At first glance, Flat Kingdom: Paper’s Cut Edition seems like any other cutesy platformer, albeit one with a visually unique, papercraft art style. Yet it soon becomes clear that it’s anything but a standard platform game.

In Flat Kingdom – which released on the PC a few years back – a gorgeous and peaceful medieval style world is threatened by a villain who’s looking to bring an extra dimension to the 2D setting, which the King and the rest of the world’s inhabitants are not prepared for. King Square sends for a hero who can save the day and return the world to its usual two dimensional state – the protagonist, Flat.

What’s special about Flat? Well, Flat can change shape at will – with each shape strong or weak against other types, in a manner that’s reminiscent of rock-paper-scissors. So in this world, if Flat is a circle, he can beat an enemy shaped like a square; if he becomes a square, triangle foes are on the menu. Transform into a triangle and circle antagonists better watch out!

That’s not all though; each shape has different abilities, usually used to overcome obstacles or solve puzzles. You’ll even add to those abilities with new ones over the course of the game – the levels of which take you across a number of different, appealingly designed environments to face off against normal foes as well as bosses.

It’s a charming game with unique visuals, a pleasant soundtrack (by Manami Matsumae, who was the composer on the original Mega Man!) and plenty of shape-based puzzles and combat situations that start off straightforward before escalating to a level of trickiness that’s never maddeningly frustrating, but certainly does increase in challenge over the course of the game.

There’s a lot to like about Flat Kingdom: Paper’s Cut Edition – and it’s not an expensive game to acquire either, being priced at £7.99 on each format it’s just launched on (that’s PS4, PS5, Switch and Xbox consoles). If you’re looking for a platformer that’ll make you use your brain as well as your reflexes, you’ve come to the right place.

Many thanks to PR Hound for providing me with a code for Flat Kingdom: Paper’s Cut Edition for review purposes.