There was a time when 3D platformers were released on a regular basis, as every game publisher tried to deliver its own Super Mario 64. Fast forward to 2020 and open world games are all the rage, leaving 3D platformer fans with very few new game releases in any given year. Skully is one of the few 3D platformers for 2020, but unfortunately, fans of the genre will likely want to skip it.

Skully's gameplay is somewhat akin to Super Monkey Ball, with players having to roll the titular Skully's skull across skinny paths and make jumps that require a lot of precision. Unfortunately, the controls in Skully are inconsistent. Sometimes a slight tilt of the left stick will result in a slow roll, and other times it will cause the skull to roll off a platform at a ridiculous speed. This is compounded by the game's camera, which players have to constantly adjust if they want any hope of seeing where they're going. And the combination of these issues makes it so it feels as though the game is working against players.

When checkpoints in Skully are frequent, the frustrations are a little easier to tolerate, but there are some really poor checkpoints in the game that will require players to repeat significant chunks of the level if they happen to die. And with a game that's seemingly designed to kill players as much as possible, this can lead to some serious frustration. Almost every level in the game seems to have one long section where players have quite some time between checkpoints, and these difficulty spikes are likely going to be enough to convince most to put down the controller.

But at least the platforming, as frustrating as it is, can be thrilling, in a way. There is a lot of tension when players get to one of the game's difficulty spikes, and finally getting to the next checkpoint offers a big sense of relief. However, the game's later levels are bogged down by a tedious new ability that Skully's clay golems learn that slows the pacing down to a crawl.

In the final levels of Skully, players will find themselves having to move boxes with the smaller two of his three golems, "recording" their movement so that the boxes stay moving even when Skully exits the golems. The idea is that this creates moving-platform challenges that players can customize themselves, which isn't a bad idea on paper, but it can be a slow, arduous process to get the patterns right. And like with the platforming, players will often find themselves struggling against the game mechanic itself as opposed to the challenge that's laid out before them.

Sometimes this takes too long to set up, with players having to get one golem to raise a platform, head back to the last checkpoint, get another golem to move the platform, backtrack to the checkpoint, and then get the big golem to knock down a wall or throw Skully to the next area. The time it takes to set some of these contraptions working makes the game feel like a slog, and this issue is exacerbated in areas where it's easy to die. Because dying means having to get everything going again from scratch, which becomes mind-numbing after a while.

And the worst part is that some deaths will not even be the fault of the player. We encountered a glitch during these sections numerous times where the animation to get Skully back in the golem would freeze all the characters, and then Skully would phase through the golem and fall into lava. Messing up a jump and having to restart is one thing, but dying due to a technical issue is infuriating.

And this isn't the only technical issue that players will experience when playing Skully. Another annoying bug we encountered had to do with the grassy walls that players are supposed to be able to cling on to. While this works most of the time, there are instances where Skully will just bounce against it and fly off in the wrong direction to his death. Sometimes players can pass right through collectibles and they won't register, other times they will be unable to get back inside golems that they've left, and there are variety of other smaller bugs and graphical defects as well. All of these issues pile up and make playing Skully a nightmare at times.

As far as the golems go, the platforming with them is a little more tolerable, and they each have their own unique abilities to help keep the gameplay varied. For example, the big golem is essentially the tank form of Skully, and is capable of defeating enemies (consisting almost exclusively of water blobs and lava blobs and nothing else) as well as destroying weak structures. The medium-sized golem is able to double jump, and then finally the smallest golem uses a burst of speed to get across wide gaps.

When the game starts introducing the box puzzles and gives the big golem the ability to throw Skully, though, the golem gimmick starts to work against the flow of the game. Oftentimes players will need a specific golem's ability to get through the next challenge, but they won't know which golem they need until they actually move forward and see what's going on. They then have to backtrack to the previous checkpoint and swap, which contributes to Skully's pacing issues in a big way.

Completing an especially challenging section of the game doesn't fill players with a sense of accomplishment like they would get from ultra-tough games like Dark Souls or Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. There's a great sense of relief that comes from players realizing that they managed to fight against the camera and controls well enough to get through another section of the game, but it doesn't feel rewarding.

So with the gameplay in Skully being downright frustrating, all that's left to convince players to stick with the game is the story. Unfortunately, Skully's plot is not very interesting, with predictable plot twists and uninspired cut-scenes that do little to get players invested in the story.

Players also won't find that the graphics are much reason to stick with Skully either. There are times, especially in the lava levels, where the game can look pretty good. But it mostly looks plain and generic, with a lot of ugly greys and browns dominating the screen. Players will also be greeted by some super blurry textures when the camera happens to get stuck behind a wall or waterfall, which is not an infrequent occurrence.

With so few 3D platformers released, some fans of the genre may still be tempted to give Skully a chance, and it's hard to blame them. However, the game is just a frustrating experience from start to finish, with very few redeeming qualities. Those looking for a new 3D platformer to play may be better off just keeping their fingers crossed that the next game in the genre lives up to expectations.

Skully launches August 4 for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. Game Rant was provided with a Steam code for this review.