how does this game actually play?

In every level (except the bosses) there are 5 large eggs that you can collect, as well as small ones (usually up to 600) for points and achievements. The small eggs seem a little bit too small on a 1080p display but I was fine with that. The jumping might feel a little bit weird at first because it's very floaty but that's something you easily get accustomed to after beating the very first level. Iggy must avoid or attack enemies and make it to the end of the level. The levels are surprisingly big and vast. There are usually multiple paths that you can choose and in order to collect as many eggs as possible - and also to collect the large ones which are often hidden or on some hard-to-reach places. I spent up to 25 minutes for a single level; especially the later ones can be incredibly long. Thankfully there are checkpoints but if you lose all your lives then you'll obviously have to start from the beginning. That happened multiple times. Even after finding all 5 large eggs. Yup, that was a frustrating experience. So be sure to play easy levels multiple times to collect some 1-ups. You'll get one after collecting 100 small eggs.

Level design is alright with some nice surprises thrown in (e.g. a T-Rex chase which I liked the most in the game). There are some questionable design choices, however. Sometimes large eggs can only be reached by jumping on surfaces that almost immediately break apart after jumping on them. These surfaces won't respawn and if you miss that large egg then have fun killing yourself (or play the whole level again) because you can't reach that large egg without these platforms. This is especially annoying in later levels because these are literally riddled with these breakable platforms. This game is quite challenging. The first two worlds are pretty easy but the difficulty really spikes up afterwards and reaches its maximum in the last world. The last two levels are frustrating in particular and if you can't make precise jumps then you are going to have some problems.

Collecting these eggs isn't the only goal. Every level also has a "Time Attack" mode where you have to beat the level as quickly as possible. This is a welcome addition and frankly, all these levels are pretty much made for speedrunning and pixel-perfect (or polygon-perfect?) jumps so it makes sense. There are some great boss fights, too.

What I really like about this game is the attention to detail, e.g. the leafs that fall from the trees when Iggy jumps on a branch. Or the fact that the enemies can kill each other. Or the really well-made and exciting boss fights. That's something that really surprised as this game looked kinda rough to me at first. What I didn't like is the fact that there is blood in this game. Why on earth the developers thought this is a good idea is beyond me as kids likely wouldn't play this game (or wouldn't be allowed to play it). It doesn't bother me that much as it's just a random "blood spray" when you kill an enemy but the inclusion still puzzles me. The game looks all kid-friendly but then you have this.

After nearly 14 hours I've seen everything this game has to offer and got every achievement (except the batshit insane "beat the whole game without dying once"-achievement) and I'm really glad that I purchased this game. Even with some weird level design choices that can lead to frustrations I enjoyed this game as everything else about it is pretty great. You should definitely get the Soundtrack on Bandcamp!

2015? This sounds like a ps1 game no one played. But watching the video, it reminds me a little of Donkey Kong Country Returns. I'm curious.