Bionic Bay is a very atmospheric 2D puzzle platformer that feels like Portal by way of Limbo
Bionic Bay is a phenomenal game. It’s extremely well-oiled, it’s perfect platforming, it has incredible momentum-based physics. The only issue, really, is that there just aren’t enough eyes on it. Not enough people know it exists. But they definitely should, because it’s wonderful.
In the game a science experiment has happened and now we’re trapped in a techno-organic hell world. It’s in 2D, so we have to platform around to get to wherever we’re going. That platforming feels great. We have a cool run, jump, dive, and even a roll kind of thing that makes it very Mario 64-ish. I can see a platform ahead, run and push the dive button, and it gives me just enough monentum to make it to the other side of the platform. In fact there’s so much great movement that our dude gets thrown around a lot to the point where he takes some tumbles and we wonder, I don’t know how you’re OK, but here you go, man.
But that’s only part of it. The game also has all kinds of crazy tools that change the gameplay, and they don’t always last that long, either. There are times where we get a tool to change some things for a good portion of the game and then we never see it again. It feels like the develoeprs said, okay, you liked it? Cool, you’re now done with that one. The coolest tool that kind of really makes the gameplay something special is a sort of teleport that uses our main locomotion. There are loose objects that we can touch with the tool which sort of tags it. And when we tag it, we can swap places with it.
One example is when we face a hazard that’s firing at us. We see an object, tag it and wait for the hazard to get through one part of its cycle, then we teleport with the object to swap places and run away. Or, we can use that object as a barrier if the hazard’s cycle is longer. Or tag and teleport an object that blocks a laser hazard completely. It works smoothly, and yet we can mess up our timing and have an object land on top of and kill us. Bionic Bay knows that we’re going to go through this a lot, so it’s very forgiving with its checkpoints.
It’s a gorgeous looking game. From the layers to the particle physics. The aesthetic is what really sells this game, becuase there are times where we might feel like it’s not realizing its potential completely in the gameplay/platforming side but the visuals more than make up for our time on any specific screen.
Bionic Bay is something that may slip through the cracks, especially with all of the big releases and new platforms on the way, but it’s genuinely a game that needs to be played.
This Review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest for May 20, 2025. Images and video courtesy publisher.
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