“If our paths never cross again…we hope you remember the good times!”: Windswept Review

All images are from Windswept by WeatherFell and Top Hat Studios. All images are by me.

In Tactical Reload’s review policy I explain that games don’t exist in a bubble, but I’ll always do my best to engage with a title on its own terms and only use direct comparisons for clarity. I decided to take the opposite approach with the subject of today’s review. Windswept is 2025’s Ducky Kong Country (I apologize in advance if anyone has already used this pun–I searched around for a few minutes but Google is worthless these days). While this comparison might seem lazy at first, the fact that I’m constructing a golden banana shaped Venn diagram with one of the best franchises in video game history should tell you exactly how I feel about it. 

It is important to note, however, that Windswept isn’t relying on our nostalgia to be a good game. Too often modern projects that aim to pay homage to their source material won’t wear their influences on their sleeves–they’ll skin them alive and then hollowly flaunt their pelt. Of course, I’m human. I enjoy Easter eggs. I enjoy being reminded of other things I like while I’m in the process of liking a new thing–but I’m not sure how many more times I need to stumble across the carpet from The Shining or meet a character named after Laura Palmer. 

Windswept has its own personality and I’m ecstatic to report that it’s a winning one. 

Developed by WeatherFell and published by Top Hat Studios, Windswept chronicles the adventure of Marbles the duck and Checkers the tortoise. On a stormy night, a mysterious wind sweeps them from their nests and strands them far from home. See what I did there? They’ll run to the right, traverse bullet points on an overworld map, save critters from corruption, and eventually find their way back. If you grew up in the era of weighing the pros and cons of what cartridge to rent at the video store on a Friday night, you’ll have figured out all the important bits even before your thumb meets the D-pad. 

The duo plays similarly with only slight differences. The duck has a glide (they’re playing the Dixie Kong role) and the tortoise has a ground pound. As long as you still have your friend in reserve, you can swap between them at any time and team up for a high jump or shell toss. These moves are mapped to just a couple buttons and if you hope to see even a fraction of what’s on offer here, you’ll need to master some basic combos. These subtleties are highlighted when you end up stranded at a midlevel checkpoint with whichever animal you have the least amount of experience. You’ll be regularly forced to adapt, forced to learn, but never stuck. This is just one of about a dozen different ways that Windswept is brilliant.   

There are 40 levels and almost all their gimmicks are good (I say “almost” because there’s at least one auto scroller that, while a cool idea, really drags on repeated attempts). Animal companions with their own unique abilities frequently join the adventure including a bat that launches cassette tapes and a chameleon named Hue. I was usually happy to see them. None of their appearances filled me with dread the same way being forced into the eight sneakers of Squitter the spider did a few decades ago. However, something I wasn’t expecting is this is an optional collectathon (there are so many secrets tucked behind scenery and saw blades that I feel the game was designed around them) and each cloud, moon, and coin are lovingly tracked on the world map. It’s no Donkey Kong 64, but for completionists, there’s a lot of game here. 

You could theoretically hit the credits in a few hours. You won’t, but you could. This game is hard–really hard. I won’t post an exhaustive list of my gaming achievements to prove the point, but I did beat Cuphead less than a month ago and I really struggled through certain sections of Windswept. Eventually, every sequence requires precision. Not just perfectly timing jumps but an intimate knowledge of the enemies’ hitboxes levels of precision. This isn’t a negative and won’t affect my final score–nothing makes me feel alive quite like conquering a challenge that previously felt impossible. Still, it should be mentioned that the majority of players who go in blind because the tortoise is cute will probably accept defeat before the end of the first world. 

In their defense, the tortoise is very cute. 

Thankfully, the devs have included a few kindnesses that help take the edge off. When you pick up a collectible, if you manage to stay alive for a few additional seconds, it’s yours to keep (which you’ll be thankful for when you inevitably fling yourself into a nearby pit). This also applies to the C-O-M-E-T letters that can be grabbed across multiple runs. Restarts are instantaneous and can be triggered even inside bonus stages (this is practically a necessity given that many play out like puzzles). Mercifully, the soundtrack continues to play between lives so you won’t be trapped in a purgatory of hearing the opening ten seconds of a song until you’ve failed enough to be adequate at jumping over strings of buzzing bees or successfully navigating a tricky turn in a labyrinth of brambles. 

Playing on a base PS5, I encountered no crashes, no glitches, and no bugs. The pixels are pure joy and the presentation is simple, clean, and charming. Most importantly of all, I never questioned what was and wasn’t a platform. Fortunately and unfortunately, those hundreds of deaths were always my fault. 

The handful of problems I have with Windswept are more issues that have persisted with the genre for decades. Blind leaps of faith into ditches full of enemies and obstacles may not be common but they are annoying. With the aforementioned difficulty, any instance of trial and error can feel devastating. You’ll often spend half hour stretches learning the hard way–one screen length at a time. I also wish there was greater enemy variety, but with the rest of the package being so solid, that feels like nitpicking. 

In the lead up to release, I saw people calling Windswept the best 2D platformer since Celeste and that feels correct (I’m not head over heels in love with Super Mario Wonder). It wields its nostalgia not as a crutch but as a favorite blanket at the end of a hard day. At the very least, your Game of the Year conversations won’t be complete without it. 

I hope we get a sequel. 

90/100

*This review was conducted using a key provided by the developer.*