Hirogami is the latest entry in the curiously specific subgenre of “platformers set in an arts-and-crafts-themed world”, following the likes of Yoshi’s Woolly and Crafted World, as well as Sackboy: A Big Adventure. As the name suggests, Hirogami’s gameplay and general aesthetic are based on the Japanese paper-folding craft of origami. Featuring a richly textured world and some fun platforming, Hirogami is a real joy to play.

Set in a world of folded paper, Hirogami sees you play as Hiro, a performer with a mysterious past. His world is being invaded by an enigmatic invading force known as the Blight, corrupting the landscape and unleashing an infestation of digital creatures called Glitchers. With Hiro the only one capable of restoring the sacred shrines and purifying the Blight’s victims, he is set on a quest to save his world.

It’s a rather compelling little narrative, with a wistful subtext regarding the nature of origami as fragile and impermanent, versus the creatively sterile and unchanging nature of digital creations replacing forms of traditional artwork. The Blight isn’t necessarily evil (despite its intimidating presentation); however, its need to destroy and convert everything different to it requires it to be opposed. As per Game Rant’s interview with the creative director of Hirogami, Yandhie Pratopo, the developer “wanted to explore what happens when one force tries to overwrite the other, not because it is evil, but because it deems the other unnecessary or obsolete.” I thought that this was a rather unique angle to take and showed a thoughtful use of Hirogami’s origami theme, versus simply using it solely as a visual and gameplay gimmick.

As for the gameplay, if you have played the likes of Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Hirogami won’t feel too unfamiliar. It’s a 3D platformer, in which the protagonist Hiro has the ability to fold himself into multiple different animal forms with different abilities. As an armadillo, he can roll fast and damage wooden barriers, his frog form can jump high and spit fluid that stuns foes, and he can destroy red blocks and swing on vines as a gorilla. I loved the application of the papercraft element to Hiro’s transformation abilities, with the act of switching forms cleverly depicted as Hiro reducing himself to a sheet of paper and quickly refolding into the requisite form. Hiro can even reduce himself to that sheet of paper to glide through the air and slip under gaps, or turn into a paper aeroplane to fly in some sections. The player unlocks all of the forms relatively early on in the game; however, they each acquire additional abilities as the game progresses, so that the game can present new challenges.

Overall, Hirogami’s gameplay works quite well, and I appreciated how sections often required thoughtful application and combination of different form abilities. While there are some puzzles requiring the player to, say, use the gorilla form to move a wooden box to weigh down a switch, it never felt like I had to think too hard about how to progress. That said, Hirogami doesn’t let you just skate by accomplishing the bare minimum; each level has three Golden Crane Souls to award you. The first Golden Crane Soul is awarded by default for completing the level, and the remaining two require certain optional objectives to be completed.

These objectives can include finishing the level within a certain time limit, defeating a certain number of enemies or preventing your number of hearts (representing your health meter) from going below a certain threshold. A minimum number of Golden Crane Souls is required to have been acquired to unlock later levels. Early on, it isn’t much of an issue, but later levels did see me needing to return to some of the earlier stages to go crane-hunting to make it to the end. Fortunately, I didn’t find the required objectives too arduous for the most part, although the time limit objectives could often be very demanding.

While the actual platforming is quite functional and fairly enjoyable, I can’t say I was as enchanted with the combat. It’s relatively simple, with Hiro wielding a sacred fan that he can swing at Glitcher foes to defeat them. His other forms are also capable of harming enemies, from the armadillo’s rolling move to the punch of the gorilla form. Somewhat arbitrarily, however, Hiro’s fan cannot harm “living beings”, those being any armadillos, frogs or gorillas corrupted by the Blight. This somewhat-annoyingly requires you to switch forms whenever those enemies show up. A good number of Glitcher enemies can trigger damaging force fields, forcing the player to use one of the small number of hard-to-aim and easily-interrupted long-range abilities at Hiro’s disposal. In general, the combat often felt kind of sticky and awkward, and didn’t flow nearly as well as it should for a game that has as much of a focus on it as Hirogami does.

In between levels, you can navigate an explorable world map, which, not unlike Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, is set on an actual table within a book, emphasising that you are playing a tiny paper man and letting you wander to the edges to see the book’s owner’s library and half-drank teacup. Hirogami’s full commitment to the origami papercraft style worked in reinforcing its themes, with the flat-edged origami textures of the characters and world contrasting the spherical shapes of the Glitchers, highlighting their alien quality and lack of belonging in this world. Hirogami’s immersive ode to traditional Japanese culture goes beyond its visuals, with a melancholy soundtrack composed using traditional Japanese instruments and styles. The commitment to this style goes wonderfully towards crafting the game’s pensive atmosphere.