Even though we use the name "platformers" for games in 2D and 3D, and they have a lot of common, it's easy to say those two categories are essentially different genres. When looking in two dimensions, you maybe can think of more traditional level-to-level titles, like Super Mario Bros., or games with big maps and unlockables to traverse them, like early Metroid or Castlevania titles.

But, in 3D, if you are not talking about some hack'n'slash shenanigans, you are probably looking at games where you collect A LOT of things. It can be just a goal to a platforming challenge (like Crash Bandicoot's insane boxes) or the main objective of the protagonist's life. Who would be Banjo and Kazooie without their Jiggies? What Rosalina would have done without Mario collecting all the Power Stars?

The art of collecting (in 2D)

Yes, I love a collectathon, but basically all the adventures focused of hoarding items to save the world are presented in three dimensions. Until Promenade, at least. The debut game from French studio Holy Cap, its main selling point is exactly mixing those two worlds so close but so far at the same time. What a 2D platformer would look like with a structure closer to 3D collectathons?

Promenade doesn't spend much time with a deep backstory. You control Nemo, a little kid with an unnamed poulp as companion, in a quest to reclaim all the cogs of the Great Elevator, a... gigantic elevator that acts like the main hub of all the worlds in the game. The main villain seems to be a "dark feelings version" of Nemo, that wants to break all the cogs? I didn't get a lot of the plot, but playing the game is more important here.

Nemo can run and jump, but the true star of the Promenade's mechanics is their octopus friend, that can be launched as a grappling hook into enemies and items. When they bring back the object, Nemo can launch it downwards to do a double jump, Klonoa-style. After some levels, they can also attach themselves to hooks scattered through the map, transforming the platforming in a momentum-based challenge really quickly.

It's not hard to do all of those things, even not being very good on platforming challenges like I am. Although, there's something strange in Promenade's controls. It's not exactly an input lag, but more about the animations: they always feel some frames off, doesn't matter how I played or what I was doing. After 1 or 2 hours, I was already used to the controls, but I couldn't get energy to master them to finish some time trial challenges. It's not that bad, but it's a little strange.

Fun in every floor

But even with this setback, I was really happy when exploring the different worlds that Nemo needed to discover. In the same vein as Super Mario Odyssey, your main collectable is cog pieces, that can be used to fix the different levels of the elevator. Each "level" — in fact, every level has an entrance to a new one too, so it's always 2 for 1 — had a good balance of platforming, puzzles and exploration.

For example, every world had a portal to a special world, "The source", with pure platforming challenges using a gimmick introduced in the level — like Mario Sunshine's secret courses. At the same time, you always have one or two fetch quests, that asks you to find items hidden in the level to bring to a NPC. And you can also expect a lot of puzzles: some of them are so good that I could seen it on a Professor Layton game. There are some recurring characters, like a penguin with a jetpack that wants to race you, but most of the content in Promenade changes a lot in every new world.

I want to give special praise to Promenade's version of dungeons, that were, essentially, a linear set of rooms that develops in a specific type of puzzle until a "boss fight" that is, mostly, the final challenge of that puzzle style — and I loved all of them. One that features some skyscrapers was specially my favorite (and I can't say more without going into spoilers). It's sad that the end level of the game were more focused on platforming (with way less checkpoints than normal) and not a great mashup of the puzzles on the bosses.

The hub world by itself, The Great Elevator, is also a big puzzle, with a lot of cog parts to find and collect. Unfortunately, although you have some great arcade-inspired minigames, you also have the constant need of bringing specific objects from different parts of the map (or even from inside the worlds) to specific points. And you can only carry one of them at a time, so it gets very boring very fast. Fortunately, you don't need to collect 100% of the cogs to finish the game, so you can just do what you think it's fun and go for it.

You create a 3D world with cool challenges and puzzles and a lot to collect, put me in there and I'll probably love it. But I didn't really expected how much I loved having this experience in 2D when playing Promenade. Despite some strange controls and some boring backtracking, Nemo's adventure in the floors of The Great Elevator filled me with joy for days. Every good puzzle that I solved, every new character I met, it just shows how much gaming as a medium has yet to offer if we try new combinations. I would love more 2D collectathons, please!