Hold onto your hats, folks, the story for this game gets pretty weird!  One day a failed experiment in a laboratory causes all humans on Earth to disappear.  It also causes animals to start talking and inanimate objects to come to life.  And then evil shadow creatures start attacking!  Luckily a stuffed bunny named Nora has just created a living amoeba-like being that can fight these shadow creatures.  She names it Teeto and together they embark on a 3D platforming adventure.  This game reminds me of the many 3D platformers found on the N64 or maybe the early years of the GameCube and PS2 when these kinds of games were at their prime.  Teeto is available on Nintendo and PlayStation consoles and PC, but reviewed on Switch 2 here.

In the game, you’ll control Teeto in 3D space, with Nora in your backpack.  Teeto can run, jump, dash, double jump, attack, and glide with the face buttons.  Teeto can also absorb the properties of certain objects.  You can tell which ones you can absorb because they’ll be highlighted when you get near them.  Just press the LR button to absorb them and then the ZR button to use a new special ability.  So if you absorb a flower you can use a vine whip to swing across gaps, or absorb  a rock to get a smash move that can break walls.  There are many more things you can absorb in the game, too!  You can switch between what you’ve absorbed and your regular form after that with the LR button.  Teeto’s regular form lets it shoot out projectiles.  Press the R shoulder button and Nora will use a paper plane to tell you where to go, but it’s not as useful as it sounds.

Like other N64 style platformers, you’ll explore areas like forests, caves, and mountains, as well as more creative areas like the inside of a grocery store.  Each area has things for you to collect.  Stars can be used to buy outfits for Teeto in the hub world.  There are also hidden little purple dodecahedron shapes that can help you unlock new worlds.  And you can rescue little baby prototype Teetos called “Michaels” but I don’t know what they do.  You can play the game in single or co-op mode as well.

I did have a few problems with this game.  One is that the bosses are way too hard compared to the rest of the game.  Luckily you can turn off damage in the option screen.  I also don’t like how many of those geometric shape things you have to collect to unlock new worlds.  And finally, I had some quibbles with the controls.  I feel like you don’t have much momentum when you run, as you tend to go at full speed.  I also wish you could map out the buttons, as I didn’t like having to jump with A.  But otherwise, this is a surprisingly good quality 3D platformer if you miss the N64 days.

Kid Factor:

Teeto is rated E for Everyone with ESRB descriptors of Comic Mischief, Mild Fantasy Violence, and Mild Language.  You just spin around to attack shadow creatures that explode when defeated.  And surprisingly, many characters use ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ freely when talking!  Reading skill is still helpful for some of the text, and turning off damage in the option screen means that players of all skill levels can enjoy this one.

Tags: Game Reviews