Category: Platformer

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Game Ramblings #56.1 – A Hat in Time – Switch + DLC

Original Ramblings

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: Switch
  • Also Available On: Windows, MacOS, PS4, Xbox One

I picked up A Hat in Time on Switch, largely so I could have a physical copy of it for my collection. However, a secondary reason was to go back and play through the DLC that’s come out in the last two years since the original release. Going back and playing through the game in full was just as fun the second time around. New content, plus a whole lot of additional polish made this a really easy game to fall right back into.

The new content in place is definitely a bit of a mixed bag, but what’s there is still a lot of fun. I basically got two new worlds to play through, plus a bunch more side content. Arctic Cruise was a short chapter, falling in at only three acts. However, it’s got some of my favorite pure platforming in the game. It’s also a largely fetch quest-based level, where you’re running around doing chores and collecting people. Nyakuza Metro was a much larger free roam world. The free roam part was a lot of fun, but I was probably most impressed by the fact that it had an escape sequence instead of a boss at the end. It wasn’t quite a Metroid timed escape, but the change of pace right at the end of my play through was definitely welcome.

On the other side though, I really got nothing out of the new Death Wish mode. It’s basically a set of tasks where you replay previous time pieces with some tweaks and secondary goals. Had I been going back to the PC version, this would have been a good way for me to fall back into the game before the DLC. However, after playing through the game fresh I really didn’t want to replay the content AGAIN. Definitely an interesting idea given the release schedule, but really didn’t work out for my timing in how I was playing.

As far as the Switch goes, it also did a pretty solid job of keeping the game running. Visually it’s definitely not up to the PC version, but it fell into what I’d generally call good enough. Everything looks pretty good in motion, and it’s not jarring in a way that I wouldn’t come back to the game on the platform. The framerate is also generally pretty solid throughout. Ya there’s a few places where the framerate obviously dips, and there’s definitely a handful of spots where as an Unreal developer I’m left groaning at garbage collection hitches, but by and large it was never a particular issue.

Controls wise, it also nailed it. While that shouldn’t be unexpected given it was a standard platformer scheme, I was super comfortable playing on TV with the pro controller, as well as handheld on the Joycons in bed. There’s definitely been a layer of polish added to overall movement and camera work in the two years since as well. While that was never a particular issue when I last played it, it was nice to see that things had seen that push to improve anyway.

In general, it’s pretty rare that I go back to games and actually finish them again, let alone play through more new content that I’d never played before. There’s usually something stupid in my replay that makes me go “forget this, moving on.” I’m glad that this was one of the cases where the game was worth playing again front to back. It was a more polished experience, with more content, on a completely different platform, and it was just as fun the second time around.

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Game Ramblings #103 – Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

More Info from Playtonic Games

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Windows, Switch, Xbox One

Where the original Yooka-Laylee was a clear love letter to 3D collectathons like Banjo Kazooie, this game is a love letter to 2D platformers like Donkey Kong Country. With the loss of a dimension of movement, we’ve ended up with a much more solid game. The levels are filled with great platforming and secrets to find. The overworld is more than just a set, and has a ton of puzzles to solve. However, the Impossible Lair of the name ended up being a bit of a head scratcher, and marred the ending of what was ultimately a really fun game.

This is through and through a Donkey Kong Country game in everything but IP. There’s a bunch of 2D levels with feathers instead of bananas, gold coins instead of KONG letters, feather-covered barrels, obnoxiously slow swimming levels, etc. Hell, there’s even a roll with an intentional jump that can be triggered in mid-air if you’re quick enough. However, despite being a mechanical copy, it definitely does a great job of getting those mechanics extremely right.

If there’s one thing I’d consistently point at as the difference between good and bad platformers, it would be the feel of momentum in the game, and this one gets it really right. It’s not just that running feels right. It’s little things like extra speed from rolling giving you extra jump height. It’s jumping off a platform to the right, switching direction in mid air, and smoothly moving back left to get to the platform above you without bonking your head. It’s smooth sequences like a roll off a ledge into a mid-air jump into a spin to give you just that little bit of extra distance to get to that platform with some hidden secret. It’s timing your jump off a moving platform to get a little extra momentum to get a hard to reach feather. All of these little interactions mean so much to a 2D platformer, and they’re done extraordinarily well here.

The thing that Yooka-Laylee doesn’t copy from DKC is their overworld. The one in place here is platformer overworld on steroids. It’s not just that the overworld here is non-linear, although that’s pretty neat itself. It’s that the overworld is literally filled with puzzles and interactable elements, a lot of which have an impact on the levels. See a level sitting in a pool of water? Throw an ice bomb at it, and now you have a level variant covered in ice. Have a level that takes place on a bridge? Lift the bridge and now you’re climbing the bridge instead of crossing a bridge. It becomes a clever way to get reuse out of levels without feeling repetitive while also providing a nice change of pace in puzzle solving between levels.

You mean I wasn’t supposed to be playing a Game Boy game?

There’s also a ton of collectable tonics in the overworld to puzzle out. Some of these may help or hurt you, with things like checkpoint count reductions or increased movement speed. Some of them are just silly, like the Game Boy color and resolution filters above. These are just another fun little thing to go looking for as a break between levels.

The overworld basically ends up being a nice way to break up the gameplay. You aren’t always in full speed platforming, and you aren’t always in full on puzzle solving mode. The cadence of doing a level, then doing a puzzle ended up being a great way to pace out periods of high stress and keep me playing at a pretty level clip.

These claws are as crushing as having to repeat completed sections of the Impossible Lair.

All that said, the “Impossible Lair” of the title had me scratching my head a bit. This level is effectively the end boss fight of the game, and consists of a no-checkpoint level with multiple boss fights sandwiched around longer stretches of high difficulty platforming. If you die, you go right back to the beginning with no skip forward in progress.

One of the core ideas behind it is that completing levels and searching the overworld gives you bees that act as a shield for this level. One damage hit = one bee. Running out of bees then dipped into the Yooka+Laylee pair mechanic, and you could indefinitely run until you lost both of them. What I suspect this was supposed to do was make the level easier to complete. What it instead did was simply just make my practice runs longer. Ultimately it didn’t really matter if I had 1 or 100 hits of damage to take going through a level if it was new to me. I was probably going to take some hits, I was probably going to learn the things to avoid pretty quickly, and on my next run through, I was going to avoid taking (most) damage. This generally stood as accurate, as each run into new areas generally was getting me 10-15% farther into the level.

The issue with all of this is that it was extremely boring. By my 3rd run I was already past 50% of level completion, which meant that each run through the level was already putting me at 5+ minutes of action that I’d already completed. Dying that deep into the level was a huge waste of time, and instead of feeling challenged, I simply felt bored. It’s not difficulty for the sake of pulling off skill-based mechanics. It’s difficulty for the sake of memorizing a long sequence of things to avoid. That kind of gameplay is just uninteresting to me.

What it really felt like was needed was a skill-based checkpoint system for the level. Complete an area with no damage taken? Great, here’s a checkpoint. You’ve proven you’ve mastered this area, so stop wasting your time. That little change both solves the boredom problem AND would have allowed them to make the lair experience longer and more compelling, rather than have it sit in the experience it is now.

Weird ending aside though, this was a fantastically fun game. Despite the fact that we recently got the Switch port of DKC: Tropical Freeze, I really am happy to see more quality straight 2D platformers. We see a lot of Metroidvania-esque titles at this point, but we really don’t see many games like this. Despite my misgivings about the end, this one still very strongly falls into the recommended category. There’s a ton of game to enjoy up to the end, and for that it’s worth the play.

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Game Ramblings #102 – Iconoclasts

More Info from Konjak/Bifrost

  • Genre: Metroidvania
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Vita, Windows, macOS, Linux, Switch

It’s no surprise that I like Metroidvanias, so hopping at another indie take on the genre is never something I’m going to argue. A lot of the time it can feel like they’re trying to out difficulty each other instead of just having compelling gameplay. Luckily, Iconoclasts definitely falls into the latter category. It combines some solid gunplay with interesting puzzle mechanics to really be a standout entry in the genre.

The big thing to notice was really how variety was pulled into this game, in a way that isn’t necessarily typical of the genre. It has a few things that are your typical “door opener” type of upgrade, but the more often than not, upgrades were used to solve full room puzzles that ended with the room being permanently traversable in a fast way, rather than being something that has to be run through every time. It was a nice difference to the norm where retraversal for new upgrades or new paths was generally going to be done as quick as possible to minimize wasted time.

A lot of this is built into the player’s weapon set – a giant wrench for melee, and a set of a pistol, grenade launcher, and beam pistol for ranged. Some examples of upgrades include an electric charge that is used to raise and lower platforms, the wrench’s built in ability to turn bolts to open doors, or a spin maneuver used to quickly crank gears. The electric charge is also built into the grenade weapon – any launched grenades while charged gain an electric charge – and some blocks that can hold a charge. This wide range of abilities are all built into the puzzle sets, where some puzzles require multiple combinations of the skill range to complete.

In practice, it works extremely well. Puzzle rooms are pretty well segregated from combat, allowing the player the time to think and plan for how to complete the room. The puzzles are also more often than not focused around a new power, giving the player a good chance to reenforce the use of any new skill.

These abilities also extend into combat. Each of the ranged weapons have a secondary charge mode – for example, the pistol charges into a shotgun blast, the grenade into a missile – that are used as ways to take out enemies in unique ways. This is particularly important in boss fights, where they will generally be specifically weak to either a specific mode of a weapon, or a specific area in the combat arena. Because of this setup, the bosses are more often than not a puzzle in itself, alongside needing to it out.

This is probably the point where the game really earned its fun for me. The game is challenging but fair, instead of being difficult for the sake of difficulty. I definitely died a few times, but it was either because I was being careless, or because I was learning new mechanics. Bosses will hit you if you aren’t careful, but you’re not going to die in a couple hits. You’ll die to trash if you’re not avoiding damage, but you’ll be fine if you’re paying attention. More often than not, the bosses also have adds that spawn health. It feels like the developers want you to win, and give you ways to do so, as long as you’re generally moving forward and learning as you go. That difference there has often been a rare thing to find in the independent scene in the past few years.

Add this one to the list of Metroidvanias that I’ve been playing over the last few years, and more importantly, put this one up at the top. It was able to combine really solid combat, really solid puzzles, and gorgeous visuals into a package that punches above its weight. This one avoided the indie trap of being exceedingly difficult, and instead crafted a great experience that was challenging but fair. This game took a long time to come out, but the effort definitely shows, and I’m hopeful that whatever comes next out of the team’s brains can be similarly positive in whatever genre they pick.