Ever been interested in the art of paper folding? Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper to create unique objects and animals. It’s been around for hundreds of years and has developed into a complex art form and even has some real world applications. Today we’re looking at one of the artistic offshoots of origami however.
Hirogami is an origami platformer developed by Kakehashi Games and published by Bandai Namco. In fact, the entire world of Hirogami is built from origami. The imagery from the game is striking and remarkable and creates a unique atmosphere that is absolutely amazing to look at. You play Hiro, a performer who lives in Shisiki Village and unfortunately the Blight is invading your world, sending thorny magical tendrils into everything you hold dear. It has taken your ability to fold your body into various other forms and if it’s not stopped, your world is doomed.
Fortunately, Hiro is able to explore the areas around the village and take back what the Blight has stolen. At its core, Hirogami is a fixed perspective platformer and you’ll be working your way through a variety of creative levels in order to regain your folding abilities, stop the Blight and save the village and the people and animals that live in and around it. To aid Hiro, he has a magic fan blessed by the Celestial Crane, and it’s just a matter of him overcoming his fears of inadequacy that hold him back.
There’s a story buried in Hirogami to be sure, but it’s pretty minimal with a lot of implied history between Hiro and the other villagers. They don’t respect him, think he’s weak, and question how he got his magic fan. Even his own goddess, the Celestial Crane has to reassure him constantly. It almost feels like he’s a Zennial that can’t get his life together and needs a therapist and a life coach to tell him how to live. As protagonists go, Hiro is honestly not very likeable and not particularly interesting, other than his ability to change into various origami animals.
There are 4 main folds that Hiro can utilize: his main form, an armadillo, a frog, and a gorilla. You can also transform into a flat sheet of origami paper and float about. Occasionally, you can turn into a paper airplane too. Each form has different attacks and special abilities that you will need to progress in the levels. While Hiro’s main form is rather overpowered, the frog stomp and armadillo spin are both remarkably effective and the slow but powerful gorilla hits do tons of damage. Unfortunately, to shift to another form, you have to stop your other actions, hold a shoulder button down, and then select the correct button for each form, a hassle when you need to switch forms mid-battle. It’s easy to hit the wrong button and on top of that, you don’t even transform at all if you’re too close to an object thanks to the relatively poor hitbox around different folds.
Levels are similarly unbalanced. You’ll use a specific fold for most of a level, then switch to get to a platform or area directly next to a shrine, pick up a paper crane or some scrolls, and then jump back down to complete an area. This happens all the time and there’s essentially no purpose to it other than to artificially prolong the level. While the levels are gorgeous, they’re also laid out fairly poorly with obvious routes you can’t access instead of focusing on the immediate surroundings. The camera perspective is also fixed, meaning that if you can’t see something or aren’t sure of a jump angle, tough luck for you. This leads to a lot of missed hits (no lock on) and needless deaths from missed jumps. You’ll have to spend the origami paper you find through the levels as currency to revive or heal too, and wasting it for no reason is infuriating. Sure you can upgrade by building various items you find in the levels but even that doesn’t improve the core mechanics of the game and neither do any of the unlockable art images or music tracks.
The handful of boss fights throughout the game are quite weak as well. Bosses are easy to fight and require almost no special strategies. They look neat but that’s about it. The only real challenge in Hirogami is not falling off of things due to camera angles. This could have been a really exciting point with multiple fold forms for bosses but nothing ever really comes of it and as a result, those fights end in fizzles rather than climaxes.
As you can tell by now, the aesthetic of Hirogami is simply outstanding. This is a simply beautiful game and you really want to look around as much as possible. Sadly, the fixed camera angles don’t allow for that and it always feels like you’re missing something just out of view, if only you could just turn and take a peek. That lack of visual fulfillment takes away from the experience of the game somewhat. That’s a shame because there is so much potential here to create an incredibly powerful experience and it is squandered by a lack of interactivity because this is an environment that players would want to explore.
A traditional Japanese paper-folding game has to have traditional Japanese music and Hirogami’s soundtrack brings back memories of Okami’s beautiful melodies. It’s not quite as well done as that masterpiece of a game but the soundtrack for Hirogami is peaceful and excellent, jumping to exciting crescendos at the right time. The paper noises of the environment and Hiro’s folds are quite nice as well and the overall sound design fits extremely well with the stunning environments of the game.
Sadly, the high-concept visuals and great audio just aren’t matched by the gameplay in Hirogami. Folding back and forth is a hassle, level design feels plodding and uninspired, and combat is particularly lackluster. There’s just no innovation that keeps up with the beauty of the game here. There are plenty of hidden things to find and special goals to earn extra cranes (and you’ll need them later on) but the joy of discovery quickly vanishes as the fun factor rapidly dissipates once you’ve unlocked your animal forms. On top of that, there are some problems with the fold mechanics as well. We managed to get stuck in a wall a couple times when folding too close to it and accidentally shifting to paper sheet mode. There was no escape and the game had to be reset to fix the issue. Clipping errors are not something you expect to see in a game this polished-looking and they significantly detract from the experience. Who wants to be afraid to be near walls or worried about jumping wrong constantly?
Hirogami ends up being a rather mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s a beautiful game with dream-like music and excellent design. On the other, Hiro is remarkably unlikeable, the levels are not particularly fun to play, and the overall mechanics become stale by midway through the game as it becomes increasingly fiddly and irritating. There’s some meta stuff in the story that would have piqued player interest more, but it’s so sparse that you end up not caring after all when you realize you’re not having that much fun. There’s a ton of potential here but not much follow through and if you’re really interested in Hirogami and you love the age-old concept of fixed perspective platforming, perhaps way for a sale on this one because its $30 price tag is a bit steep for what you get.
This review is based on a digital copy of Hirogami provided by the publisher. It was played on a PS5 using a 1080p Sony 55” TV and on the PS Portal where the game tended to stutter more than most. Hirogami is also available for PC on Steam and Epic.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.