Horace review for Nintendo Switch: A futuristic tale stuck in the past

Despite being buried under a pile of obsessive references and bizarre visual choices, Horace brings a charming story and platforming joy to the Switch.

Title: Horace
Developer: Paul Helman
Publisher: 505 Games
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (reviewed on)
Release Date: October 21, 2020

Back in July of 2019, which feels like a million years ago at this point, a platformer came out called Horace. I honestly missed it because. stop me if you’ve heard this, it’s a retro-inspired pixelated platformer filled with pop culture references.

Recently though, it released on the Nintendo Switch and I had a chance to play it. It’s actually pretty alright.

Plus it was produced by 505 Games, with who I have a mixed relationship. While I couldn’t get into games like Overkill’s The Walking Dead, Redout and Defense Grid 2, 505 Games is responsible for a lot of games that I absolutely love, such as Adrift, Virginia and, most impressively, Control. So it was a big coin to flip with Horace.

Horace is very narrative-heavy. Depending on your skill with platformers you might feel like you’re spending more time in cutscenes than playing the game itself. As I have been playing Crash Bandicoot 4 for the last several days, my platforming skills were absolutely honed so I hung out in cutscenes a lot.

The story, which follows adorably naive and almost Winnie the Pooh-like robot Horace as it slowly discovers the darkness of humanity, is filled with charm and humor. But it’s also absolutely riddled with references to the point of distraction, and a lot of these references are aimed more at people over the age of 30.

For example, there is a Halloween party in which you are dressed as Charlie Brown and one of the characters, a little girl, is not only dressed like Steve Martin’s King Tut but is also doing the dance.

It can be charming at times but it feels like it borrows too heavily from other things. Constant homages and winks — like when they make the joke of Horace learning about “life, the universe and Douglas Adams” — I just get to the point where I’m like, “I GET IT, STOP”.

But once you get used to wading through reference infested water, the story is quite interesting and, in some scenes very well written. You encounter a remarkable amount of diverse characters and it’s almost a joy to see how all of them screw up with Horace. Which, wow… they absolutely do.