Power Hover Review
I played Power Hover and it was pretty fun. To put it simply, Power Hover is a lot like a really solid phone game in it’s structure and gameplay but on a PC. Power Hover has simple controls with just left and right on the player side. Any other mechanics, like grinding or simple jumps, are handled automatically as you approach obstacles. This system isn’t inherently bad but in later levels especially, the lack of actual inputs as well as very small, bit-sized levels are conducive to a more enjoyable experience on a mobile device but lack depth in longer playthroughs that you might be condition to on a PC.
The main campaign has you chasing a thief that stole the power to your village. The thief conveniently drops the power in a trail behind them that you collect as you traverse the levels. Each level is a fixed route and has breakpoints for collection that you will want to hit that give you electricity you can use to charge buildings in the overworld of sorts that gives you lives, continues, or even skins for you character. Even if you tune out the story, the main mode of the game has enough complexity to be enjoyed in shorter sittings but if you do power through Power Hover, you could get through the campaign and 100 percent each level in just a handful of hours.
If you play through the main levels and find that you want more out of Power Hover, the boss levels replace the fixed route style for more of an endless runner style. The boss levels forgo collecting batteries entirely in favor of just surviving for as long as possible. Each boss has it’s own visual style but is mechanically still just moving left or right. In one level, it’s left or right in a hallway, in another it’s left or right in a cylindrical tunnel. To make these levels even more interesting, the boss levels have some kind of leaderboard support so on top of just being endless levels, you can pseudo-compete against others on it as well. The actual leaderboard support is somewhat lacking as you can only see your current ranking from the overworld menu and not any time in the actual run. This means you’ll have no idea if the time ahead of you is seconds ahead or hours ahead since the run is endlessly randomly generated. Regardless, any of the individual boss levels represents more replay value than all of the core levels put together.
If you find that you want more out of Power Hover than just the main boss levels, there are also challenge levels. These are their own endless-runner-style levels with their own gameplay spin like battery collecting on an endless pipe, playing from a different perspective, or even no collecting at all on a windy Rainbow Road style level with no guard rails. At times, these challenge levels feel like they’re so far removed from the core game, specifically challenge level 2 it’s isometric camera. Regardless, they do offer more replay value to what is a very content-lite game. Every challenge level also has leaderboard support but suffers from the same problem the boss levels do with the lack of ability to see the full leaderboard or even just who is directly above you.
I mentioned multiple times that Power Hover felt very lite on content but I definitely still had fun. For what is effectively a very good phone game, you will actually end up paying closer to a phone game’s price at normally $7.99 on Steam. With that being said, some of the boss and challenge levels are fun to compete on. Being more transparent with leaderboard times and placements could make it a fun competitive game on it’s own. Even then, Power Hover could be a lot of fun if you want a smaller game to play here or there.
Power Hover was played on PC with a code provided by the developer.
