Shu from Coatsink is a cute platformer starring a cute pink character called Shu. The game is really gorgeous, with a great art style and a colorful palette – there is no question about that! But looks alone a good game don’t make. How fun is the gameplay? Read our Shu review to find out!

 

Shu is a 2.5D platformer with a strong emphasis on speedrunning, but if you are not into speedrunning and prefer to play at your own pace, you can absolutely do that as well. You’ll need to take your time anyway to grab all the collectibles in each area, so be sure to grab all the babbies during your adventure! You are probably wondering what the term ‘babbies’ is, right? Well, the term is commonly used in a region of England called Yorkshire, where they commonly refer to babies as ‘babbies.’ I went to a boarding school in that region, and it was a term I often heard! The babbies in the game look like baby owls, and they come in multiple colors too, so the term fits them nicely.

The abilities you collect as you advance in the game will grant you the chance to walk on water, break through crates and anything made from dark wood, wall jump and more. These abilities are needed before coming face to face with the ‘Storm’ if you are to succeed.

The levels have different routes you can take which gives you a good amount of replayability and a chance to get those butterfly collecting tiers filled to the max. There are secrets to find during your run, and each stage has 5-6 babbies for you to collect, but the little tykes are so small they are actually easy to miss! There is absolutely no combat whatsoever in the game, and your only enemies are environmental hazards such as spikes and the huge gaps in your path. Apart from that, your greatest enemy is the chase levels where the music drastically changes and a huge “RUN” word appears on your screen. When that happens, trust me, you really do need to run and faaaaaaaast!

The checkpoints are in ample supply, and if you fall or make a misstep, you will automatically respawn at that checkpoint minus one life. You start with five lives and with each checkpoint you reach your lives are automatically replenished. You won’t need to worry too much about dying every now and then, unless you go for the trophy that requires “no death” runs.

Now in the last few levels of Shu all the skills that you have acquired and mastered will come into play since every single environmental hazards that you have seen before will come together during the final set of levels to ramp up the challenge considerably without making the game impossibly difficult.

During the course of the game, Shu will meet villagers with abilities he can use, and said skills will not be available for all levels. These temporary abilities will come and go depending on the level design, which is an interesting gameplay mechanic.

The graphics in the game are great, and they bring to mind awesome games such as the Rayman series where a great art style and bright colors come together to give us a great looking release. Kudos to Coatsink for putting a lot of work into the graphics for Shu!

The game in total is about two to three hours long, but a speedrun will take you less than an hour if you’re that good. For all you trophy hunters out there, Shu has a shiny Platinum trophy, which really surprised me given the scope of the game. Several of the trophies are easy, and you will nab at least four in your very first level, or maybe five if you take your sweet time and get the 8 Minute trophy. But if you want to get the Platinum, you’ll need to get really good at Shu. The game will feel like heaven for the speedrunning community, but that doesn’t mean this is not a very accessible release for everyone else. As a side note, most trophies you earn in a level usually don’t pop until after completing a level.

I had an excellent time with the game for my Shu review. While the main game might be short, I loved every minute of it. The speedrunning side of the equation will greatly increase the replay value for the game as you try and complete each level as fast as possible, so do keep that in mind. If you’re looking for an excellent platformer, then Shu is the game you need to add to your collection today!

[review
pros=”Beautiful graphics
Relaxing soundtrack.
Highly addictive.
Generous checkpoint system.
Flawless gameplay.” cons=”No complaints” score=94]

Disclaimer
This Shu review is based on a PS4 copy provided by Coatsink