Seems like my VPN has been targeted for blocking by this instance which I appreciate is a security thing and prevents BS accounts from taking over the platform.

However I hold a dedicated IP with said VPN, so is it possible to unblock just my dedicated IP?

Noticed this update got pushed just now.

Edit: Seems they’re doing this to prevent costs from arbitration. Read comment below.

Noticed this just moments ago and got this email. At first seeing this I thought that were forcing users into arbitration like many other companies have trended towards. That and the denial of class action suits included in many ToS agreements take away the users rights.

This is a promising move from Steam from a layman’s perspective. I’m surprised this has happened considering Valve did not need to do this and it protects them legally from their users.

Edit: Seems like this is being done because of ongoing lawsuits with Valve so they did in fact need to do this, still possibly a win for consumers.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18115420

TL;DR This is a review of both Turnip Boy indie games. The first is a sort of classic Zelda clone, the second is a rogue-lite twin stick shooter. Both are short to play and I recommend them but especially the second game.

Tax Evasion Persuasion

The last thing I ever want my veggies doing is paying unjust taxes. The good news is that Turnip Boy does not want to. The first game of these two is one that I played months back and I ended up having a really good time with it. This game is obviously based on some of the older adventure games, particularly older Zelda games, and so you should expect that coming in. It mostly consists of doing small quests for people but the game never gets too elaborate and does not have a huge map making it too complex.

What even is a joke game?

I'll bring this up again later but this game is very lighthearted and most of the mechanics here are in service to the comedy and joking nature of the game and its characters. If you've ever played a game that does this, you'll know already that this tends to polarize the game into being either way too focused on the joke to the detriment of the gameplay, or it ends up with the gameplay being passable but the joke falling flat on its face. I'm happy to report that this game does neither of those things and balanced it pretty well, though not to my full satisfaction.

If only the Triforce was cantaloupe

In totality, the first game is a nice and tidy adventure with a decent amount of fun and jokes and with just enough depth to sell the fun of the game without over complicating it or dragging it on for too long. You can beat this in just a couple of sittings and if "Classic Zelda joke game" sounds like a good time to you, go play it!

He's not done squashing yet

To move on to the second game, Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, this is where I had most of my fun. The game becomes a twin stick shooter on just one map where you break into a bank, take as much cash as you can, leave, and repeat until you've found and defeated all of the bosses and done as many quests as you have desire for. Unlike other rogue-lite games, this one is very approachable and not having a procedurally generated levels means that you get to know where you're going over time. The jokes are also better though the story is lighter here. All of that exists in the shadow of the gunplay though, the weapons here are the real highlight. The first game I didn't really find much challenge at all with, the actual gameplay was almost more about questing than its bosses. Here though, you have some decent boss fights and enemies, very fun mechanics.

Theres a few donut sized holes

The main criticisms here are that despite the mechanics being deeper: There is a gun locker that is almost pointless, the upgrades don't feel balanced, the gun trade in system is not worth utilizing, and the different areas do not do money scaling very well.

A good example is that you have items that cost 10k and you're working towards upgrades that cost 25k. You could buy the upgrades, but it is pointless because the progression item at 10k unlocks and area that lets you get a trophy for 100k with almost no effort. I think that the treasures on the pedestals needed to be scaled better, they kind of undermine the whole game.

This summary is a pickle, or just a vinegar cucumber

Both of these games are worth playing for entirely separate reasons and both will take you no more than 5 hours to beat, I'd estimate 3-4 for most people. They're short but in a very good way and a nice refresher from a long RPG playthrough. As good as these games are though, they don't survive without their specific brand of humor. One is a very short and simple adventure game, the other is a short and simple rogue-lite. I really hope that the developer feels they are able to make a longer game if they feel like doing so because I'd like to see how they could make these mechanics work without just using them as a backdrop to cheeky dialog.

But that's it, I hope that you go play one or both of these games if you have time. Both of these are also simple enough that they'd be welcoming to newcomers to their genres.

People who have played these games, feel free to throw in what you like and didn't like below. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18115420

TL;DR This is a review of both Turnip Boy indie games. The first is a sort of classic Zelda clone, the second is a rogue-lite twin stick shooter. Both are short to play and I recommend them but especially the second game.

Tax Evasion Persuasion

The last thing I ever want my veggies doing is paying unjust taxes. The good news is that Turnip Boy does not want to. The first game of these two is one that I played months back and I ended up having a really good time with it. This game is obviously based on some of the older adventure games, particularly older Zelda games, and so you should expect that coming in. It mostly consists of doing small quests for people but the game never gets too elaborate and does not have a huge map making it too complex.

What even is a joke game?

I'll bring this up again later but this game is very lighthearted and most of the mechanics here are in service to the comedy and joking nature of the game and its characters. If you've ever played a game that does this, you'll know already that this tends to polarize the game into being either way too focused on the joke to the detriment of the gameplay, or it ends up with the gameplay being passable but the joke falling flat on its face. I'm happy to report that this game does neither of those things and balanced it pretty well, though not to my full satisfaction.

If only the Triforce was cantaloupe

In totality, the first game is a nice and tidy adventure with a decent amount of fun and jokes and with just enough depth to sell the fun of the game without over complicating it or dragging it on for too long. You can beat this in just a couple of sittings and if "Classic Zelda joke game" sounds like a good time to you, go play it!

He's not done squashing yet

To move on to the second game, Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, this is where I had most of my fun. The game becomes a twin stick shooter on just one map where you break into a bank, take as much cash as you can, leave, and repeat until you've found and defeated all of the bosses and done as many quests as you have desire for. Unlike other rogue-lite games, this one is very approachable and not having a procedurally generated levels means that you get to know where you're going over time. The jokes are also better though the story is lighter here. All of that exists in the shadow of the gunplay though, the weapons here are the real highlight. The first game I didn't really find much challenge at all with, the actual gameplay was almost more about questing than its bosses. Here though, you have some decent boss fights and enemies, very fun mechanics.

Theres a few donut sized holes

The main criticisms here are that despite the mechanics being deeper: There is a gun locker that is almost pointless, the upgrades don't feel balanced, the gun trade in system is not worth utilizing, and the different areas do not do money scaling very well.

A good example is that you have items that cost 10k and you're working towards upgrades that cost 25k. You could buy the upgrades, but it is pointless because the progression item at 10k unlocks and area that lets you get a trophy for 100k with almost no effort. I think that the treasures on the pedestals needed to be scaled better, they kind of undermine the whole game.

This summary is a pickle, or just a vinegar cucumber

Both of these games are worth playing for entirely separate reasons and both will take you no more than 5 hours to beat, I'd estimate 3-4 for most people. They're short but in a very good way and a nice refresher from a long RPG playthrough. As good as these games are though, they don't survive without their specific brand of humor. One is a very short and simple adventure game, the other is a short and simple rogue-lite. I really hope that the developer feels they are able to make a longer game if they feel like doing so because I'd like to see how they could make these mechanics work without just using them as a backdrop to cheeky dialog.

But that's it, I hope that you go play one or both of these games if you have time. Both of these are also simple enough that they'd be welcoming to newcomers to their genres.

People who have played these games, feel free to throw in what you like and didn't like below. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

TL;DR This is a review of both Turnip Boy indie games. The first is a sort of classic Zelda clone, the second is a rogue-lite twin stick shooter. Both are short to play and I recommend them but especially the second game.

Tax Evasion Persuasion

The last thing I ever want my veggies doing is paying unjust taxes. The good news is that Turnip Boy does not want to. The first game of these two is one that I played months back and I ended up having a really good time with it. This game is obviously based on some of the older adventure games, particularly older Zelda games, and so you should expect that coming in. It mostly consists of doing small quests for people but the game never gets too elaborate and does not have a huge map making it too complex.

What even is a joke game?

I'll bring this up again later but this game is very lighthearted and most of the mechanics here are in service to the comedy and joking nature of the game and its characters. If you've ever played a game that does this, you'll know already that this tends to polarize the game into being either way too focused on the joke to the detriment of the gameplay, or it ends up with the gameplay being passable but the joke falling flat on its face. I'm happy to report that this game does neither of those things and balanced it pretty well, though not to my full satisfaction.

If only the Triforce was cantaloupe

In totality, the first game is a nice and tidy adventure with a decent amount of fun and jokes and with just enough depth to sell the fun of the game without over complicating it or dragging it on for too long. You can beat this in just a couple of sittings and if "Classic Zelda joke game" sounds like a good time to you, go play it!

He's not done squashing yet

To move on to the second game, Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, this is where I had most of my fun. The game becomes a twin stick shooter on just one map where you break into a bank, take as much cash as you can, leave, and repeat until you've found and defeated all of the bosses and done as many quests as you have desire for. Unlike other rogue-lite games, this one is very approachable and not having a procedurally generated levels means that you get to know where you're going over time. The jokes are also better though the story is lighter here. All of that exists in the shadow of the gunplay though, the weapons here are the real highlight. The first game I didn't really find much challenge at all with, the actual gameplay was almost more about questing than its bosses. Here though, you have some decent boss fights and enemies, very fun mechanics.

Theres a few donut sized holes

The main criticisms here are that despite the mechanics being deeper: There is a gun locker that is almost pointless, the upgrades don't feel balanced, the gun trade in system is not worth utilizing, and the different areas do not do money scaling very well.

A good example is that you have items that cost 10k and you're working towards upgrades that cost 25k. You could buy the upgrades, but it is pointless because the progression item at 10k unlocks and area that lets you get a trophy for 100k with almost no effort. I think that the treasures on the pedestals needed to be scaled better, they kind of undermine the whole game.

This summary is a pickle, or just a vinegar cucumber

Both of these games are worth playing for entirely separate reasons and both will take you no more than 5 hours to beat, I'd estimate 3-4 for most people. They're short but in a very good way and a nice refresher from a long RPG playthrough. As good as these games are though, they don't survive without their specific brand of humor. One is a very short and simple adventure game, the other is a short and simple rogue-lite. I really hope that the developer feels they are able to make a longer game if they feel like doing so because I'd like to see how they could make these mechanics work without just using them as a backdrop to cheeky dialog.

But that's it, I hope that you go play one or both of these games if you have time. Both of these are also simple enough that they'd be welcoming to newcomers to their genres.

People who have played these games, feel free to throw in what you like and didn't like below. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

I’m not going to do a detailed write up on this but I’ve always heard that The Force Unleashed was a really good set of Star Wars games that are still worth playing today, if not for the game at least for the story. That wasn’t my experience at all.

This is just my opinion and experience but the first game is awful to play in 2024. Most of your abilities miss the target every time. Picking up objects with the force has a 50% chance of picking up the wrong thing, sometimes from way off screen and often missing stuff in the foreground. Throwing them is also incredibly inaccurate, often times you’ll just throw things at walls or the sky. The combat isn’t balanced whatsoever and it’s basically unplayable at higher difficulties.

Your force grab and throw abilities make most enemies pointless and your light saber does surprisingly little damage even with upgrades. Far better to just bounce people off the wall. Then what’s worse is later on they introduce shields that stop you from using the force on some enemies. They do pretty much the same but with the lightsaber getting blocked. Rather than encouraging variety, they just leave a giant hole in the combat. It’s dreadful. The mechs are also ridiculous to engage and can’t be engaged in melee should they stomp you to death. The even worser part is, the story is 6/10 interesting and the boss battles are a mess.

Then the second game, oh boy. On PC it’s almost entirely broken. It crashes and most of the cutscenes don’t play unless you patch the game (I did) and even then, crashes happen often. I had about 10 over just 4-5 hours. Textures also glitch and slowdown is frequent. I played both games with a 60fps patch (necessary imo) and the performance issues exited with or without that patch. Awful.

The good news is the second game has a decent story and surprising visuals. The combat is much improved and a lot more balanced honestly. It’s just that the gameplay is incredibly dated. The whole game is mostly just go to room, door is locked, enemies appear, you kill them, door unlocks, repeat until boss fight. There’s also platforming here which is.. bad. Inaccurate controls and imprecise movement makes that hell. So the second game is much better even with the issues, but I still barely had fun with it.

Seems to me like these games rode by on the gimmick of the dark side and extreme power. In their time, both games were pretty good. All of my friends seemed to like them. But in this year? I don’t think there’s any reason to play the first, and only novelty in the second. Just watch the cutscenes are movies.

I’m sure many people have nostalgia for this though. These games used to be more unique and the story was unusual for the time. Sadly we aren’t likely to see a continuation and finish to this series. Thoughts?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16914590

What’s the rush?

Hi-Fi Rush is a rhythm based third-person melee combat game that rewards you by landing your hits on the beat. From a list of flowing combos comes a catchy beat, skilled moves, and rocking visual effects. This is a masterpiece of a game and its stylistic characters banter in hilarious ways, its world comes together to feel alive, and its art style just never stops hitting those notes. If you want to know about the hype, let’s get into it.

Music make you lose control

This is what keeps the game together in a rhythm-based fighter, it’s the peanut butter that glues the bread into a sandwich. The music is phenomenal, I just need you to listen to it.This is what I’m talkin’ about. What’s missing from this though is the kicking beat that you make with your moves as you play. The game rewards you as you hit your combos by adding to the soundtrack, and it all works so so so well.

Never stop fighting, rockstar

Combat is the actual bread that makes our sandwich and this is what you spend most of the game doing. Each time you get locked in an arena, it’s intense and thrilling as you dodge enemy attacks, time your parries, and plan out elaborate combos to maximize your score.

I can’t emphasize this enough though: you can be bad at this and still have an incredible amount of fun. I’ve always stayed away from games like DMC that require you learn combos but the list here is roughly 20 moves long at most and you learn them intuitively as you experiment.

Enemies have legs or wheels or fire or..

One of the highlights of this game is the enemy design. Each enemy is distinct and it’s rare to see a game have this many types without feeling repetitive or copied. We’re talking shields, robo-bikes, owls, fire using boxer robots, samurai, fire owls?!, and many many more. Each feeling unique and requiring a different approach and more importantly, blending fantastically. The enemy variety in each arena gets really creative by the end and you really never stop adapting.

Art so good, it gave me nostalgia

That’s serious by the way, I got nostalgia for this game thinking about how amazing the art is. It feels like it’s from a past era and yet I also can’t think of anything like it. It’s so stylized but also never gets in the way of the gameplay. It will constantly add to your experience and honestly it’s just perfect, I need the merch.

Video game stories are bad, this isn’t

What you’ll notice about this story is that it’s both very simple and very effective. A good mark of storytelling is sometimes how complex a story can be while still having you follow along, this isn’t that. Instead it’s so good that the story is very simple and yet keeps you entertained and gives context and detail to everything you’re doing.

The way they seem to have achieved this is by adding a lot of depth to their characters and giving them real personality. So even though the story is very simple in essence, you enjoy seeing what characters are going to say even in highly predictable moments. You know something is a trap, but the reactions to it are what you’re there for, not the plot point. It’s great.

And the masterpiece award goes to..

I truly believe this game is a masterclass in game design in so many ways. Everything it attempts works really well and the only complaints I can even come up with is that I could’ve used just a couple more combos and the readability in combat suffers due to some of the effects and camera. Other than that this game is perfect in my eyes.

It’s rare that I mark a game down as masterpiece but you absolutely should try this game. If you don’t, you’re missing out on something amazing that doesn’t come around very often. It’s also rare that I ever plan on replaying a game in the future, but I can already imagine rediscovering this game 5 years from now and picking it up for another playthrough.

Addressing the coffin in the room

Last things last, Tango Gameworks was shut down by Microsoft in May. This game is the last thing they produced and it really is a pity. They went out on one of the best games I’ve ever played and I was baffled to hear about their closure Please go play this game in honor of the loss of the studio, maybe then you can be as angry as I am at Microsoft if you aren’t already.

That’s it for me though, I feel like I’ve really experienced something here and if you haven’t played this game, I want you to give it a shot. It’s charming, it’s fun, it’s thrilling, and a good listen always.

If you played this, drop me a comment and share your thoughts. I’d love to hear what your experience is with rhythm games in general too. What else is good in the genre?

Until next time.

What’s the rush?

Hi-Fi Rush is a rhythm based third-person melee combat game that rewards you by landing your hits on the beat. From a list of flowing combos comes a catchy beat, skilled moves, and rocking visual effects. This is a masterpiece of a game and its stylistic characters banter in hilarious ways, its world comes together to feel alive, and its art style just never stops hitting those notes. If you want to know about the hype, let’s get into it.

Music make you lose control

This is what keeps the game together in a rhythm-based fighter, it’s the peanut butter that glues the bread into a sandwich. The music is phenomenal, I just need you to listen to it.This is what I’m talkin’ about. What’s missing from this though is the kicking beat that you make with your moves as you play. The game rewards you as you hit your combos by adding to the soundtrack, and it all works so so so well.

Never stop fighting, rockstar

Combat is the actual bread that makes our sandwich and this is what you spend most of the game doing. Each time you get locked in an arena, it’s intense and thrilling as you dodge enemy attacks, time your parries, and plan out elaborate combos to maximize your score.

I can’t emphasize this enough though: you can be bad at this and still have an incredible amount of fun. I’ve always stayed away from games like DMC that require you learn combos but the list here is roughly 20 moves long at most and you learn them intuitively as you experiment.

Enemies have legs or wheels or fire or..

One of the highlights of this game is the enemy design. Each enemy is distinct and it’s rare to see a game have this many types without feeling repetitive or copied. We’re talking shields, robo-bikes, owls, fire using boxer robots, samurai, fire owls?!, and many many more. Each feeling unique and requiring a different approach and more importantly, blending fantastically. The enemy variety in each arena gets really creative by the end and you really never stop adapting.

Art so good, it gave me nostalgia

That’s serious by the way, I got nostalgia for this game thinking about how amazing the art is. It feels like it’s from a past era and yet I also can’t think of anything like it. It’s so stylized but also never gets in the way of the gameplay. It will constantly add to your experience and honestly it’s just perfect, I need the merch.

Video game stories are bad, this isn’t

What you’ll notice about this story is that it’s both very simple and very effective. A good mark of storytelling is sometimes how complex a story can be while still having you follow along, this isn’t that. Instead it’s so good that the story is very simple and yet keeps you entertained and gives context and detail to everything you’re doing.

The way they seem to have achieved this is by adding a lot of depth to their characters and giving them real personality. So even though the story is very simple in essence, you enjoy seeing what characters are going to say even in highly predictable moments. You know something is a trap, but the reactions to it are what you’re there for, not the plot point. It’s great.

And the masterpiece award goes to..

I truly believe this game is a masterclass in game design in so many ways. Everything it attempts works really well and the only complaints I can even come up with is that I could’ve used just a couple more combos and the readability in combat suffers due to some of the effects and camera. Other than that this game is perfect in my eyes.

It’s rare that I mark a game down as masterpiece but you absolutely should try this game. If you don’t, you’re missing out on something amazing that doesn’t come around very often. It’s also rare that I ever plan on replaying a game in the future, but I can already imagine rediscovering this game 5 years from now and picking it up for another playthrough.

Addressing the coffin in the room

Last things last, Tango Gameworks was shut down by Microsoft in May. This game is the last thing they produced and it really is a pity. They went out on one of the best games I’ve ever played and I was baffled to hear about their closure Please go play this game in honor of the loss of the studio, maybe then you can be as angry as I am at Microsoft if you aren’t already.

That’s it for me though, I feel like I’ve really experienced something here and if you haven’t played this game, I want you to give it a shot. It’s charming, it’s fun, it’s thrilling, and a good listen always.

If you played this, drop me a comment and share your thoughts. I’d love to hear what your experience is with rhythm games in general too. What else is good in the genre?

Until next time.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16411001

Summary Time

The Impossible Lair is a 2D platformer with low complexity and fun characters than has you exploring levels to build up protection to take on a boss level that is available to you right from the start with all the moves unlocked. If you like a more relaxed platformer with decent explorations and puzzles, give this one a shot. However, if you're a platforming regular you should probably just stay away from this one as it doesn't invent anything new here.

Now lets get in to it.

Putting on the Rose Tinted Glasses

I've grown up on platformers. Since I was young I've had every Crash Bandicoot game in my hands and just recently went back to 100% the first 3 games. I've also been playing them in 2D most of my life, starting out with Sonic on the GameBoy. In other words, I know what it is that makes these games work. So when I hear that this game is going to present the initial challenge to you at the start and make that the premise, I immediately assume that the difficulty will be that you need to unlock moves to progress. That isn't the premise. Instead, your basic moveset is unlocked immediately.

So upon hearing that info you might think that its obvious, the game is going to teach you how to use this limited moveset in new ways to get you further into the lair. With ~20 whole levels to choose from and 2 variants of each level, there's a whole lot of level there to learn from.

We Have Good Bones

The good news here is that graphics are really great. They're much more cohesive than the 3D platformer in the series and they have a solid artstyle now. I can say much the same of the music, it isn't anything iconic but now the themes of visuals, music, and obstacles are all working together here. They really improved to say the least. The story is still as plain as ever and I have nothing to say about it. The characters however are also better. Most only have a few lines to say to you but hey, at least its interesting or funny most of the time.

There was a mark and we missed it here

I want to be clear, this game is very average in its space and that is really hard to achieve with a platformer. So take my criticisms with that in mind. I'll start off light on the devs here but when your main character is hit in this game, the bat flies off their head and starts flying around at random until you recapture it or it flies away. This serves as a 2-hit mechanic to make the game easier but I really hate it. Go ahead and imagine you're playing through a difficult scene and you get hit. Now, your momentum is all off as you halt your progress to recollect the bat. I think I died more times doing this than to an actual challenge or obstacle. Its odd from a gameplay design perspective because it changes the goals of the player and takes their mind completely out of what they're doing.

Then lets talk about tech. For those that don't know, platformers often have a lot of "Tech" which describes how the moves given to you play into each other. They're sort've unstated combos. A typical example is Crash Bandicoot can slide before a jump to get extra distance off the ledge and height. He can also bodyslam at the top of a jump to get boxes barely beyond his reach. Mastering that tech is usually integral to skillful play of these games.

The Impossible Lair has almost no tech. You can roll off of ledges like with crash but that is the only combo I know of in the whole game. The game makes use of that feature only a small handful of times. So you won't be learning very much at all about your moves the entire way through. This makes it more approachable to new platformer players, but entirely boring for everyone else.

So Why Play the Levels?

I wish I had a good answer for this but the real answer is that each level gives you a bee to be used on the boss level to protect from a hit. So to be clear, the Impossible Lair doesn't require you learn much of anything and the sole thing preventing you from completing it at the start is that the Lair is hard. Not the fun type of hard either, the type of hard where you take no hits during the skill section but misjudge a hitbox and take a hit getting too close to a spike.

I identified that pretty early on and so it never felt like a goal for me. I just wanted to experience the levels, which I found were okay in fun, and then just slog my way through the final level. I'm not afraid of a challenge either, but this kind of game doesn't make the challenge interesting enough for me.

Should you buy it?

Again I'm going to say: if you have knowledge of other 2D platformers then this one is entirely unnecessary and will only serve to annoy you. However: This game is really perfect for a younger person. I know that games like Crash Bandicoot can get extremely hard. Its what they are known for. In my eyes though, this is a great game to teach someone how to play games without boring them to death. So it isn't for me at all. For someone who has played a lot of these, I'd say this sits around a 6/10 for me. This game does not compare well to any of the Crash games at all. However, for someone just learning this is probably one of the best games you can pick up to have them play before torturing them in It Takes Two!

As always, if you took the time to read my review, thank you. I encourage you to share your thoughts about similar games you've played, my review, or if you plan on playing this one or have played it.

Summary Time

The Impossible Lair is a 2D platformer with low complexity and fun characters than has you exploring levels to build up protection to take on a boss level that is available to you right from the start with all the moves unlocked. If you like a more relaxed platformer with decent explorations and puzzles, give this one a shot. However, if you're a platforming regular you should probably just stay away from this one as it doesn't invent anything new here.

Now lets get in to it.

Putting on the Rose Tinted Glasses

I've grown up on platformers. Since I was young I've had every Crash Bandicoot game in my hands and just recently went back to 100% the first 3 games. I've also been playing them in 2D most of my life, starting out with Sonic on the GameBoy. In other words, I know what it is that makes these games work. So when I hear that this game is going to present the initial challenge to you at the start and make that the premise, I immediately assume that the difficulty will be that you need to unlock moves to progress. That isn't the premise. Instead, your basic moveset is unlocked immediately.

So upon hearing that info you might think that its obvious, the game is going to teach you how to use this limited moveset in new ways to get you further into the lair. With ~20 whole levels to choose from and 2 variants of each level, there's a whole lot of level there to learn from.

We Have Good Bones

The good news here is that graphics are really great. They're much more cohesive than the 3D platformer in the series and they have a solid artstyle now. I can say much the same of the music, it isn't anything iconic but now the themes of visuals, music, and obstacles are all working together here. They really improved to say the least. The story is still as plain as ever and I have nothing to say about it. The characters however are also better. Most only have a few lines to say to you but hey, at least its interesting or funny most of the time.

There was a mark and we missed it here

I want to be clear, this game is very average in its space and that is really hard to achieve with a platformer. So take my criticisms with that in mind. I'll start off light on the devs here but when your main character is hit in this game, the bat flies off their head and starts flying around at random until you recapture it or it flies away. This serves as a 2-hit mechanic to make the game easier but I really hate it. Go ahead and imagine you're playing through a difficult scene and you get hit. Now, your momentum is all off as you halt your progress to recollect the bat. I think I died more times doing this than to an actual challenge or obstacle. Its odd from a gameplay design perspective because it changes the goals of the player and takes their mind completely out of what they're doing.

Then lets talk about tech. For those that don't know, platformers often have a lot of "Tech" which describes how the moves given to you play into each other. They're sort've unstated combos. A typical example is Crash Bandicoot can slide before a jump to get extra distance off the ledge and height. He can also bodyslam at the top of a jump to get boxes barely beyond his reach. Mastering that tech is usually integral to skillful play of these games.

The Impossible Lair has almost no tech. You can roll off of ledges like with crash but that is the only combo I know of in the whole game. The game makes use of that feature only a small handful of times. So you won't be learning very much at all about your moves the entire way through. This makes it more approachable to new platformer players, but entirely boring for everyone else.

So Why Play the Levels?

I wish I had a good answer for this but the real answer is that each level gives you a bee to be used on the boss level to protect from a hit. So to be clear, the Impossible Lair doesn't require you learn much of anything and the sole thing preventing you from completing it at the start is that the Lair is hard. Not the fun type of hard either, the type of hard where you take no hits during the skill section but misjudge a hitbox and take a hit getting too close to a spike.

I identified that pretty early on and so it never felt like a goal for me. I just wanted to experience the levels, which I found were okay in fun, and then just slog my way through the final level. I'm not afraid of a challenge either, but this kind of game doesn't make the challenge interesting enough for me.

Should you buy it?

Again I'm going to say: if you have knowledge of other 2D platformers then this one is entirely unnecessary and will only serve to annoy you. However: This game is really perfect for a younger person. I know that games like Crash Bandicoot can get extremely hard. Its what they are known for. In my eyes though, this is a great game to teach someone how to play games without boring them to death. So it isn't for me at all. For someone who has played a lot of these, I'd say this sits around a 6/10 for me. This game does not compare well to any of the Crash games at all. However, for someone just learning this is probably one of the best games you can pick up to have them play before torturing them in It Takes Two!

As always, if you took the time to read my review, thank you. I encourage you to share your thoughts about similar games you've played, my review, or if you plan on playing this one or have played it.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15468857

Summary

This game is firmly in the collectathon platformer genre of games and seeks to outright revive the soul of Banjo-Kazooie and extract it into a new body. The fresh coat of paint with all new characters and modern graphical styling is an attempt to distance itself from retro aesthetics while keeping some charming aspects. Gone are the convoluted controls and returning are the random chirping noises for dialog. But is the upgrade from collecting the jiggies to ordering the pagies enough to make this title distinct? The soul of the collectathon is here, lets find out if it was worth the cost of digging it up.

Controls

I want to get this out of the way really quick and head off my review here by saying that the controls are good. They aren't amazing but since I'm going to largely be comparing this to games that just had their 25th anniversaries, I think its fair to say that controls are a real highlight for innovation here. With a similar number of buttons to the old N64 titles, we've packed in a lot of moves here and the flow is miles better. They aren't perfect however.

My main gripe is just that they seem to have mapped controls in a retro way for nostalgia reasons and it holds the game back. Rather than triggering the moves organically through context, the left trigger is again used as a face button modifier. Jump with A, high jump with LT+A. Sonar ping with Y, Sonar explosion with LT+Y. They didn't need to do that but at least the animations are short to trigger so it isn't too painful.

Characters: What did the evil Bee ever do to you?

Lets talk about characters. This is par for the course if you're talking Banjo-Kazooie parody that the game NEEDS strong characters. So does this game have them? I'd argue it does not. It isn't even that I don't find the evil capitalist bee and his duck in a jar henchman to be unlikable, its just that they lack the personality and novelty that BK had. The evil witch in those games wasn't complicated, but the rhyming of their lines and personality really got sold in the dialog. Here you just have throwaway lines galore about money puns. I don't want to say that none of the characters have personality, but its a 7/10 effort for sure.

That carriers over throughout the various worlds and main characters themselves. Banjo-Kazooie had a way with its humor of being dumb but delightful fun and really didn't stop you to embellish stupid puns. I won't harp on how I didn't find this game funny, but man when games miss the mark on charm, they really miss it by a mile. Unfortunately that's kind of the case here so don't show up for the characters.

Gameplay: It blends right in

I'll also keep this brief like the controls section. The game is good and the levels are pretty well laid out. They struggle to feel as integrated as BK though in the sense that each pagie is in its own area with its own objects. I remember how BK would use the same large centerpiece snowman for 3 or 4 jiggies, that just isn't here though. So like I said, it ends up feeling like each level is just a bunch of puzzles adjacent to each other, not cohesive at all. The themes really don't help that either as the themes only play into the gameplay of the level half of the time.

Graphical Style: It looks like it plays, alright?

The graphics in this game are actually pretty good and the game ran really well during my time with it at 1440p. That makes it a very good game to run on a steam deck and that is how I played about 50% of this game. The colors are bright and vibrant and its just a shame that it isn't more stylized. Believe it or not, I don't think the extreme crispness of the graphics help the game here. If you're especially brave though, there is an N64 graphics mode in the game which is a nice touch and brings in some of that charm.

Wrapping this up

Normally I keep my thoughts organized here but I think this game really deserves discussion so here goes. I went into this game expecting for the developers to have really done something with the formula. Lets be honest, this genre died because of a lack of innovation and intrigue. I was very surprised to play this and find that not only had the formula not really grown since the BK days of 1997, but this game had regressed it by quite a bit and I just really had to push through to finish it.

The music isn't instantly classic like Banjo-Kazooie, instead it sounds mostly generic. The characters are much the same. BK always had a splash of absurdity but it also always had grounding in its world. Lacking that grounding here is absolutely killer and so each element of this game feels separate. The enemies in BK were always interesting. The obstacles also had personality. Banjo Kazooie had me fighting two dragons on the tops of volcanoes who both thought I was there to deliver them pizza. We never get anywhere close to those heights here sadly. You'll play through this game and without exaggerating I can say that you will wonder why there are even basic level enemies in this game at all.

So what we're left with in Yooka-Laylee is a shell of what these games used to be. That isn't to say this is a bad game. It belongs in the genre 100% and its what the genre is all about. If you love collectathons and you don't want to replay BK games or want a modern version of this, I'll recommend this to you. Most people would have an alright time with this game and especially kids I think would love this if their attention can be kept by it. Those are my thoughts though, the game is decidedly average for me and I wish I could say otherwise. I respect the developers immensely for their work here. It takes a lot of work to even put most of the soul of BK into a game like this and so even if it didn't entirely land for me, I applaud them. Hopefully I feel very differently as I move onto Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.

Thanks for taking the time to read my review and let me know your thoughts in the comments!