Super Perils Of Baking - The Cherry On Top
PS4, PS5, PC
Drawing comparisons between a title and Super-Mario All-Stars is dangerous business, but that is precisely what Super Perils Of Baking is. Perils of Baking, the 2018 debut title from Barry Johnson’s Lillymo Games was fairly primitive visually, but delivered an incredibly enjoyable platforming experience that captured the hearts and minds of many thousands of players… and a few others keen on the trophies meta-game. 40 smartly designed levels that were built with an approach to design that evoked the early Super Mario NES adventures. Being an 8-bit 2D platformer at its core, it also looked the part, which is a delicate way of saying that it looked pretty rough. Now, several years later, and a string of successes such as Habroxia, Twin-Breaker, and Habroxia 2 behind them, the team at Lillymo have grown in scale and returned to Perils of Baking, giving it an NES to SNES style facelift akin to what we saw in the famous Super Mario All-Stars collection. The game was a throw-back when it first lauched, but can a new lick of paint give the game a new lease on life in 2022?
When two brothers relationship degrades because the eldest of the two discovers a powerful chef’s hat that allows him to bring his culinary creations to life. As the uncorrupted sibling the responsibility falls to you to survive the lethal legion of donuts, cookies, and other delectable desserts that are looking to flip the script and make you into a tasty treat. It’s far from the most impactful narrative, but it’s a foundation that supports what is a superb platforming experience.
The original versions’s 40 core levels remain in-tact in Super Perils Of Baking, but the game has added an extra 10 especially testing challenges, designed to extract the very best out of the player. The standard fare is similar to any 2D Mario title, with a slippery momentum of Mega-Man. Jumping on the “heads” of your baked is your modus operandi, but with a stackable life bar, that can reach as many as three filled hearts, the player can then utilise projectiles that can be launched at your targets. Handy in a pinch, and great in assisting speed-runs or even clean-runs without damage, the throwable items (beaters etc) aren’t essential to success but are certainly a nice bonus if you have them available.
Breaking up the standard left to right jump-based platforming levels are underwater, very Donkey Kong Country feeling levels, as well as others where you’re hanging onto the string of a balloon as it carries you to the right whilst you dodge equally nasty flying feasts out to kill you. The five boss encounters you’ll have, each with your brother as he becomes increasingly frustrated by your persisting efforts to stop hi, and increasingly powerful are fairly straight forward, as the game on-boards you well; each encounter adds another attacking move to the arsenal of your brother so it’s very easy early on and not ridiculous at the game’s climax because you’re now simply putting the disparate counter-attacking measures together in a prolonged encounter. It’s all fairly straight forward, but the game plays well none-the-less. This refrosted version of the game also cleans up most of the technical hiccups seen in the original, though a very small number of painful environmental clipping issues persist in the upgrade.
The ten new levels added into the game significantly increase the difficulty, as well as throw new platforming challenges at you, from left/right screen blending jumps to changes to the floatiness of your leaps. The minecart levels, both new, and old, are a blast to rocket through once again.
As mentioned previously the most notable point about Super Perils of Baking is the 16-bit inspired facelift, and the game really does look great with it’s new coat of glazing. The quite primitive look of the original release will soon be a long lost memory thanks to the way Lillymo and the team have revitalised Perils Of Baking in this new form. The audio design, doesn’t take the same steps forward into a more recent era but still pays a superb homage to titles of the NES era.
Some very minor technical issues aside, Super Perils of Baking makes the original release completely redundant, something that you’d ideally want from any remake. The gameplay is snappy and strikes the perfect level of challenge, while the audio/visual work now matches the tasty charm of the pastry world it’s realising. If you’re looking for a new 2D platformer to lose 5-6 hours to, then you’ll not do wrong with Super Perils of Baking.
Super Perils Of Baking was reviewed on a PS5 with a code provided by LambSmith PR
