If It Doesn’t Fit, I Should Quit
HIGH Discovering an old 3D platformer I hadn’t played yet.
LOW Dated controls.
WTF That Croc remake cannot come soon enough.
I love discovering cult classic platformers. Whether it’s playing an old series through a compilation or revisiting an old favorite through a remaster, I cannot get enough of this genre.
Glover is an unexpected entry in the “new to me” category, as it’s one I’ve only ever heard of through various retro gaming YouTubers. Released in 1998 for the Nintendo 64 and PC (with a PlayStation port coming a year later) Glover was a 3D platformer in which players control a magical glove named Glover, on his journey to retrieve lost crystals. An absolutely bizarre premise, it was a minor success and has attained a somewhat dedicated following. Now, decades later, Piko Interactive and QuByte Interactive have re-released it for modern consoles.
Played from a third-person perspective, Glover is a pretty standard platformer from the era. Players run and jump through various levels, collect some macguffins and occasionally fight enemies. This is a pretty straightforward port and not a full-blown remaster, meaning it’s as close to playing the original release as one can on a modern console. Released at a time when 3D platformers were in their infancy, it took me a while to get acquainted with the camera and movement controls.
Players control Glover in one of two ways — with or without a rubber ball. With the ball, he’s either bouncing it like a basketball, rolling it around the levels, slapping it across the terrain, throwing it or even walking on it to cross bodies of water. When he doesn’t have the ball, he can run, jump, perform a cartwheel and even smash enemies by forming a fist. The main objective of each level is to get the ball toward the end of each stage. If a player knocks the ball out of the bounds, gets it destroyed or if it gets hit too many times by an enemy, Glover loses a life and must start at the last checkpoint.
Overall, the mechanics of rolling and throwing the ball are pretty cool, though they take a lot of time to get used to thanks to the awkward camera — it’s is inverted and there’s no option to change it, which is a shame.
Glover is also a little awkward to control at times, as it seems like every slight tap of the control stick causes them to overreact and move in some bizarre fashion. The lack of any tweakable options with the camera and gameplay make it hard to navigate at times (which I am willing to admit could be my own inexperience with games of this era) but I struggled with it.
The presentation is one of Glover’s strongest suits, as the graphics and art direction are amazing. Obviously, it looks and sounds like an N64 game, with blocky character models and some less-than-stellar textures, but the bright colors and charming character design are a real treat. The music is also pretty good, matching the cheerful energy of play. There are a few visual options like adding scanlines or changing the screen size to either 16:9 or 4:3. Unfortunately, playing in 4:3 (where the game looks its best) forces players to have a distracting Glover-themed border surrounding the screen.
Overall, I can respect the publisher for releasing a straightforward and no-nonsense port of Glover, as fans and purists will probably enjoy having the original experience preserved on modern consoles. Personally, I would have preferred some slight concessions be made to the gameplay in order to be more accessible. Regardless, I’m sure fans of the original and of obscure retro titles will enjoy seeing this four-fingered hero back in the limelight.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is published by QuByte Interactive and developed by Piko Interactve. It is available on PC, PS4/5, XBO/S/X and Switch. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PS5. Approximately 4 hours were spent in single-player and the game was not completed. There is no multiplayer.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E for Mild Fantasy Violence. The site reads This is an adventure game in which players control a wizard’s magical glove as it searches for crystals to restore peace to a kingdom. Players traverse platform environments while collecting items, solving puzzles, and dispatching enemies. The players’ glove can pounce on enemies, throw objects at them, or trigger mechanisms for cartoony attacks (e.g., a giant boxing glove; oversized bombs). Characters typically react to damage by falling back or turning into a puff of stars.
Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are not present in the options menu.
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are speech bubbles for each character whenever they speak as well as visual cues, such as a ping to show where Glover’s ball is located. None of these can be adjusted or resized. As audio cues are not needed for gameplay, I’d say it’s fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: The controls can be remapped.
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