I’m pretty well always a fan of surprises, and when you review a bunch of indie games they tend to come at you with some regularity. While there are obviously the home runs and crimes against humanity on the polar ends of the quality spectrum though, there are plenty of games in the middle that are just good, but perhaps not great. Given the abundance of platformers on the system, especially ones of the side-scrolling 2D budget variety, I’m always happy to see folks deviate from that normal plan to do something different. No matter what else you can say about Chickenhare and the Treasure of Spiking-Beard, I’ll at least give it credit for daring to do its own thing.

Mostly playing as a 3D platformer in a more generally 2D linear style, the apt comparison I’ve seen most people make is to the Crash Bandicoot series. While I wasn’t a huge fan of that franchise, I’ll at least give it credit for being very similar to this title in the sense that it attacked platforming in a way that it was able to claim as its own, something I can at least respect. This does play out very similarly, though not with nearly the same degree of manic energy and personality, but Crash could also be a lot at times, so a more subdued approach isn’t so bad.

To help make things more interesting and varied, you’ll have the ability to swap between your 3 very different heroes as needed. While Chickenhare is the obvious choice when you’re doing some daring platforming, Abe’s hard shell makes him ideal to resist damage and slide through obstacles. Then there’s Meg, who was generally my go-to since she’s nimble enough, but is then able to scrap with the best of them or unleash a cloud of noxious gas if things get crowded. For the most part this all works well, though I’ll admit that there are sections where you’re moving towards the background where depth perception is tricky, and side-scrolling areas could be challenging where you have the ability to move closer and further away from the screen, just struggling to have an accurate feel for where your character actually is.

It does at least make for a decent family-friendly affair both in terms of its general feel and relatively mild difficulty level. In general, the stages are pretty sensible in terms of which characters you’ll use where, and when you make mistakes it can also be quite forgiving. There are some sections where doing things like whipping a support in the air to sling you across a gap can be a little aggravating, but outside of that it looks good enough and plays well enough to be worth a look, at least if you’re in the mood for something a little lighter and different.