Mr. Sun’s Hatbox

Mr. Sun’s Hatbox starts with a wonderfully silly grievance: Mr. Moon has stolen a hatbox, and your tiny courier outfit has to become a full-on recovery operation. That loose premise gives the game room to turn every mission into a scrappy little heist, where recruiting an enemy can be as useful as taking them out.

The hook is the constant tension between careful planning and glorious nonsense. Hats, oddball character quirks, specialist missions, and a growing base give you plenty to experiment with, while the direct side-scrolling action keeps the stakes immediate. It is a smart choice if you like roguelike runs with personality and are willing to accept some chaos as part of the fun.

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Mr. Sun’s Hatbox has the kind of setup that makes failure easier to laugh off. You begin with a lone delivery worker and gradually assemble a crew capable of tackling increasingly tricky Hat Heists. The goal is simple enough, recover the stolen delivery, but the route there is built around sending a team into missions, dealing with Mr. Moon’s minions, and deciding whether a captured thief belongs in your next operation or out of the way permanently.

Recruitment gives the action a nice tactical edge because every character comes with their own quirks. A crew member might have quick reflexes but a problem that makes them a poor fit for another job, so the game asks you to think about who is worth bringing along rather than treating everyone as interchangeable cannon fodder. That can make a successful run feel like the result of a plan, even when the plan involves a very strange hat and an even stranger weapon.

The hats are the game’s best source of playful variety. With more than 50 to discover and properties ranging from practical to intentionally pointless, they encourage experimentation instead of a single obvious loadout. Missions also change the rhythm with wave-focused action and espionage work before the bigger heists, while crowns unlock crew perks as your organization expands.

There is plenty here for a group, too. Couch co-op lets you tackle missions with a partner, and local competitive modes offer 1v1 fights or Last Hat Standing matches. The mix sounds deliberately unruly, with swords, machine guns, and stale baguettes all sharing the same battlefield. If you prefer tightly controlled, predictable action, that tonal chaos may wear thin. If you enjoy adapting a weird collection of recruits into a workable team, it is the reason to stick around.

Graphics

The vibrant pixel art suits the game’s absurd criminal world. The side-view stages and couriers keep the focus on the immediate action, while the variety of hats fits a game about turning a stolen delivery into a criminal campaign.

Story

The story knows not to overcomplicate its joke. Mr. Moon and his troublemakers steal Mr. Sun’s hatbox delivery, leaving a humble courier company to mount a rescue operation for an aspiring apparel business. It is a charmingly minor problem treated with the seriousness of a major underworld conflict.

That premise works because it gives the crew-building loop a clear purpose. Every new recruit and completed job feeds the idea that a small delivery squad is becoming an organization capable of taking on the thieves who embarrassed it.

Do not come in expecting a heavy drama. The names, the hats, and the concept of reformed hat thieves point toward a light, absurd adventure. The story is there to keep the missions moving and to make the escalating operation feel connected.

Overall Experience

Mr. Sun’s Hatbox earns its charm through contrast. It pairs a silly hatbox-retrieval plot with decisions that can matter, especially when you are choosing recruits around their strengths and liabilities. The result is a roguelike action game that sounds happy to let a carefully organized crew collide with total nonsense.

The strongest audience is anyone who likes direct 2D action but wants more personality than a straightforward run-based shooter usually offers. You get a base to build, people to recruit, perks to unlock, and hats that can alter how a mission plays. The publisher's game page gives a useful look at the central heist-and-recruitment setup.

Its crowded toolbox will not be for everyone. A player looking for one clean competitive mode or a purely focused platform shooter may find the base-building, crew management, co-op, and PvP options pulling in too many directions. But if the thought of turning a band of flawed hat thieves into a rescue squad makes you smile, Mr. Sun’s Hatbox has the right kind of crooked energy.