Billy hatches

Some of the helpful items you’ll find are butterflies that restore your health or monkeys that knock out all onscreen enemies with the press of the Y button. You’ll have to enlist the help of egg animals. After an animal is hatched, Billy can command their powers using the X button. Common egg animals have elemental powers of ice, water, fire, wind, lightning, etc. Just like how the eggs themselves are required to progress through a level, certain egg animal powers must be used to defeat enemies. For example, on a “fire level” you’ll need to hatch Richie the Seal to put a few mini-bosses on ice.

Control woes

One thing holding Billy Hatcher back from greatness is the control. Understandably, Billy controls different when he’s rolling an egg around with his hands, but the controls take a change for the worse. Billy demonstrates that he’s able to turn sharp corners while dealing with an egg many times his size; but occasionally, when you ask for a slightly greater change of direction (or to stop completely), all motion grinds/skids to a halt with Billy grabbing hold of the egg and sliding a small distance. While we understand how inertia works, the controls in Billy Hatcher feel inconsistent. This often leads to unnecessary deaths, which you’ll be more often blaming the controls for rather than yourself.

Other instances of frustrating physics show themselves as Billy jumps from ledge to ledge with an egg in his hands. If you don’t land without enough clearance from the edge, the egg will make it but Billy will not, possibly leading to another lost life.