Imagine, if you will, Big Boss' construction of Mother Base in the Metal Gear Solid games. He constructs this massive fortress, a home for all of the various soldiers and mercenaries that follow him, ready to fight a 24/7 war. Now imagine how ludicrous it would be if it had turned out that he built all of this for one purpose and one purpose only: to retrieve a hatbox that was stolen from him by some moon-faced cretin…actually, you know what, that probably still wouldn’t make the top five list for ludicrous things seen in Metal Gear games, so skip all of that. Let’s get straight to the end point instead: Here’s Mr. Sun’s Hatbox! It’s a new satirical 2D stealth-platformer from Kenny Sun!
The setup is pretty much what was detailed above: you are a deliveryman in charge of bringing a hatbox to Mr. Sun, but a maniacal Mr. Moon steals it just as it’s delivered. So there’s only one logical thing to do: set up an elaborate base of operations in Mr. Sun’s basement, gather up a massive group of mercenaries and send them out on missions to track down the hatbox. This means going on missions to gather map pieces, but not before going on other missions to neutralize enemies, deliver packages in a short amount of time, steal classified documents and more in order to build up experience for your minions, gather more gold for more goods, and collect other rewards that can assist you in getting you one step closer to that hatbox.
All of this requires building a base of operations, though, and this is where Mr. Sun’s Hatbox firmly spoofs the likes of Metal Gear Solid V. You start out by using balloons in order to kidnap enemies that you stun by jumping on their heads, but unlike MGSV, they aren’t immediately loyal to you. Instead what you need is a good old-fashioned brig with a couple of brainwashing devices that can eventually get them on your side whether they like it or not. But not every soldier is suited to the battlefield, which is why you can also assign your newfound employees to research new improvements to your base and passive field skills, put them in charge of support in order to provide backup and supplies, or even just put them in charge of expansion so that you can even begin to add new rooms to your base.
Getting all of the gold and resources you need for new rooms or upgrade requires field work, though, which leads to the stealth platforming that makes up the meat of Mr. Sun’s Hatbox. Each day, you’re given three missions to choose from, and you send out one employee to tackle the one that you choose. The catch is that each character that becomes a part of your insane delivery squad has their own set of quirks, be they positive or negative. Some might have quieter footsteps, some can permanently stun enemies with their jumps, some have vision that allows the map to be zoomed out, giving you a greater view of things…and on the flip side, some have their guns break after one shot, some have poor vision that makes everything darker, and some just have bad body odor that tips enemies off.
If all of the characters you may recruit simply just had these random assortments of perks, that would make the gameplay great on its own, as you have to properly decide which employee has the proper balance of quirks that would allow them to succeed at the mission, but Mr. Sun’s Hatbox goes farther. Not only does leveling up allows for a chance for any negative quirks to be removed or positive ones to be added (alongside possible health increase), encouraging you to experiment with each character and beef them up, but the Lab that you unlock later allows you to select negative quirks to eventually be removed, or select quirks to be extracted from anyone and instilled into any other employee. Your characters here will be out of commission, but they can become even stronger in the end.
Of course, you can also help make your employees become even stronger by collecting numerous weapons and hats along the way. Weapons range from the standard rifles, shotguns, swords and more to stale baguettes, rubber ducks and even bars of soap that you can have enemies slip on. And then there are the hats. What exactly are you looking for in protective headgear? Spiked hats that damage enemies? Tiny catapults that launch enemies away? Frogs that just sit on your head and swallow up any enemy? It’s basically a Dead Rising-style assortment of the practical, the ludicrous, and both, and combined with the 8-bit visuals and simple character designs, it allows for a great sense of humor and a nice bit of chaos.
you may learn what each hat or weapon does the hard way, though, typically by encountering them in the wild as enemies wield them or opening a few chests or additional hatboxes. You can balloon any of these items out of the areas as well, storing them for later, but you have to pry them from enemy hands. And so you have to properly study each enemy, prepare for them and work with each level layout. There’s a nice mix of level designs here, from the linear horizontal plains to the descending sewers and the wide open clouds (with their wide, annoying bottomless pits), each with their own unique character types that you can stun and recruit. Or kill, if you’d like. Just pray you don’t die as well, because your characters aren’t coming back. This introduces a terrific risk/reward element to the gameplay, as you have to try and judge if it’s worth it to send out your more skilled employees, with bad judgment seeing them gone for good.
In terms of platforming, Mr. Sun’s Hatbox succeeds, with satisfying, nicely-designed action regardless of whether you choose to take a the stealthy approach if available or go in guns a-blazing. But it doesn’t stop there, as with every magical hat you successfully steal after going on a raid once you get enough map pieces, you unlock more room options for your hideout. A black market to purchase gear and mercenaries, an armory where you can exchange a batch of weapons to upgrade ammo, recon that sends out employees on off-screen missions…Mr. Sun’s Hatbox provides you with more than a lot to work with, allowing you to play it your way. With that, though, comes one of the flaws. While the base management aspect of Mr. Sun’s Hatbox is a clever idea, it can feel overwhelming at times, pressuring you to invest even more gold and resources in various ways. But this leads to the inevitability that more than a few features can get left on the wayside during your playthrough, or you end up struggling to properly balance things out. It doesn’t help that in some cases things like Support rooms are not only required, but have to be staffed to reach a certain level in order to unlock various research options, whether you actually use the Support features or not.
The other flaw that holds the game back from true greatness is the fact that Mr. Sun’s Hatbox has roguelike elements, and as such, also means that you’re at the mercy of the RNG god at times. And their wrath notably seems to manifest during the mission selection, where you may wind up with all three having unappealing objectives (like the Raid missions where you have to kill all the enemies), all of them having high difficulties, or on the flip side, still getting missions with low difficulty and lower rewards later on in the game. Sometimes you can even just game the system by waiting until days where the missions where you get map pieces are at lower difficulties, if you just want to progress through the story. Still, even with it’s flaws, it’s an incredibly fun journey with great action, and there are even deathmatch modes to try out once you’re done for extended replayability.
Closing Comments:
Just as the titular Mr. Sun is shocked over how many people you send to their death in pursuit of his hatbox, players might be shocked over how fun and addictive Mr. Sun’s Hatbox can be. Impressive stealth platforming with a ton of options makes for a great time, while the colorful, pixelated art plays host to lot of nicely-comical details. Mr. Sun’s Hatbox is an impressive take on not just stealth and warfare, but the Mother Base formula in general, making for one enjoyable romp that’s all wrapped up in a nicely-crafted box.
Mr. Sun’s Hatbox
