Flat Kingdom Paper's Cut Edition Review

In Flat Kingdom Paper's Cut Edition, you take on the role of a 2D soldier named Flat in this platforming adventure. The land he lives in — called the Flat Kingdom — is peaceful and beautiful, but it wasn’t always like this; it was once threatened by the third dimension who was trying to take over and convert everything to 3D. They had lost all hope until a sorcerer sealed this “evil” 3D away, restoring peace to the land. Hex, the masked thief — who looks like a fox — has now kidnapped the princess and stolen one of the magical jewels that protect this flat land, and vows to make the Flat Kingdom fall. The 3D chaos is back, threatening to take over the kingdom once again. Everyone, including the animals living there and the trees, are freaking out; this can not happen! King Flat knows the one hero who can save them…

Flat, the papercraft warrior, is there to save the lands from this third dimension, using his special ability to transform himself into one of three different shapes; square, triangle, or circle. The enemies that you encounter are all weak to a specific shape, depending on what their form looks like. Essentially it is a game of rock-paper-scissors: circle defeats square, square defeats triangle, and triangle beats circle. There is a graphic you can turn on that shows you an image of what defeats what on the bottom corner of the screen if you need a reminder while playing.

Flat Kingdom’s platforming also takes advantage of Flat’s shapeshifting abilities. There will be times that you are required to turn into the correct shapes to get past obstacles in your way, such as large gaps that you can’t just jump across that require you to turn into the triangle shape that flies like a paper aeroplane, buttons to depress that require you to be heavy in square form, and when you jump into water you need this heavy square shape to sink Flat to the bottom where he can switch to the triangle or circle to navigate through the water. 

Reminiscent of the Paper Mario games, Flat Kingdom has a unique papercraft look to it, creating an environment that looks like brightly coloured layers of paper and gives the 2D levels a feeling of depth. I loved being able to see the variety of different stages because of their artistic beauty. The giant bosses looked great and it was always challenging to figure out which of your forms would be the most effective while attacking the enemy. 

No game is complete without a soundtrack to accompany it, and the soundtrack of Flat Kingdom was composed by the famous Manami Matsumae. She is known for her work on other games like Shovel Knight, Dynasty Wars, and the original Mega Man, so you know that the music is going to be good.

The shape transformation ability in Flat Kingdom is a unique addition that you don’t usually see in platformers. However, the basics like jumping can be a bit tricky at times, especially when you are trying to perform a double jump — it feels like you need perfect timing and it is incredibly easy to fall just short of where you need to be. Usually, this will not cause you to die, but being stuck in the same part for an extended period of time isn’t fun either. At times it wasn’t always clear where exactly you are supposed to go, which makes it especially hard during moments that require you to move fast; rising lava isn’t going to stop moving to make sure you get where you need to go! 

There is a lot to do and explore in Flat Kingdom Paper’s Cut Edition. The levels have hidden sections to find with coins and power-ups with tons of checkpoints so you aren’t always sent back to the beginning of the level to try again. This was especially nice when you solve a puzzle or a complicated section of platforming. If you find the game is too easy you can choose a harder difficulty, or if it’s too hard select an easier one. If you like 2D platformers with a new gameplay twist or gorgeous-looking graphics with a great soundtrack, this is a title you will want to look out for.