Forza Polpo!

Forza Polpo is a first-person platformer set in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world where players control a small, outdated robot surviving after a cataclysm caused by unstable Pink Energy. Trapping vibrant, vaporwave-styled stages, the robot must recover memory cubes through precise triple-jumping and gliding mechanics, while managing limited energy reserves for movement and combat. Upgrades from vending machines and enemies add strategic depth, blending platforming, shooter combat, and resource management in a homage to classic PS1 titles like Jumping Flash.

Forza Polpo!: A Nostalgic Nirvana or Frustrating Fall? An In-Depth Review of the Indie Jumping Flash Successor

1. Introduction: The Ghost in the Shell (of a Forza Game)

In the vast, often bewildering landscape of modern gaming, few things are as simultaneously delightful and confusing as a title that brazenly borrows the name of a multimedia franchise while having absolutely nothing to do with it. Enter Forza Polpo!, the 2021/2023 release from the enigmatic solo studio MONTE GALLO. At first glance, one might expect a street-racing spin-off or a new chapter in Turn 10’s legendary sim-racing saga. Instead, we are presented with something far more peculiar, far more特定 (tokutei—specific): a vibrant, vertically-oriented first-person platformer that serves as both a heartfelt love letter to and a mechanical evolution of the cult classic Jumping Flash! This review will argue that Forza Polpo! is a significant, if deeply flawed, artifact of the contemporary indie scene. It represents a passionate, principled stand against design-by-spreadsheet homogenization, choosing to resurrect a dormant gameplay language with a unique, punishing energy economy. While its execution is marred by frustratingly slippery controls and a restrictive core mechanic, its very existence is a triumph of niche preservation, offering a portal back to a 1990s sensibility of pure, exploratory play that modern AAA development has largely abandoned.

2. Development History & Context: Building a Time Machine in Unreal Engine 4

The game was developed and published by MONTE GALLO, a studio about which scant public information exists, reinforcing its identity as a passion project from a small, dedicated team—likely a single developer or a very tight collective. The development history is pieced together from its release trajectory: it launched into Steam Early Access on November 24, 2021, and achieved its full release on May 18, 2023. This nearly 18-month Early Access period suggests a deliberate, community-influenced polishing of a niche concept, a common and often successful strategy for indie developers building a audience for unconventional titles.

Technologically, the game was built using Unreal Engine 4 with the PhysX physics engine. This is a critical detail. Jumping Flash! (1995, Sony PlayStation) was defined by its charmingly primitive, low-polygon worlds and simple, buoyant physics. Forza Polpo! uses a modern, powerful engine to recreate that aesthetic—”Vibrant PS1-style visuals” and “bright low-poly arenas”—but underneath lies a complex physics simulation. This creates a fascinating dissonance: the look is nostalgic, but the systems (energy drain, momentum, collision) are governed by contemporary, often unforgiving, realism. The team was constrained not by hardware, but by their own ambitious desire to translate a pre-3D-accelerator-era design philosophy into a market saturated with smooth, comfortable, and often hand-holdy experiences.

The gaming landscape of 2021-2023 was ripe for such a revival. The “retro revival” trend was in full swing, but it largely focused on 2D pixel art (Shovel Knight, Celeste) or 3D collectathons in the style of Banjo-Kazooie (A Hat in Time). The precise, vertical, first-person platforming genre of Jumping Flash! and Pilot Wings remained a glaring gap. Forza Polpo! positioned itself squarely in this void, appealing directly to a small but fervent cohort of PS1-era veterans and the broader “vaporwave/90s revival” aesthetic movement that was peaking in indie culture.

3. Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: An Anime Apocalypse Frozen in 199X

The story of Forza Polpo! is deceptively simple on the surface but rich with poetic melancholy and specific period-evocation. It is “the year 199X”—a deliberate, anime/manga-inspired vagueness that evokes titles like Neon Genesis Evangelion or the Digimon franchise. The world is destroyed not by war or plague, but by a “mysterious explosion caused by Dr. Prometheus, the inventor of Pink Energy.” This cyan-colored energy source becomes unstable, causing a cataclysm that erases 99.9% of the world and its population.

The brilliance of the setting lies in its paradox: Everything is frozen at the moment of the disaster. Months and seasons are no more. What remains are “small fragments suspended in a void between the clouds.” This is not a gritty, Mad Max wasteland; it is a post-apocalyptic memory. The fragments are literally pieces of 1990s Japan—shattered rooftops, quiet beaches, dormant nuclear plants—floating in an ethereal, timeless limbo. This justifies the game’s core loop of exploration and recovery: you are not rebuilding society, but retrieving memory cubes to understand the cataclysm and discover “the meaning of life.” The narrative is a loose framework, delivered mostly through environmental storytelling and sparse dialogue from a character named Mey, but its thematic weight is immense. It meditates on loss, technological hubris, and preservation. The protagonist, Polpo, is a “flying delivery robot” so outdated it wasn’t compatible with the new Pink Energy, making it the sole survivor. Its outdatedness is its strength, a metaphor for analog resilience in a digital (or in this case, “Pink”) age.

The antagonist, Dr. Prometheus, represents the reckless Promethean fire of progress. His army is described as a “silly army” and “crazed drones,” which tonally aligns with the game’s weird, whimsical, and slightly unhinged anime aesthetic—more Pop Team Epic than grimdark. The final goal is to defeat him and “discover the meaning of life,” a grand, almost absurdist quest that perfectly suits the game’s tone. The narrative is less a plot and more a “poetic statement,” as HolyGamerz succinctly put it, about a world preserved in amber, both technologically and emotionally.

4. Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Beautiful, Brutal Dance of the Octopus

This is where Forza Polpo! both shines and stumbles, a dichotomy defined by its revolutionary (for the genre) energy economy.

• Core Loop & Movement: You control Polpo, a small mechanical octopus, from a first-person perspective in a series of abstract, floating stage-fragments. The goal in each of the 16 stages is to recover three Memory Cubes to unlock the next area. Movement is a high-wire act built on a triple jump and a glide. Mastering the triple jump—timing the button presses to chain the jumps—is the foundational skill. The glide, activated by holding a button after a jump, allows for horizontal traversal but is a major energy drain. This creates a constant calculus: jump for height, glide for distance, but always watching the Pink Energy meter. As GAMBIT Magazine notes, “Jumping is the name of the game… timing and judging distance is vital for your success.”

• The Punishing, Unifying Energy System: This is the game’s defining, divisive mechanic. “Every action involves a loss of energy.” Jumping, gliding, and shooting your basic projectile all drain from the same finite meter. This is a brilliant design choice that unifies movement and combat into a single resource management puzzle. You cannot be profligate. A wasted jump to reach a scenic view might leave you stranded. Shooting an enemy might sap the energy needed for your next crucial jump. Pink Energy capsules scattered through levels are your lifeline, but in advanced stages, they become “fewer and often hidden,” forcing careful planning. This system encourages the slow, methodical exploration the narrative setup implies—you are a scavenger in a broken world, not a superhero. However, it is the source of the most common criticism. As GAMBIT states, the energy “depletes far too quickly… you’re constantly fighting against this instead of enjoying the great visuals.” The desire to explore this beautiful, fragmented world is perpetually at war with the need to conserve.

• Combat & Progression: Combat is simple but integrated. Enemies are “stylized robots” with basic patterns. Your default shot can defeat weaker foes, while larger enemies may require more powerful missiles, obtained as secondary weapons. The genius is that combat also costs energy, so engaging is a tactical risk. Weapon upgrades are found at special kiosks (a wonderful 90s touch) or dropped by certain enemies. You can stack secondary weapons like “double shots.” Crucially, some upgrades, like the “mega jump,” directly enable new platforming routes, tying progression to both exploration and combat efficacy. This creates a satisfying loop: fight to get an upgrade, which lets you reach a new area, which might contain a Memory Cube or more resources.

• Modes & Replayability: The game includes a “Simulation” mode (the intended, hardcore experience with the full energy crunch) and an “Arcade” mode (with unlimited energy, providing a more traditional platformer experience). This acknowledges the core mechanic’s divisiveness. Additional depth comes from a Point System: improving your performance in completed levels increases your score and unlocks new levels, encouraging mastery and speedrunning. The game is explicitly “speedrun-ready,” with tight levels perfect for the Steam Deck, emphasizing its purity as an arcade challenge.

• Flaws in the Machine: The criticisms are consistent across reviews:

  • “Slippery and floaty” controls: Polpo’s movement lacks the precise, responsive handling of Jumping Flash!‘s Robbit. Players report “dying because I slid right off a platform,” a cardinal sin in a precision platformer. The floatiness makes landing accurately frustrating.
  • High Barrier to Entry: The combination of unfamiliar weight, the energy system, and the need to judge long-distance glides creates a “slower than expected” opening. As HolyGamerz notes, the initial complexity is “apparent,” but the real issue is that players are “no longer accustomed to breaking certain patterns.”
  • Underdeveloped Enemy Design: Enemies are universally cited as the “weakest part” and “not very varied.” They serve primarily as energy-draining obstacles and targets for weapon testing, lacking engaging patterns or interesting interactions with the environment.

5. World-Building, Art & Sound: A Vaporwave Memory Palace

If the gameplay is a tough, sometimes frustrating teacher, the presentation is its captivating, reassuring lullaby. Forza Polpo!’s greatest, most consistent triumph is its atmosphere.

• Visual Direction & Setting: The game executes a “vaporwave treatment” of 1990s Japan. The low-poly models, bright pastel colors (especially the iconic Pink Energy), and simple geometry perfectly mimic the PS1’s technical limitations while using modern resolution and effects to create a hyper-stylized, dreamlike version of that era. The “1990s Japan” is not a reconstruction but a reimagining—an “odd” and whimsical one. Stages are “labyrinths of floating objects”: shattered cityscapes with hovering buses, serene beaches with palm trees, industrial zones with radioactive barrels. The setting is a “world that no longer exists,” a theme park of memory adrift in the void. The art is “cartoony,” “colorful,” and “cute,” with Polpo himself being a charming, simple mech-octopus.

• Sound Design & Music: The audio is hailed as “so on point that I’d gladly pick up a soundtrack on vinyl.” The soundtrack is a key pillar of the 90s pastiche, filled with future funk and synth-heavy tracks that pulse with arcade energy. It’s not just background music; it’s the emotional engine, providing the euphoric rush during a successful long glide or the tense, atmospheric dread when your energy is low and you’re stranded on a tiny platform. Sound effects are clean and satisfying—the pew of shots, the clink of energy pickups, the ominous hum of Dr. Prometheus’s drones. The audio design directly supports the energy-management tension, with audio cues often warning of low energy or hostile presence.

• Synthesis: The world and its systems are in constant, sometimes awkward, dialogue. The beautiful, serene fragments of 199X are hostile environments that drain your life force. The cute, simple aesthetic masks a brutally unforgiving physics model. This dissonance is the game’s thesis: a nostalgic memory (the 90s/PS1 era) that is both alluring and difficult to navigate, requiring patience and adaptation. You are not a powerful hero; you are a fragile artifact trying to make sense of the ruins.

6. Reception & Legacy: A Cult Classic in the Making

Forza Polpo! entered a market unaware of its existence and carved out a dedicated niche.

• Critical Reception: Professional critics were cautiously positive, landing in the 78-80/100 range (Metacritic cites scores from Multiplayer.it and Tech-Gaming). The consensus praised its “conceptually successful” revival of a dead genre, its “really very nice levels,” and its “addictive gameplay loop” (Otaku Gamers UK). The primary critiques mirrored player feedback: “Game entry slower than expected,” “enemies are not very varied,” and the fundamental tension with the energy system. Tech-Gaming noted that “some of the difficulties of first-person soaring and firefights haven’t been remedied,” but forgave them due to the sheer novelty of the verticality.

• Player Reception: On Steam, the game has achieved a “Very Positive” rating with 88% of 26 reviews being positive at the time of writing (Steam). Steambase aggregates this to a Player Score of 91/100 from 34 reviews. Players consistently use language like “unique,” “addictive,” and “scratches that Jumping Flash itch.” The negative reviews (about 3 on Steam) almost exclusively cite the “terrible” and “unforgiving” energy system and the slippery controls. The VR issue, first flagged by GAMBIT, is a recurring technical complaint in community discussions, a bizarre artifact of its development history.

• Commercial Performance & Legacy: Specific sales figures are unavailable (typical for indies), but its persistent presence on Steam with a modest price point ($7.49-$14.99) and a dedicated player base (MobyGames notes only 1 player in its collection, but Steam charts show active play) indicates a successful, if small-scale, commercial run. Its legacy is twofold:

  1. As a Genre Preservationist: It is arguably the modern successor to Jumping Flash! and the Pilot Wings school of vertical exploration. Until Sony decides to revive its own property, Forza Polpo! is all that exists for players craving this specific experience. It proves that the fundamentals of that design—verticality, momentum, environmental puzzle-solving—still hold potent joy, even if they require modernization (or in this case, complication) through an energy system.
  2. As an Indie Design Manifesto: It stands as a case study in following a singular, quirky vision over market-tested comfort. MONTE GALLO chose a brutally difficult core loop over a facile one. They prioritized aesthetic cohesion and thematic depth (the frozen 90s Japan) over enemy variety and control precision. In an era of “live service” and “accessibility,” it is a stubborn, autistic (in the clinical sense) artifact. Its influence will likely be subtle, inspiring other small developers to resurrect other “dead” genres from the 90s/early 2000s that don’t fit modern templates (think D or Extreme-G). It shows that “the real fun and innovation in gaming is coming from the indie space,” as GAMBIT concludes, precisely because indies can afford to take such polarizing design risks.

7. Conclusion: A Flawed Jewel in the Crown of Nostalgia

Forza Polpo! is not a perfect game. It is, in many mechanical respects, a frustrating and archaic one. The slippery controls and the aggressively draining energy system create a barrier to entry that will alienate the vast majority of players accustomed to the generous mobility of A Hat in Time or the Super Mario Odyssey school. The enemy design is perfunctory, and the initial learning curve is steep and unintuitive.

And yet, to dismiss it on these grounds is to miss its profound, almost historical, value. It is a faithful, respectful, and mechanically ambitious successor to a beloved but long-dormant franchise. It understands that the magic of Jumping Flash! was not just in the jumping, but in the feeling of soaring through impossible vertical spaces, of using your perception of distance and momentum as your primary tool. Its energy system, while punishing, makes every successful glide, every perfectly chained triple jump to a distant cube, feel like a monumental, earned victory. It forces you to engage with its world not as a tourist, but as a scavenger surviving on limited resources.

The game’s soul resides in its aesthetic: the vaporwave 199X Japan, the future funk score, the low-poly melancholic beauty. It creates a world you want to explore, even as the mechanics punish you for trying. That tension—between desire and restriction—is the game’s central, tragic, and ultimately compelling theme, mirroring its narrative of a preserved, fragile past.

In the grand canon of video game history, Forza Polpo! will not be remembered as a landmark title like its inspirations. It will not sell millions. But it will be remembered by a passionate few as a defiant act of preservation, a game that looked at a forgotten branch of the platformer family tree and decided to water it, even if the fruit it bore was sometimes sour. It is a flawed, beautiful, demanding, and deeply authentic experience. For the patient player willing to learn its difficult language, it offers something precious: a tangible piece of a gaming past that we thought was lost, rendered in neon and pink energy. Its place is not on a shelf of classics, but in a glass case in the museum of “What Could Have Been”—a testament to the enduring, stubborn appeal of a single, brilliant idea, executed with all the passion and imperfection of a true indie labor of love.

Final Verdict: 7.5/10 — A niche, flawed, and essential relic for fans of vertical platforming history. Its ambition to modernize a classic formula is commendable, but its execution is held back by control imprecision and a punishing core loop that prioritizes challenge over accessible joy.