Despite passing through an intense Sonic the Hedgehog phase when I was around nine years old, I wouldn't say I gotta go particularly fast. Over the ensuing two decades I've rarely sought out the classic pastime of accelerating a cartoon mascot to inhumane speeds. I've been content leaving platforming to speedrunners, kaizo enthusiasts—really, anyone who doesn't share my talent for finding the exact trajectory the player shouldn't travel. But thanks to how good the yo-yo parkour in Penny's Big Breakaway feels, I'm rediscovering the long-neglected platformer who lives in my heart.
And frequently sending him into a pit. It's fine.
Considering indie developer Evening Star's roster of former Sonic Mania devs, it's no surprise that Penny's Big Breakaway is a showcase of platforming design talent. It was obvious as soon as I saw the traversal abilities of Penny's magic, living Yo-Yo, and how they form a toolkit for stringing together high-speed acrobatics across the game's sugary, fluorescent landscapes.
Using its default, developer-encouraged gamepad control scheme, Penny's Big Breakaway is a twin-stick platformer: Jumping is on either shoulder button, the left analog stick moves Penny, and the right stick deploys Yo-Yo. Holding the right stick in a direction throws out Yo-Yo and sleeps it in place. Sleeping Yo-Yo in midair makes it an anchor for Penny to swing with its string like Spider-Man. Double-tapping the right stick, meanwhile, throws Yo-Yo and pulls Penny to it, launching her in that direction.
A couple more pieces complete Penny's platforming puzzle. Hitting jump in midair will backflip Penny to extend her airtime and, if necessary, cancel out or redirect her lateral momentum. From any of Yo-Yo's right stick maneuvers, hitting one of the triggers will transfer into a Radial Ride, where Penny drops Yo-Yo to the ground and rides on its axle for as long as her momentum lasts. Crucially, the Radial Ride lets me combo into my next string of Yo-Yo tricks, acting like a Tony Hawk-style manual to weave together inputs in an unbroken sequence.
Penny can only perform each of those platforming stunts once in a single jump. Put together, those pieces turn the game into a juggling act of maintaining Penny's speed through the rhythm of Yo-Yo swings and launches, mixing in tactical backflips and Radial Rides to extend combos and avoid environmental hazards. Oh, and to avoid the ceaseless imperial penguin legions pursuing Penny, who's recently become an enemy of the state after disrobing the emperor at his yearly gala. It's a whole thing.
