SANABI

Cyberpunk as a genre is often suffocated by its own tropes—neon-soaked rain, corporate overlords, and the inevitable “high tech, low life” mantra. Yet, every so often, a project emerges that uses these familiar pillars not as a crutch, but as a stage for something genuinely visceral. WONDER POTION’s debut title, SANABI, is that project. It doesn’t just ask you to navigate a dystopia; it demands you tear through it at terminal velocity using nothing but a signature chain-hook prosthetic arm and a retired veteran’s sheer willpower.

Set in the hauntingly empty Mago City, a high-tech metropolis where the entire population has vanished into thin air, SANABI positions the player as a legendary veteran on a collision course with a mysterious entity. The setup feels like standard revenge fare, but the execution is anything but. This is a game of momentum. While its peers often focus on the “dash” or the “double jump,” SANABI centers its entire identity on the arc of a swing. The movement is the core language of the game, not simply a way to get from point A to point B.

Developed by a small South Korean team and published by NEOWIZ, the game carries a distinct “Neo-Seoul” identity that differentiates it from the Western-centric cyberpunk the genre has grown accustomed to. It’s a world that feels both hyper-modern and deeply traditional, a contrast reflected in the protagonist’s own journey. With the “A Haunted Day” prequel expansion, the lore has only deepened, cementing SANABI as a standout indie that earns comparison to heavyweights like Celeste and Katana Zero. It is a refined, high-stakes piece of digital craftsmanship that respects the player’s intelligence and their reflexes.

• The Chain-Hook Mechanic: A physics-based grappling system that serves as the primary tool for both traversal and combat. It requires a nuanced understanding of centrifugal force and timing.
• Narrative Gravitas: A surprisingly complex story exploring themes of loss, fatherhood, and revenge, delivered through expressive pixel-art cinematics.
• Neo-Seoul Aesthetic: High-fidelity pixel art paired with a synth-heavy, atmospheric soundtrack that captures the isolation of a deserted mega-city.

The brilliance of SANABI lies in its refusal to compromise on its central conceit. In most action-platformers, the grappling hook is a secondary tool—a situational “get out of jail free” card. Here, it is everything. The Gameplay Loop is built entirely around the tension and release of that chain. To play SANABI well is to maintain a constant state of flow, swinging through skyscraper canyons and using momentum to smash through enemies like a kinetic wrecking ball.

Mechanical Purity

The design of the hook is impeccable. There is a weight to the protagonist that requires accounting for gravity and inertia. This isn’t clicking on a point and teleporting there; it’s anchoring yourself and managing a swing. That creates a steep but rewarding learning curve. Once the physics click, the game transforms: platforms become arcs. The transition from swinging to a high-speed dash is designed to feel like snapping a rubber band, a tactile satisfaction few 2D games achieve.

The Narrative Ambush

SANABI presents itself as a “pure” mechanical exercise and then ambushes the player with emotional storytelling. The game uses its “Neo-Seoul” backdrop to tell a story that is intimately human. The mystery of why Mago City is empty serves as the hook, but the relationship between the characters keeps the line taut. The narrative doesn’t just sit in the background; it drives the level design. However, this focus on story leads to the game’s most polarizing element: Dialogue Pacing. SANABI is wordy. It frequently pauses the action for character beats. The writing is sharp enough to justify the interruptions, but players looking for the uninterrupted flow of a “speedrun” game may find the frequent halts jarring.

Complexity and Friction

As the late-game sections arrive, the difficulty spikes are steep and hard to miss. WONDER POTION demands near-perfect execution of the hook-and-dash combo. Some of the later platforming puzzles feel less like “action” and more like high-speed logic problems, where one missed click results in an immediate reset. The design is challenging but rarely unfair: failure is almost always a matter of misjudging an angle, not the game failing to register an input.

Visually, SANABI uses Environmental Storytelling through pixels to great effect. The lighting effects—neon signs reflecting off slick metal surfaces, the glow of the chain-hook in the dark—give the game a look most indie titles lack. The animations are fluid, particularly the way the protagonist’s cloak billows to indicate speed and direction. The soundtrack is equally vital, a pulsing synth-wave score that builds in intensity as momentum increases, effectively acting as an audio cue for performance. As a 2D game of this scope, it is light on hardware demands.

On Steam, the analog-stick support provides the granular control needed for the 360-degree aiming of the hook. On the Nintendo Switch, the experience is largely consistent, though the smaller Joy-Con sticks can feel less precise during the more demanding late-game gauntlets, and handheld play is worth approaching with timing-sensitive sections in mind.

SANABI is a standout in the modern indie scene. It takes a singular mechanical idea—the grappling hook—and polishes it to a mirror sheen before wrapping it in a story that is as beautiful as it is devastating. While the pacing might frustrate those who want to skip the talk and get to the swing, the payoff is one of the more memorable conclusions in recent memory. WONDER POTION has made a good platformer, and more than that, an affecting piece of kinetic storytelling. We rate it a Great: clearly recommended, with real reservations.