In the past, I have been incredibly hard on current games made to emulate old games for nostalgia’s sake. If a game is released in 2016, with the art design of a 2D side-scroller from 1998, I am fine with that. If a game is released in 2016, with the controls of a 3D platformer from 2001, we have now encountered a terrible problem. Luckily, Drakhar Studio took pride in their game and decided to make an homage to 3D platformers of the late 90s, while focusing on creating a game with something to offer.
Ginger: Beyond the Crystal is a 3D collect-a-thon much like Banjo-Kazooie and Mario 3D World. The hero, Ginger, is a small creature trying to correct the disarray the world has fallen into. Ginger must collect multiple construction pieces to rebuild the homes of each city resident while also releasing the residents trapped within the crystals.
The story is not powerful at all. The race that Ginger is does not speak any Earth language. Instead they speak a series of bleeps and bloops, much like the characters of Banjo-Kazooie. This means that I had to spend a considerable amount of time reading the text on the screen. I cannot stress enough how much I hate that. Voice over is extremely important in drawing the player into the story. By utilizing silly sounds instead of voices, I proceeded to skip most of the dialogue beginning in the second city. See, if the story was very good, I probably would have read everything. But the story and dialogue were very simplistic and always equated to, “we need you to do this one more thing, please.”
Graphically, Ginger: Beyond the Crystal has some distinct highs and lows. The highs are the use of color and shading throughout the game. I was impressed with each new village, as the areas looked very different from each other. The colors were bright and the art style overall is very pleasing. I am so glad the developer did not try to tap into our nostalgia by making the game look terrible.
The lows are a bit harder to find. Hours into the game I found that the frame rate began to chug. It did not happen consistently or even during similar times. Sometimes it would happen during a cutscene, sometimes during a big battle, and sometimes while just walking around. The load times are also noticeably bad. Moving into and out of a level from the hub world, or traveling between each hub world takes more time than expected.
Controls for Ginger: Beyond the Crystal are much better than any 3D platformer in recent memory. Controlling a character in a 3D world that uses a 3rd person view usually creates nausea or worse from the strange angles and spins. Ginger has very good balancing that kept any of that from happening.
The platforming sections also usually take a really hard hit due to the camera controls. However, Ginger uses a pretty smart camera control that intuitively spins around the character, increasing field of vision. It also allowed me to manually take control in some areas where I needed to plot out a couple moves before trying my first jump. I always appreciate when both options are available.
The controls were not perfect, though. Sometimes while jumping, Ginger would not jump as high as previous jumps. This caused me to clip into the side of the platform and fall to my death. Other times, I would jump way too high and sail over the platform. This didn’t have anything to do with button pressure, just random variance. I am never okay with randomness being the cause of death. Difficulty needs to be based on tangible obstacles that make it clear why the player is failing. My frustration never grows as high as it does when I die because I just wasn’t lucky enough.
The attack radius of the enemies was incredibly inconsistent as well. Sometimes, an enemy would launch into an attack that was right on top of me, and I would suffer no damage penalties. Often though, I would be far away from the enemy and still take damage when it was clear I was not hit. Luckily, the inconsistencies were not a minute-by-minute occurrence. While I do find them incredibly frustrating when they did show their face, most of the gameplay was pretty painless.
Summary
I am happy to see that a competent 3D platformer has been made for Xbox One. So many games that try to retrace the footsteps of old games fail to capture any of the soul that made those games great. Ginger: Beyond the Crystal is a game that does capture the essence of old games while improving the game’s controls and graphics. I do think Ginger would have been better with a stronger story and a reduction of random variance. But these flaws are easy to overlook when playing such a fun game.
Joshua was a regular ICXM contributor between 2016–2017, publishing 42 articles across game reviews, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative.