Review BurningKirby 2/5 · May 29, 2025
Frustrating, But Ultimately Not Terrible
This game was quite a rollercoaster of emotions for me. Initially, I enjoyed its charming artstyle and the interesting puppet protagonist concept, but by the time I got to the second act those feelings turned to frustration with the obtuse platforming and stealth sequences.
The puzzles also disappointed, with all of them by and large feeling like they were pulled …
This game was quite a rollercoaster of emotions for me. Initially, I enjoyed its charming artstyle and the interesting puppet protagonist concept, but by the time I got to the second act those feelings turned to frustration with the obtuse platforming and stealth sequences.
The puzzles also disappointed, with all of them by and large feeling like they were pulled straight out of Limbo, a game which uses its minimalist art style to highlight key interactable objects. This game tries to use the color red to signify interactivity but with a more detailed art style and lots of shadows on screen much of the time, I was constantly missing the items I was expected to manipulate to solve puzzles. This game also sorely lacks Limbo's oppressive atmosphere and sound design, which are some of my favorite elements from that game. A Juggler's Tale feels so derivative of the former game that I can't help but highlight that it mostly inherited its more irritating elements.
The narration also very quickly became grating for me, with virtually all of it delivered in couplets that rhyme maybe 60% of the time. If you fail a puzzle you're treated to the same narrated lines each time you respawn, which gets old really quickly. This is also not to speak of the "soft-lock" bugs I encountered which forced a few resets to whatever the most recent checkpoint was. It's disappointing to run into so many in a game that took me less than two hours to beat. This could have used a lot more playtesting.
However once I got past the halfway point the story did finally pick up some and while it was still fairly predictable I ended up having a decent time regardless. The game plays around with its puppet show artstyle in a number of clever ways that I enjoyed, though the meta aspect of the narrative is a bit heavy handed. The end was cute and I left with a smile on my face in spite of how frustrating I found the gameplay to be throughout.
