Tag: platformer

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Shelved It #3 – Yooka-Laylee

More Info from Playtonic

  • Genre: 3D Platformer
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Steam (Linux, Mac, Windows), Xbox One, Switch

Hit or miss is the best way I can describe Yooka-Laylee.  The team of ex-Rare developers clearly recognizes what made Banjo-Kazooie a good game, but at the same time it feels like they never did anything to pass that mark, and in trying to aim at nostalgia, they also didn’t fix many of the original flaws.  I got through the bulk of the first two worlds, as well as their expanded forms, and while there was definitely some fun to be had, the amount of boring fluff content, and somewhat subpar writing never really gave me a drive to plow through the slower areas of the game to see the better parts. The unfortunate thing is that there is some flashes of good here, but they tend to be balanced out by negatives at the same time.

While the various jump mechanics feel good and have a nice weight to them, the camera’s inability to not get in your way means a lot of missed jumps.  Even in areas where the camera is fixed, the sometimes strange angles and FOV selection ended up causing severe depth perception issues.  The most unfortunate thing is that the game is drop dead gorgeous, but I spent so much time fighting the camera that I never could really be at a point where I could fully enjoy it.

While the boss fights I did tended to be a lot of fun when I was doing them correctly, odd design choices on how damage occurs often frustrated me.  As an example, the World 1 boss involved leaping over rolling logs on a slope, where hitting a log would have you slide back down to the bottom.  All that was fine, but hitting a log at the top would still leave all the logs I had passed, and I could receive damage on my way back down while being significantly less controllable while sliding.

Individually some of the pages were in areas where puzzle or combat segments could be fun, but an equal amount simply involved using the duo’s powers to very slowly get up a path with little to no resistance.  The fact that the worlds are leveled up, rather than simply doing a larger spread of smaller worlds means that there’s a significant amount of retread through the environments.  Worst of all were the arcade games, which while curious, did not need to be given multiple pages to force replays.

I think if there’s anything that I found the most surprising, it’s that the writing was just not that good.  Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, or Conker’s Bad Fur Day were all examples of games out of Rare that, while goofy, had entertaining and solid writing.  The writing in this game seems to just lean on puns and self-referential one liners, a lot of which are not going to stand up 5-10 years from now.  It feels like they turned the humor knob of Conker too far, giving a story that even in the section I played never coalesced into something worth pushing me forward.

I’ve seen a lot of people saying that this game proves that 3D platformers are dead, but I’m not convinced.  I think this game just missed the mark.  Even if we just look at core 3D platformers since Rare’s heyday, we have games like Jak & Daxter, the Sly Cooper series, Mario Galaxy, or the Skylanders titles.  We can even stretch from there and go into the heavy weapon action of the Ratchet & Clank games bringing new twists on the genre.  I suspect there’s a lot of life left in this stlye of platformer, but sitting on nostalgia just isn’t doing it, particularly if the problems of the original games are just going to be ignored.

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Game Ramblings #34 – Goodbye! BoxBoy!

Info on the first two titles from Nintendo

  • Genre: Puzzle/Platformer
  • Platform: 3DS (eShop)

So ya, technically speaking this isn’t out in the US yet.  However, that fancy triple pack is out in Japan, so I had to jump at it.  The TL;DR on this series is that you play a Box…Boy that is able to spawn chains of blocks connected to his body.  You use these chains to traverse puzzle-based levels, with each world tending to be built around a series of levels with one new core mechanic.  While the gameplay of this third title is still built around that core, HAL Labs has again managed to bring a lot of new mechanics in to give another 20+ worlds of damn good puzzle solving.

If there’s one core theme that this game was built on, I’d say it was motion.  Sure, the core box chain puzzles from the first two games are there, but a lot of the new mechanics are all based around exploiting motion in some way.  Just a few of the many examples of some of the smart ways they used motion:

  • Forced movement through the use of conveyors, moving platforms, velocity-adding volumes, and water meant that timing became a lot more important puzzle-solving mechanic than just setting up chains of blocks.
  • The inclusion of things like explosives allowed for some fantastic puzzles based around blocks falls.
  • AI-based levels added secondary characters into the mix.  In particular, there were a number of escort levels that were actually fun (I’m being serious here).  There were some smart decisions in the use of AI, in particular the fact that the AI will not move forward if its path is dangerous.  It simply waits for you to makes things safe for it.
  • Gravity-based mechanics also came through a lot, with some really smart levels based around reversal of gravity, as well as levels based on weight through scales.

Each of the first 15 or so worlds tended to have one new mechanic in it.  The last 10 or so worlds and challenge worlds are where things really got interesting.  The final handful of worlds did a great job of taking the individual mechanics, and mixing them into multi-mechanic levels that test both a late night sleep deprived brain, as well as my patience in a lot of areas.  That said, this is some of the best puzzle-platform gameplay that the 3DS has seen.  Of particular note, the challenge worlds offer some mischievous changes, such as not being able to jump, or not being able to fall more than 1 block’s height.

There’s really not much to say here if you’ve played either of the first two titles in the series.  The core of the game is the same, and the new mechanics are fantastic.  If you’ve got a Japanese 3DS, it’s definitely worth picking up the triple pack if you’re a collector.  Otherwise, until this gets to the US, 3DS owners have another great title to look forward to.

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Game Ramblings #20 – Xeodrifter

More info from Renegade Kid

  • Platform: PS4
  • Genre: Action/Platformer, Metroidvania
  • Also Available On: PC, 3DS, Vita, Wii U

I’ve been grabbing a lot of the releases by Limited Run Games for my collection of late, and being a fan of Metroidvania games, this one was at the top of my list.  While this isn’t the best Metroidvania I’ve ever played, it’s one of best in terms of its raw mechanics, and that props up the main issues that I had with the game.  In the end, I really had two main issues with the game; it’s length and repetition of boss battles.

Unlike Metroid’s generally single open world, Xeodrifter takes place on 4 smaller locations.  While there is a bit of revisiting to each location, the small size means there is not much in the way of secret paths to visit.  There are a handful of spots in each world with hidden health or weapon upgrades, but not the breadth of secret areas that the Metroid games use to open up entirely new paths for core traversal.

Like Metroid, each core upgrade is also given after a boss battle.  However, the bosses in Xeodrifter all have the same visual design, other than a color palette swap.  Each battle also builds on top of the previous, with largely the same mechanics, with generally a single addition using the skill learned from the previous battle.  By the end of the game, this makes the boss fights quite a lot easier, as you’ve generally already learned the pattern of how to beat the boss, and can generally make a pretty good guess at what the new mechanic will be.

That said, mechanically this game really does shine.  It’s core shooting and movement is extremely fluid, and at a generally faster pace than would be expected out of the bigger names titles in the genre.  The upgrades also add a lot of flexibility to the game, with the standout probably being the upgrade that allows you to pass between different depths in the scene, not unlike the 3D gameplay used in recent 3DS Kirby titles.  Combined with other abilities, such as the submarine and dashing, you’ll often be juggling movement and shooting across multiple planes of gameplay at the same time.

Also of note is the gun upgrade system.  This game ignores the more standard straight beam upgrades from Metroid in place of a point-based upgrade system.  The guns can be upgraded in 5 ways; bullet size, bullet speed, fire rate, fire spread, and movement wave width.  Because of this, the guns can be upgraded in a way that suits the player’s style, rather than just being a straight upgrade.  For example, I maxed bullet size and fire rate, while putting a few points into the movement wave.  What this gave me was effectively a machine gun shooting large pellets, while moving in a small wave pattern.  I could have just as easily made a powerful slow firing shotgun, or something akin to a rail gun depending on how I wanted to play.  It was a truly fun way for them to handle the hidden upgrades typical of the genre.

Generally speaking, if you’re a fan of Metroidvanias, this is probably worth a try.  The game has its issues, but it has great core mechnicas, and is relatively cheap, so for a bit of a time filler, it’s worth the play.