Platformers are one of my favourite genres, and when a new one releases, I’m always curious to see what sets it apart from the crowd. Hirogami, a stylish indie platformer that folds Japanese origami themes into its world and gameplay, definitely makes a strong first impression. With its paper-crafted visuals, creative animal transformations, and heartfelt story, it feels like a game that could soar. Hirogami released on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on September 3, 2025.
Unfortunately, while Hirogami shines in its style and originality, it also stumbles with frustrating difficulty spikes and progression roadblocks that make it harder to recommend. Let’s dive in and see how this origami adventure unfolds.
A Young Hiro’s Journey
Hirogami follows the story of Hiro, a young performer with the mysterious ability of changing his form using Origami. Hiro can become various animals to help him fight back against the Blight, a strange invasive growth that has corrupted the Sacred Crane Shrines dotted throughout the world.
With the presence of the blight the balance of the world has been thrown off and strange aggressive entities known as Glitches have begun to run rampant, threatening the existence of Hiro and his friends as well as the other denizens that reside outside Shishiki Village.
Hiro’s friends are Ruz Pappy the Crafter and Shiori the tough and independent protector. Both of these characters help flesh out the world and whilst Ruz Pappy is supportive of Hiro, Shiori is untrusting and hot headed leading her to be very dismissive of him.
Hiro himself holds the Celestial Fan, a powerful artifact entrusted to him by the entity known as The Celestial Crane. Using this Fan Hiro fights back the Blight and purges the corruption from the Sacred Crane Shrines. There is a deeper mystery regarding Hiro that you will uncover as you progress through the game’s story.
Animal Folding Forms
Throughout his Journey, Hiro encounters various animals who are affected by the Blight and must be battled to free them, however Hiro is forbidden from attacking them with the Celestial Fan and so must outwit them using the surrounding area or his other animal forms.
Each of these animals once freed of the blight have their own character and talk with Hiro. I have to admit I instantly fell in love with two of them! You have Ama Jii the elder armadillo, Bingley the eccentric toad and Shaan Ti the ape.
The Armadillo form allows you to roll around at high speeds destroying crates and large wooden obstructions. The Toad allows you the ability to spit sticky gloop and jump extremely high, finally the Ape gives you the ability to climb vines and is the go to combat form for most situations.
Hiro possesses another ability in that he can fold himself flat into a single piece of paper so that he might navigate under dangerous terrain or fly on a thermal breeze to reach distant places.
Unfolding the Gameplay
Like most platformers your gameplay will consist of solving puzzles in large linear levels in order to progress, there is a list of sub objectives in each level that should be viewed. I would recommend trying to achieve the top 3 as they reward you with Golden Crane Souls which work similar to stars in the Mario games (trust me you will need many of them if you hope to complete this game).
Combat depends on what enemies it is you are facing, glitches can be damaged and defeated by Hiro and his animal forms, whereas blighted animals must be defeated using either the terrain or the aforementioned animal forms. Once you defeat a blighted animal they revert to their original state and thank you with a heart above their head before scampering off.
There are many abilities you will pick up throughout the game. These can range from passive effects whilst you are using your various forms, to requiring you to hold the corresponding button down longer in order to charge your move to a higher level.
The game will demand no small amount of form switching in order to proceed through certain situations, for example you might need to use Toad form to jump to a high platform that when touched, will begin to crumble at which point you will be required to switch to ape in order to grasp a vine and proceed.
Paper Jam Session
Visually Hirogami is nothing short of stunning, it’s one of the most beautiful games I’ve played in terms of its stylistic approach of literally everything but a few things being made completely of paper. Everything from Hiro to the animals standout as you watch them moving around against the landscape. The glitches do a good job of giving you the impression that they do not belong here as does the blight which you will see, both as destructible pink crates and as thorny vines in the background.
The soundtrack is beautiful, it’s both tranquil and engaging in equal parts depending on the situation you find yourself in. It takes a traditional japanese approach in terms of the instruments used all whilst taking a modern touch in terms of its composition, this leads to a very satisfying experience.
There is sadly no voice acting in the game. Some of the characters are clearly meant to have an accent based off of the way that they speak, however it’s up to you to determine how you think that sounds. I found Ama Jii the armadillo a good example of this where some of their dialogue I was reading in a southern Devonshire accent.
Paper Clip-ped Wings
Whilst Hirogami has so much about it that I can praise, it’s sadly not perfect. I found myself getting frustrated fairly often in some of the later levels. The level design gets very demanding in how it wants you to progress. For example in the lava level, you’re asked to switch forms to navigate various traps in a similar vein to Donkey Kong, if you fail it’s an incredibly long trip back using one of your animal forms.
I later noticed this was a recurring problem, the game gets very tedious and unforgiving if you happen to mess up. It’s a real shame and there is absolutely an element of player skill that you can debate is the issue here but the average gamer isn’t going to complete the level perfectly on the first try. Add to that, that in order to progress the game you need to have collected enough Golden Crane Souls. It can leave you with a sour taste in your mouth having to restart entire levels all over again.
There are many places within earlier levels that you cannot access until you have reached certain points of the game, such as acquiring your animal forms and so you will revisit these earlier areas now that you can access them, only to find that you are barred by yet another progression block. All of this adds up to the game feeling very tedious.
I encountered one bug whilst playing Hirogami, occasionally my inputs would be ignored. An example that I experienced many times over was when I was trying to use an ability in toad form. The game would ignore my input and instead I would fall down onto an enemy and take damage. Combining this with many of the levels wanting you to complete them without being damaged, it can very quickly make you feel cheated.
The First 60 Minutes of Gameplay
Final Thoughts
Hirogami was a real joy for me to play up until it wasn’t. I’m not sure why the game suddenly felt like a huge difficulty spike appeared but it caused me to lose my temper more than once. I was able to reach what I believe to be the final boss only to be unable to fight it as I didn’t have enough Golden Crane Souls. Progression like this really irritates me and for now I am going to take some time away from the game. I would like to complete it and see how Hiro’s story resolves but I won’t be doing this anytime soon.
If you are someone who enjoys testing yourself with platformers, this may well be a good game for you. For me however what started good sadly dropped off and left me feeling disappointed. There is a lot to like about Hirogami, from its wide cast of characters and beautifully designed levels. It’s incredibly unfortunate that there is plenty to dislike about it too.
5/10
Hirogami had the right shape to be great, but instead it left me flat.