When writing reviews, I typically try to explain how it is the small changes within common mechanics, layouts, systems, and stories that make me feel a certain way. We live in an era of surfeit, so perhaps it has become my way of adapting to the landscape. Plushie from the Sky is one of the few games I got the chance to write about where my excitement comes from what feels like direct interactions between a creator and me, the player.
Everything about this experience feels like a little “gotcha” that someone threw your way. Most, if not all actions result in something that deviates from the standard and things move like nothing you have seen before. The best way I can explain it is that it feels like a fanmade version of a preexisting game, akin to the Kaizo phenomenon in some ways in how shocking it is, though nowhere near as difficult.
I have loved that about Plushie from the Sky from the moment I played its demo during the last Steam Next Fest to now after my heart breaking at the incredibly final cutscene which perfectly encapsulates my feelings about it. The game is seemingly designed in a way that mimics a banter between two close friends: one being the not-so-benevolent dungeon master and the other being the hopeless player thrown around at their whim.
You can see this in the seemingly hastily put-together levels, with enemies that rarely fit the environments they are in and behave like no video game enemy you would see in a typical modern release. Your character also gets thrown around as if gravity is not real, and intense screen shake and spin is a regular occurrence (there are no warnings of this anywhere in the game or on the store page, which should be fixed as soon as possible).
Things you would typically find only in amateur productions are the center stage here. I had a smile on my face the whole way through, laughed plenty of times, and got genuinely sad and melancholic towards the end. Plushie from the Sky goes against the grain and squeezes different emotions in such unique proportions that I find it hard to believe I will experience something similar to it any time soon.
The game is also extremely tight, running a little bit under three hours, but due to the sheer amount of consistently unusual content packed into every single corner of the world, it felt at least double the size. Perhaps part of it was me having to take breaks just to process the craziness that took place in front of my eyes. Even the boss of the first area had me dizzy with how funny and overwhelming the whole fight was.
Frankly, I think the game could be even shorter and lose little from it. This is to say that the invisible walls present everywhere feel a bit unnecessary. The movement tools provided to the player allow for crazy skips and long-distance floating, and the random stopping points feel a bit like just a stoppage to the otherwise unwavering chaos of this fever dream.
As if pushing the player towards brash stunts constantly, the game’s balance is always seemingly tipped in their favor. The combat, featuring the typical dodge with invincibility frames and projectile parries, can often be approached entirely off-beat by just rushing into an enemy and attacking relentlessly or dodging in a seemingly unintended way. This is not the pace of any modern Soulslike, more akin to something like the majority of Demon’s Souls, with prominent gimmicks and a more hectic tempo of trading hits. Perhaps spamming hits would be a better term though, as it always manages to avoid noticeable similarities.
Realistically though, it is everything around the mechanics that makes Plushie from the Sky what it is. There are plenty of surprises and crazy ideas that it has, all with the approach of “it would be really funny if this happened.” If you have ever enjoyed getting tricked by an enemy, a game glitching out on you, or a one-off mechanic used in a silly minigame, here you will find something that embraces and celebrates what is typically just a tiny part of modern video games.
That is what makes Plushie from the Sky such a compelling experience for me as someone who loves to check out a variety of experiences—no matter if they are made by a team with a large budget, a passionate creator putting out projects into the sea of Steam releases, or someone playing around with modding tools and Blender only to posts it on a site for others fanatics of a specific game. It weaves elements of all these passions of mine and never fails to make it truly its own. In the current market, there is nothing else like it, neither modern nor retro—it is just undeniably inspired.
Mateusz played Plushie from the Sky on PC with a review code.
