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Developer: Brad Borne
Publisher: ArmorGames, Kongregate
Format: PC((Browser/Flash) reviewed)
This was a great thing for the Fancy Pants series, let me tell you. Fancy Pants 3 is so far the biggest game yet. Big enough to even lag on certain websites, which you'll have to look out for. It's got platforming, combat, and even more of a narrative than the second game. It's got a unique soul for the series and adds unique mechanics to the series as well.
Throughout most of the game there is only platforming to do, which isn't bad. Jumping, running, swimming, and pretty much everything in-between is smoother than it's predecessors, and has plenty of things in each level to show that off. It's got little races, three bonus stars, and challenge stages of a wide variety becoming the means of obtaining new pants in every level. Those can be quite the challenge sometimes, even for an experienced player. All of this is fit into a rather open world of a level that you can explore to find these things amongst the enemies and everything else.
The combat is a new thing in the Fancy Pants line of games. Up until this game there was only jumping on things and occasionally kicking them around and off screen. Well after a few levels of pure platforming the pencil is introduced. The pencil works as a sword, allowing jabs, slashes, light attacks, heavy attacks, ariel attacks, and so on. The enemies changed to compensate for this, some have more health, others engaging in swordplay. Jumping and sliding still to lots of damage, but are slow and sometimes not possible on some enemies, emphasizing combat. It's pretty fu hand satisfying to smack things around, or even bounce on to of them and around the room during an ariel attack.
Music and art for the Fancy Pants series is down to a science. It's just so spot on that a simple polish is all that it needed. It's beautifully hand-drawn art style is animated smoothly and beautifully. That coupled with the color pallet makes the game so vibrant and festive. It even has a sense of depth to with with multiple levels of parallax scrolling flying by as you just blaze through and around levels. The music is different in the fact that there are a lot more guitar rifts and just guitars in general. Despite this, the music sounds awesome while keeping that soul it's always had.
The narrative is more than the silly get-your-ice-cream cone-back style of plot this time. This time your sister is kidnapped by pirates and you've gotta save her. As you trek through a wide variety of different levels, you can find bottles that have extra bits of narrative through the form of little notes written by your sister. As you progress you'll come across new enemies pertaining to the level, which even included ninjas! Ninjas are actually a big plot-point, and a rather funny one. The narrative also explains why your sister got kidnapped, why you needed the pencil, and even my you got out of bed!
In the end, this is probably the best game in the series. It's got the most content, is the smoothest (excluding World 1 Remix), and feels like the grander adventure when compared to the others. It's an excellent platformer, and the combat doesn't really take away from that. In some ways it adds to the platforming via ariel attacks. It's a fun game for anyone into platformers.
This game also does have a sort of counterpart to it, that counterpart being Fancy Pants Adventures. It's essentially Fancy Pants 3 but with more content, more fun, and lots more customization. It also comes with the first two games that you can unlock with the stars you obtain in each level. Adventures is on XBLA, iOS, and PlayStation Network for around 10 USD. It's essentially a better version of Fancy Pants 3, so if you love the series enough go ahead and show some support!
Play Fancy Pants 3 HERE
