Sometimes I ask myself why I bought something. Finger on the Roof is a case in point. It looks like a crazy offbeat platformer and indeed it is. It is also poorly put together and rather frustrating to play.
You play as a finger on a giant arm walking across rooftops. You’ll need to jump between them and doing a run and jump will get you further across larger gaps. Each level is full of coins and your PS4 trophies are earned by collecting all the coins in a level. You can do this over multiple runs with collected coins turning blue and using a handy map on the top of the screen. This is literally the biggest gameplay revelation that Finger on the Roof has and I’m thankful for it.
Your fingers are easily killed. You might hit some flying birds or sink down fading buildings and each time you hit the floor you lose a life. You can gain lots of them just by playing the game but it means that the last few levels of the game are a patience battle. This is because the collision detection is woeful and sometimes will bounce you crazily up into the air, or backwards, or just wedge you in a wall. It makes no sense. Then you’ll get respawned into enemies you can’t avoid or sometimes in a giant hole you can’t then leap from. The biggest offender in all of this is the wall jump which has about a 60% ratio of actually working. Gah!
The idea itself is quite fun and interesting. Geddan mode is a bizarre unlock that makes your hand roll around everywhere like it’s floppy. Funny for a minute and then you’ll move on – much like the rest of the game. If more polish to the controls was given, this had the potential to be a weird left-field oddity. As it is though, it is just a silly mess. Avoid.
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