Running pretty well parallel to the explosion of indie games released in this generation, retro remakes, remasters, and just straight-up ports have also been quite common. In general these have been a mix of top-shelf titles that are no surprise at all, out-of-the-blue ports of more obscure releases that may have never come to the West before, and then games that may have familiar names but that you missed the first time around. For me, that’s where Glover lands. I’d absolutely heard about it, and seen it on the shelf in my local Blockbuster, but for whatever reason was never tempted to check it out. With this re-release on Switch though, I’ve finally had some time to play with it.

First and foremost, there’s no question that it’s a unique platformer, both obviously inspired by the likes of Mario 64 with its more whimsical feel, and determined to chart its own path. To the credit of the people behind it, they could have simply run with a 3D platformer featuring a glove come to life, simply jumping around and playing like any number of its genre contemporaries. Instead, they appear to have been determined to take a left turn and create something unique, making your ball an essential part of the formula, adding an element to play that’s quite creative but that also really encumbers the play experience.

The first issue I collided with pretty heavily, and that I struggled to adapt to, had to do with the camera controls. Working the opposite way from what my brain has come to expect, it does work reasonably well for a game from that era, but I wish that it wasn’t reversed from left to right. The second big issue ended up being how you mechanically interact with your ball. While I appreciate how it is integral to various puzzles, sometimes requiring you to switch to one of its alternative forms, working with it can be a pain at times. In particular I found that aiming where I wanted to throw or slap it, was typically a chore and could require multiple attempts, just fiddling with the camera and trying to line things up wasn’t ideal. Last, the reliance on using the ball in some way too often just slowed the game’s action and fun to a crawl. If it were just something you’d interact with on a periodic basis, rather than being so central to everything, it could have been novel, but as implemented it instead can feel like a burden.

All that said, I applaud the creative and daring choices the developer made with Glover way back when. At a time when simply making another straight-up mascot platformer would have been an easier move, they were daring to be different. Now, decades later, time has unfortunately done it few favors. While sometimes distance from release can reveal ideas that were ahead of their time, in this case I’d say it’s still a neat idea, but not an obviously great one. I have no doubt that people who enjoyed it then will be thrilled with the chance to revisit it, but for everyone else it’s still likely more of a novelty to try out, but not stick with till the end.