There has been a growing trend of rebooting fairy tales into something a shade darker or more twisted. Hansel and Gretel, for example, became witch hunters in a movie, and Snow White became a warrior who saves forest denizens from an evil queen. Under the guidance of American McGee, Alice became deranged as she returned to Wonderland. Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries takes Red Riding Hood down the path of the gritty reboot, but several issues in the construction mar the game's potential.

At first, the story seems to adapt some ideas from the original story into a more fantastical setting. You play as Red Riding Hood, but you're all grown up. Your parents died years ago, forcing your grandmother to raise you alone. Aside from taking care of your well-being, she also trained you to fight, a skill that's beneficial since you want revenge for your father's death. Your target is B.B. Woolfe, the owner of the company that employed your father and owns the town of Ulrica. Believing him to be the cause of your father's demise, you set forth on your quest.

Though the main plot is very straightforward, everything surrounding it is more interesting. There's a subplot involving the disappearance of girls throughout the town. There's also a mystery behind Red's parents, though it seems contradictory when it comes to how Red's mother disappeared and how Red stumbled upon her father. Then there's another plot dealing with the development of weapons used to control the town. The issue with these threads is that they're left unresolved, no doubt to serve as plots for the sequel.

For the most part, Woolfe plays like a standard action platformer with some 2.5D movement. Red traverses some linear landscapes, double-jumping over pits and shimmying across pipes and rooftop edges. At times, she encounters some switch puzzles, but none can be considered complicated. She also gets involved in 2-D or 3-D chase levels. When she isn't platforming, she's fighting with her ax, unleashing light and heavy attacks in successive combos in addition to coming up with special moves, like an ax slam. There are also a few sections where you're tasked with looking around your environment to discover clues and other tidbits that help enhance the story.

On paper, this sounds fine, but the actual application is marred by a few elements. The first concerns the flow of the game. For the most part, the pacing is fine, but the exploration sections feel too long, especially since they only manage to set up the second episode. The checkpoints may be placed in the correct spaces, but the game has a bad habit of resurrecting enemies, whether or not you hit a checkpoint after defeating them. While the checkpoint system seems generous, it is the complete opposite with boss fights, where you always start at the beginning of the fight no matter how far you've gotten and how many cut scenes you've seen. Others may complain that the length of the game is too short, which the developers defended by saying the game was split in two to give players some of the experience now while they wait. Based on how the flow tends to make the game feel longer, the length may just be right.

The second element that's not fully realized is the platforming. Early on, the game is quite adept in this department, mostly because there's nothing that is too challenging. By the time you reach the halfway point, though, problems arise. The lack of color separation leads to situations where you miss jumps or don't realize you've hit spikes that cause instant death. Landings become floaty, and heights are inconsistent. Cut scenes show Red jumping from high places, but if you attempt to do the same, she is badly injured or dies. Land on sloped surfaces, and she floats in the air until the game decides the ground is at the proper angle to land. The highlighting of ledges disappears later on, making everything guesswork in an area where most of the land lacks collision and the angle of the camera makes it difficult to determine how far you are from a land mass. The platforming goes from solid to frustrating quickly, and even though it goes back to solid ground right before the end, it's worrisome if the rest of the game depends heavily on this kind of gameplay.

The final element that needs work is the combat, and it is probably the most disappointing of all of the major issues. Though Red can execute some nice-looking combos, the flash associated with her strikes obscures enemy movement to the point where they can sneak in hits without your knowledge. Her strikes lack power, and they hardly affect the enemies. Likewise, her enemies fail to react to her hits, causing a situation where everyone slashes at each other until someone falls. Then there's the fact that Red can barely take any damage before falling. Normal enemies give her a hard time, and bosses have enough moves in their arsenal to knock her down in one hit. With a HUD that can falsely show you with energy even though you're knocked out, the combat just isn't tuned correctly.

Graphically, it looks rather good. Made with Unreal Engine 3, Woolfe adheres to the grays and whites that most of the previous-generation games have used far too often. The game still impresses due to the quality of the textures and the burst of color later in the game. The character models follow the aesthetic of American McGee's Alice in that the human characters are a bit grotesque because of their somewhat-large eyes. Meanwhile, only the clockwork soldiers and bosses look interesting, since the other enemies you face — rats and disfigured fairies — seem rather pedestrian. Animations are also done well, but some of the transitions are rough. The pivoting by a large rat in the early portion of the game is rather archaic when compared to everything else.

As far as audio goes, the game hits most of its marks. The music is dark but still exciting, and no track feels out of place. There is an issue with it stuttering during level loads, however, and the fact that there seems to be no moments of silence on this front can be good or bad, depending on the scenario. The effects are likewise fine, and the voice acting is rather good, even if you don't care for the rhyming nature of the dialogue. The change in speech type from poetic to sarcastic at the drop of a hat can be jarring, but as long as you're fine with the fact that only one voice speaks throughout, it works out fine.

Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries feels like squandered potential. Though the gritty reboot theme has been done countless times, the environment and backstory still seem interesting. With the exception of a few segments, the graphics and sound are very nice, and controls are rather tight. The platforming suffers from a few problems in spots, and the combat feels weak, something that's sorely needed in action platformers like this. The short release here hopefully gives the team the necessary time to polish things up for the sequel later this year, but for this entry, it is difficult to recommend, especially at the current price point.

Score: 5.5/10