It comes really close to being something special.
Flip's Twisted World seemed like an awesome idea. Kind of Super Mario Galaxy meets Harry Potter and it comes so close to being something special but in the end it's brought down by so many technical problems, it's hard to reccomend. It's a shame too because it's part of that genre that's slowly making a comeback after a long time in exile, the platformer.
The game opens with some nicely done watercolor stills (this is a $30 budget title after all) with great narration by a wizard named Fulcrum. Fulcrum found a baby on his doorstep who he named Flip and raised him as his son, but Flip desired to learn the ways of magic to be a great wizard like Fulcrum and despite the warnings, Flip stumbles into the realm of Fulcrums magic spellbook to take on his apprentice training. Also throughout the game you'll encounter Fulcrum's friend turned rival, Axel and you'll collect journal pages telling the story of why Axel is in the realm with you and why he turned evil. There's no cutscenes and little to no voice work which is actually kind of nice for me.
The first thing you'll notice when playing is the camera is a pain in the ass. As someone who's played plenty of bad 3D Sonics, I got used to this quickly and just dealt with readjusting it as needed and that would be fine but as you play more and more little annoyances set in.
As the title suggests the big hook of this game is being able to flip the environment to explore and make your way through the level. To do this you hold down the B button then tilt the control stick to pick the direction you want the world to flip. This works most of the time but from time to time you'll tilt the wrong direction and fall to your death and in some cases if you fall too far you have to start the whole room all over again. Flip also aquires some weapons but the hit detection is off. You can swat foes with your spellbook, try to hit them with a ball and chain that has horrible hit detection or spray them with a water canon. These items, much like Zelda can also be used to open new paths.
Throughout the levels, there are coins scattered about the place that reset whenever you leave or reenter a room. Collecting them allows you to buy things like potions to restore health but thanks to the coins respawning, it's incredibly easy to to keep a full inventory and buy up as much as you can carry then again you need it in later levels. Thanks to Flip's flighty jumping, the imprecise flipping mechanic, and poor hit detection you'll die often when you shouldn't have.
On top of that, the game is just glitchy in some places. In the second level, midway through you have to escort a king to his throne but there's a point where the king needs to get into the catapult, if you accidentally get in it first, it will show a scene of the king getting to the other side but then he'll be stuck on the first side. For the love of God let the king go to the catapult first if you don't want to get stuck.
It would be easy to pass this off as another piece of "Wii Shovelware" but I really don't get that vibe from this game. I get the impression the devs wanted to make a creative platformer but perhaps didn't have enough time or funds and might have been better off making this a 2D Wiiware or Iphone game first. Flip has several colorful levels including a castle, a jungle, snowy mountains and a factory and some creative designs for the NPCs and enemies so the potential for a good game is there it just fails on the basic technical level.
It's really a shame too because with a little more polish this could've been a decent game especially at the $30 price.