Ultra Hat Dimension Rapid Review

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Fast Facts

Ultra Hat Dimension

Developer: Kitsune Games
Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Website: https://kitsunegames.com/press/#projects
Genre: Puzzle
Platform: PS4
Age Rating: Pegi 7
Release Date: 15/06/2020
Price: £3.99

A code was provided for review purposes.

A Taste Of Strange

I’ve always had an interest in the strange and surreal. Who cares about the ordinary when the world offers so many wonderfully weird things to enjoy? From the title alone, I knew Ultra Hat Dimension was going to be a slice of interesting oddness.

My first thought was simply “what the hell is this game?” The game opens with a very cutesie animation that sets the scene for this rather puzzling title. You play as Bea, a young girl who has been transported to the Spluff kingdom to attend the annual hat design competition! Bea is the first otherworlder to enter and attend the competition, and spin my trilby, she only goes and wins first place.

Not everyone is so happy about Bea winning though; an evil Spluff casts a spell that turns all the normally friendly Spluffs into punch happy hat fanatics. Bea must escape this crazy world of hats and stop the Spluffs from bashing each other to bits. A simple if thoroughly mental plot!

Spluff 101

I know what you are thinking, “what the f**k is a Spluff?!” Well, I’d like to be able to tell you but I don’t have the faintest idea. They look like hat wearing jellies with painted smiles. Getting within one square of them sees Bea getting a smack and flung back a square. They can’t hurt you but getting repeatedly punched in the face can’t be fun for anyone.

Ultra Hat Dimension has five floors of puzzle rooms. Each room contains a key which must be collected and an exit door. Seems easy enough but those damn Spluffs are in the way, quite literally, blocking your path. Bea has a few tricks under her hat for dealing with the troublesome Spluffs.

Bea can pick up and wear hats which allow her to sneak past the angry Spluffs. A Spluff wearing a witch hat won’t attack Bea if she’s wearing a witch hat and vice versa. While wearing a hat Bea can shove any Spluff wearing the same hat. Solving the puzzle rooms soon turns into a mix of a hat fashion show and Spluff relocating.

Stuck In A Puzzle

You can reset a puzzle room at any time and you collect a finite number of undo moves which allow you to reverse Bea’s last move. These undo moves seem a little pointless in the early levels where it is just as easy to reset the whole level. But in later and longer rooms those undo moves really start to come in handy.

The puzzles in Ultra Hat Dimension start simple and slowly ramp up to some real head scratchers by the end of the game. Sometimes you will spend ages shoving Spluffs around only to realise you went wrong on the first move. There are always more hats than you need, which tricks you into occasionally overcomplicating things.

Ultra Hat Dimension is fairly endearing in a number of ways. Its visuals are pretty detailed and feature a very lively colour palette. The game’s soundtrack is light and breezy, a bit repetitive but it didn’t make my ears want to bleed at any point.

Sounds Simple

The game features some amusing sound effects; they are clearly the result of someone just recording the lines themselves. For example when a Spluff hits Bea, a female voice exclaims “Pow”. At first I thought this seemed a little cheap. But as time went on, I started to find the spoken sound effects both endearing and hilarious. It’s certainly an interesting choice.

I will be the first to admit that the target audience of this game is probably not 33 year old men, but I had fun with Ultra Hat Dimension. I doubt I would play it again, and I’m not sure how well it would hold a child’s interest. Or if I’d really want my child’s game to involve quite so much punching.

Rapid Reviews Rating

You Can Buy Ultra Hat Dimension From The PlayStation Store