When it’s your birthday you expect to have an awesome day. You get some cake, presents, hangout with a few friends or family members. It should be a swell time. Well, for the main character of The Adventure Pals, his birthday couldn’t get any worse. While opening his presents, an evil magician comes out of nowhere and turns his dad into a hotdog! Like… how random? Anyways, it’s your job to save him and stop this magician guy from turning the world into a frank fest! Sounds pretty whacky, right? Well, it is. The Adventure Pals is a new, hilarious platformer that players of all ages can enjoy. 

You and your best friends, Sparkles the giraffe and a rock (yes, a rock), will run and wall jump their way through five areas that are broken up into different levels. Each level is filled with side quests, enemies, challenging obstacles, and, of course, some collectibles that you can search for. You’ll gain experience points, level up, and even find new hats for your characters to wear. Your sidekicks, Sparkles and Rock, aren’t just there to tag along, either. These cute little guys will help you out in all kinds of ways, kind of like a Banjo-Kazooie situation. Sparkles can hover in mid-air using his helicopter-like tongue, or grab onto specific objects that lead to otherwise unreachable areas. Rock can be used in combat or be thrown to interact with the environment. When you level up, you can teach them new, helpful abilities.

You can take out enemies a few different ways, but you’ll mostly be using your melee weapon or Rock.  The Adventure Pals starts out fairly easy and then slowly but surely gets more and more difficult. The puzzles start to become more challenging and the bosses are a bit tougher, but it’s not a game you’ll have too much trouble getting through. It definitely has some replay value though. I wanted to get all of the collectibles and mission items, which requires some backtracking. So completionists should enjoy the humble amount of collectibles and side quests that are offered. It’s also fun to just wander around and explore the different areas in the game.

You can access the five areas of the game from the overworld (pictured above). There’s a little inventory shop where you can buy bombs and health potions. There’s also a place where you can trade your cupcakes (one of the collectibles I mentioned) for new accessories, like hats and weapons. Another appealing factor is the ability to play local co-op. The second player’s design is basically just a color swap, but its a little more amusing to tackle these challenges with a friend.

I absolutely love the cartoony style of The Adventure Pals. The colors are vibrant and the environments are fun and interactive. I really enjoyed the bosses I encountered as well. One of my favorites was the Egg Monster, equipped with fully cooked limbs of bacon (yum). It reminds me a lot of that Cartoon Network show, Adventure Time. It’s almost a little too similar, but I dig the way it looks it so I won’t hold that against them.

I’m really glad that the developers at Massive Monster reached their Kickstarter goal and made this game happen. I can honestly say it’s one of the more interesting games I’ve played recently on my Switch. What The Adventure Pals lacks in depth, it makes up for in it’s fun factor. It’s a really ridiculous game that I will definitely play again. The characters are likable, the artwork is awesome and the gameplay is just silly in general. So if you’re looking for a crazy new adventure on your Nintendo Switch I recommend heading over to the eShop and checking out The Adventure Pals.