REVIEW: ‘Sacre Bleu’ Misses The Mark

Sacre Bleu, the new bullet-time action platformer from developer Hildring Studio Inc. and publisher Noodlecake, has a solid idea at its core. It’s fast-paced and whimsical, never taking itself too seriously. The main draw, using a musket to blast yourself through levels, can be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it’s plagued by odd design decisions, a boring story, and technical issues that frustrate the experience.

Sacre Bleu puts you in the musket-toting shoes of the captain of musketeers, tossed into prison on false charges. You quickly escape your cell with the help of another person trapped, as you work together to escape the prison. The story is threadbare at best, with the few twists and choices you make unsurprising. Almost all of the story is told through dialogue boxes from one character—the epitome of tell instead of show. The finale is also lackluster, failing to cap the game with anything interesting.

The core gameplay loop is hit or miss. Players run through levels as the musketeer, slashing enemies with a sword, blasting them with a pistol, tossing bombs, or throwing enemies at the walls or each other. The throw is a favorite. It’s always funny picking them up and sending them careening across the screen. Get to the end of the level as fast as you can, and level complete.

The musket is also useful, despite not doing damage. Reflecting projectiles, including arrows and enemy bombs, right back at their point of origin is constantly satisfying. Combat is solid—a fun, if not shallow, dance through small combat arenas. There isn’t a ton of variety in enemy design, though. Once you’ve seen one archer, you’ve seen them all.

Sacre Bleu has fun mechanics, but they’re held back by boring level design.

Sacre Bleu’s biggest draw is the bullet-time platforming, done by using the musket to blast the musketeer in the opposite direction the gun is pointing. The game slows down, allowing the player to align the shot, sending them careening in their chosen direction. You can fire three times before needing to touch the ground for a refill. There are moments where this mechanic is a literal blast to use, firing through levels at quick speed. Despite the joy of this core mechanic, the level design is a letdown.

The level design is incredibly uneven in Sacre Bleu. Each level is short, not taking more than 3-4 minutes. Less if you speedrun them. Your time can be reduced for a better final time depending on how many enemies you kill, along with your variety in kill methods, number of deaths, and other factors. There are leaderboards to keep track of and fight for top times. The level design, however, is rarely anything more than hallways, rooms, and vertical climbs. It all feels very familiar, as these spaces feel similar not only to each other but also to other games. It doesn’t hit the same creative spaces as its contemporaries.

There are reasons to replay levels outside of speedrunning, with each level hiding a different number of secrets to find along the way. While they are mostly optional, finding a certain number is mandatory to complete the story. They can be fun to find, but there’s no way to keep track of how many you’ve uncovered. The hub doesn’t tell you how many a level has, or how many you’ve completed, making them more tedious than fun to find.

Some of the levels are just unfun to play, with the sewer and kitchen sections being particularly tough. Each world has one mechanic that differentiates it on the gameplay front, for example, the sewers have you repetitively blasting the sail of a boat to move the player through the level. It rarely does anything interesting with it. The player just moves from one spot to jump off the boat, unlock a door, get back on the boat, rinse, and repeat. The kitchen follows suit with floating killer robots that just chase the player. One level of either would make for a fun change of pace, but entire worlds designed around them get old fast.

Sacre Bleu also suffers from serious technical issues.

The technical issues here are also significant. The hitboxes are incredibly unreliable, resulting in multiple deaths due to hazards on the other side of a wall. Some environmental hazards, with the massive spinning cogs being particularly bad, are entirely inconsistent about whether they’ll kill you or not. Touching one part means death, but then touching the same part shortly after is a point to jump off of.

In a boss battle, where a giant killer robot chases the player, the boss just flew past without doing anything. The rest of the level was a walk in the park with no danger. Instead of it being a tense rush through the level, it became the exact opposite. The direction the musket shoots you isn’t always entirely accurate either, leading to plenty of deaths that feel unfair.

The camera is also inconsistent. It is generally way too close to the player, leaving you jumping unknowingly into hazards sometimes. At other times, it’s too slow, chasing the player rather than giving clear information on where to move next. This happens in make-or-break moments, not giving you enough time to react to a threat. In a game built on speedrunning, where every bit of visual information is needed, it’s very frustrating.

Most action platformers let the player move through small ledges, setting up the next jump in a way that flows. Not so in Sacre Bleu, where you just crash into them in a way that totally kills momentum. The loss of momentum follows in the actual musket blasts as well, as the musketeer comes to abrupt stops. The lack of consistency hurts the gameplay significantly.

Sacre Bleu‘s does find strengths in its audio and visual design. It looks like a classic pop-up storybook come to life. The environmental design is bright and colorful across the experience. The audio is also implemented well, with the jump being accompanied by the sound of the musket blast. The music is great, whimsical and light at times, but tense and a driving force at others during mad rushes to the end.

Unfortunately, the Sacre Bleu experience is too uneven. Technical issues, bland design choices, and a lackluster story make it a chore to play. When it works, it can be fun, but its systems are too unreliable. Sacre Bleu ultimately misses the mark.

Sacre Bleu is available now on PC and Nintendo Switch.