Last updated on March 14th, 2025 at 04:46 am
I got the chance to try out Nikoderiko in a special demo and I can easily tell you that I enjoyed every single bit of it. It’s a really nice surprise to encounter a game like this nowadays, specially from a developer that is not Nintendo. It was pretty fun and original combining several gameplay mechanics to make something original that also feels familiar.
The demo started straight into the map of what seems to be the first world of the game. It’s also worth pointing out that while the full game let’s you play in co-op for 2 players, the demo only seemed to permit access to the single player mode. In single player mode while at the map or stage select screen, I was able to easily switch between Niko and Luna as playable character. There also seemed like there’s gonna be a bunch of collectables to get on each stage as shown in the interface here. Unfortunately, the purpose of most of these items was still a mystery as the only option available in the demo was selecting stage or switching character, but a disabled option to go to Camp definitely called my attention.
As for the gameplay itself, it honestly feels pretty good. The controls are exactly as you expect from a good platformer. They feel responsive and tight. The characters feel easy to control and let you move around comfortably. Both Niko and Luna play the exact same way, so you are free to play as the character you prefer without any compromise. The only difference I noticed in the demo was that Luna didn’t seem to have any voice lines recorded while playing in stages. I hope and believe this was just a situation of the demo being an earlier version where Luna’s lines weren’t recorded yet.
While it may seem like the game plays pretty much like a Donkey Kong Country game, it does bring its own ideas to the table with a few unique gameplay mechanics like wall jumping. In fact, some may seem closer to Crash Bandicoot games than DKC. The stages I was able to play included parts where the gameplay suddenly swapped from 2D to full 3D. These swaps happen very natural and feel pretty neat as they bring some variety into the mix.
The level design so far seems to be done pretty good too. Finding secrets was not hard but neither is very simply. From what the demo let me play, keeping an eye on the environment is very valuable as there’s usually a hint of where secret paths are hidden. This can happen even in the 3D parts of stages. It also never felt unfair.
Talking about things in the game being fair or unfair, I can also safely say that the difficulty felt fine. The demo only let me play in Normal and it felt fair overall. A few difficult spots in stages that are clearly supposed to be more challenging but never something that’s impossible to clear. It is worth pointing out that the game does include a death counter per file. And for some strange reason, dying inside a bonus stage also counted as a death during my playthrough of the demo. Hopefully that’s a bug that gets fixed in the final release since bonus stages only let you get hit once.
The music I heard in the demo wasn’t bad but it wasn’t amazing either. I guess you could say just good. But with David Wise behind it, I have a feeling there’ll be a great selection of memorable tracks in the full game. I also felt each tracked matched perfectly the situation at hand, specially during the 3rd level in the demo where it dynamically changed based on the part of the stage you are at.
Nikoderiko: The Magical World should be releasing on consoles later today with a Steam release planned for next year. I’m really looking forward to the full release and have a feeling this will be a great game. If you are interested in it (which you should, in my opinion), you can check it out through the link here for Steam, Xbox, and PS5. For the Switch version, click on the link here.
Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from https://www.keymailer.co
Link-NM is the administrator of N Masters, Makendo Central, and aspiring indie game developer at NovaFan Games. His favorite game franchises include Mega Man X, The Legend of Zelda, and Mario Kart.