Hopper and Spadebeard’s Treasure (Nintendo Switch) – The test

Hopper and the Spadebeard’s Treasure is an action-adventure and 3D platform video game released on October 14, 2025 on l’eShop of the Nintendo Switch at €29.99.

This title, from Belgian studio N-Zone Production, is the first video game adapted from the Hopper universe, a Belgian intellectual property initially brought to the screen by the animation studio nWave Pictures.

Founded in Belgium, N-Zone Production is both the developer and publisher of the title, thus ensuring complete control over the choices of the games it produces.

It’s the story of the bad guy and the good guys.

The story centers on the terrible pirate Spadebeard, who discovers and seizes the Rainbow Feather, a powerful artifact that allows travel across worlds.

While Hopper (half-rabbit, half-chicken) trains, he is joined by his friends Meg the skunk and Archie the turtle. Unfortunately, the alert is given following the presence of Barbe-Pique, who stole one of the Rainbow Feather crystals from Hopper’s father. His goal: to gather all the crystals in order to complete the Feather and plunge the different kingdoms into chaos.

Hopper and his friends then embark on an “epic” quest through these magical worlds. Their goal is to recover the seven gems stolen before the pirate to prevent the incomplete Feather from wreaking havoc and restore stability.

The story seems clear, unfortunately it will be poorly exploited with fairly forgettable “gags” and clumsily told adventures, which makes the adventure superficial. The dialogues are entirely intended for a very young audience, a little too simplistic for video game veterans.

Beyond these aspects, the game does not offer the French version of the films, only the English dubbing. On the other hand, the subtitles are in French but sometimes switch without explanation to the language of Shakespeare.

Three heroes but one would have been enough

You control our three heroes, who share basic controls such as jumping, wielding the whip to stun enemies, and the ability to swing on a ring to reach distant platforms.

Each hero has their own abilities:

The chicken-rabbit can hover and will be most practical for platforming phases.

The turtle can destroy certain floors using its shell and is the only character who can do the slide phases.

The skunk can easily defeat everyone by using its fists or releasing foul-smelling gas around it.

Aside from the fact that the game is based on the Hopper film, it would have greatly benefited from fluidity by offering a single character, or abilities that would make the change more interesting.

Finally, you won’t need to change heroes just to break the ground, slide (which any character should be able to do) and beat up enemies faster.

Getting started is relatively easy, no matter who you’re controlling. However, there is a feeling of heaviness as soon as you perform various jumps or actions, as if the game was trying to make you understand something, preventing you from carrying out your maneuver. Still, overall, it remains easily playable.

The camera can also be quite strange: it shows what needs to be done, then at times, it seems to move away or to focus poorly on the action.

Still regarding the camera, you will be able to easily access off-camera places which serve no purpose, except to leave doubt of a hidden object when most often, it is just an unused space.

The enemies are a joke: they’re just living punching bags that you should easily defeat, especially with Meg the skunk. Simply hit, jump on them or use your whip to eliminate them in one or two hits.

The bosses are not more difficult, with predictable phases. You will have plenty of time to dodge and counterattack; only your lack of attention can get the better of you.

The level design seems constantly the same: lots of platforms, spike traps everywhere, fans to throw you higher, hooks to hang on with your whip and void everywhere.

Once again, you will have the impression of having already seen this elsewhere, so much so that you will feel like you are in the cliché of the cursed temple, protected by an ancient civilization, equipped with traps visited and revisited.

There are some puzzles as well, but just pull a lever once or twice and it will be solved.

You won’t miss the Wii

The graphics are pretty ugly; the game could have been released on Wii in a more blurred version. Up close, you will notice the lack of detail in the settings and the different 3D models, with a cruel poverty in the colors and a lack of variety in the expressions of the characters.

The game takes place in 5 different worlds, but none stands out more than another. The only time the graphics are more watchable is during dubbed cutscenes, where the quality increases slightly, although it’s still quite comical.

The animations are generic, nothing really special; it’s déjà vu in countless licensed games. The lack of impact of different actions is felt, with characters performing their generic actions, as if everything you do is trivial.

Music? Should I have made one?

Accompanied by rather generic graphics, you have music that fights to be heard because it is so silent. They never feel like the center of the action and are so generic that they don’t fit well into the action at hand.

The sound design isn’t any better, with a good portion of the cutscenes undubbed. We said that the graphics lacked impact, and this is not helped by the sound design which is even more discreet than the music, and by the fact that a good part of the actions do not cause any sound, which removes all the weight behind your actions.

It’s short, but it seems too long for the wrong reasons

The game is made up of five worlds, each divided into three levels and a boss. It will take approximately three to four hours to complete, but each level lasts ten minutes or less, regardless of whether you’re aiming for 100% or not. Overall, the adventure is very short, even for a platformer, but you’re doing so much of the same thing that its duration seems extremely long.

The 100% lasts just a little longer. You will just have to make sure to collect all the coins (whether on the ground or in crates), find all the chests and avoid dying the number of times required by the level. Since the difficulty of the game is very low, you will have no problem achieving 100% on your first playthrough. But, there’s no real reward for doing it, and unless you miss a single piece (which can easily happen), you’ll take barely any more time than your main adventure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BP2Vb4P4yI