The Legend of Santa is a new retro-style platformer that’s got a fun holiday theme, and bears more than a few resemblances to a certain series of Nintendo games. But is it worth your time? Here’s our review. 

I should have known better. On paper, everything about this game screams “don’t buy this.” But there was something about its look that captured my interest. Yes, it’s a brazen ripoff of Super Mario Bros., but if you’re going to rip something off, why not rip off the best, right? The trailer promised an absurd plot involving evil penguins, trolls, zombies, and various other nonsense. It didn't have to be great, but if it was at least competent and maybe had some good music, I could see myself having a good time. So I took the whopping $5 plunge, and you know what? It was almost worth it. 

The best way I can describe this game is “the most bland Mario levels you can imagine.” Absolutely nothing of interest happens in any of the levels, with the exception of that one where you play upside down, which, for the record, I hated, but that’s just a me thing. The enemies are extremely basic in their movements and patterns, and the level designs are somehow simultaneously too simple, and too complicated. Allow me to explain. Everything is incredibly basic. Walk forward, get past enemies, reach the finish. But there are also some levels where you can take multiple paths. Except there’s no reward for doing so, and it’s sometimes hard to tell that those other areas are even there. 

There is a powerup system, which, and try to contain your shock, mimics Super Mario Bros. pretty closely. If you take a hit, you wind up in your underwear, similar to Ghosts n Goblins. So a Santa outfit is a Super Mushroom. You can get some sort of equivalent to fireballs, which I think are supposed to be lumps of coal maybe? Whatever they are, they function exactly like getting a Fire Flower. Then there’s a candy cane powerup, which instead of pulling from Mario, pulls from Adventure Island (or Wonder Boy if you’re a Sega kid) and gives you what is effectively the hammer from those games. Functionally identical as far as I can tell. Not exactly inspired stuff, but serviceable. 

This makes for a remarkably easy game, for the most part. The only real challenge comes from random elements, which can make for some frustrating bits. Take the lava levels, for example. Lava bubbles jump in and out of the lava, exactly like in Super Mario Bros., except with one major difference. There’s no predictable cooldown time. Their jumps are completely randomized, which means there’s a chance that when the bubble lands and you think it’s safe to jump because you have at least a second before it jumps out again, it will instead immediately jump again and hit you, and there’s no way to plan for this. Same goes for the Troll boss. His pattern is incredibly simple, but not at all predictable, so it’s possible to wind up dying a handful of times to what can only be described as cheap deaths. There’s also a ripoff of the Angry Sun, and at one point you have to contend with two of them at the same time. It’s exactly as awful as that sounds. 

But honestly, almost all of this would have been easy to forgive, even its incredibly short runtime (I beat the game in under an hour) if the presentation had stuck the landing. Santa has a great design, and the levels themselves look nice enough, but there’s almost nothing underneath the surface here, especially in terms of music. A good soundtrack can elevate a mediocre game quite a bit, but the music in The Legend of Santa all sounds like the most generic synthesized off-brand Christmas tunes imaginable. 

There are a ton of simple platformers out there. Take something like Dadish, for example. It’s not a complicated game, and its graphics are simple, but you can tell they were made with a degree of care and creativity that elevates their simple concept to become genuinely great games to play. That never happens here. There’s no clever writing, no neat tricks, no inspired music, nothing. 

I had really hoped this game would be a joyful, short little platformer with some fun music and just enough heart to overlook its faults to become an annual holiday must-play. Unfortunately, it absolutely wasn't that for me. Even at its low price, I can’t in good conscience recommend The Legend of Santa. 

Humbug. 

The Legend of Santa is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Steam.