Well, it’s the Christmas season again, and that means my brothers come to visit and I get to play the games they have that I don’t! Oh, and we also exchanged presents and had family bonding experiences or something, idk.
This is an action platformer. Aside from your standard left/right movement and jump ability, you only have a gun. You can find different guns as you go along, each with its own ability and rate of fire, but you lose your new gun if you get hit or touch another gun powerup. Your movement speed and even jumping speed are slower than other games, but the levels are designed around this, being quite compact to the point where levels are only 30-60 seconds long, and the enemies only take a few hits to kill at best (usually going down in just one hit).
You may be wondering how the game keeps the player’s attention when there isn’t much the player can do nor is there any sort of player progression. Simple: the main focus of the game is on level design. Even though the levels are short and the entire game is really easy (even on hard mode, where you die in two hits), the game is really good about building on any new concepts and gimmicks it introduces, starting them off in relatively safe environments and, as you progress, adding in enemies, spikes, and even elements from earlier levels reappear a couple times (upgrading them from gimmicks to a proper recurring obstacle). Maybe I haven’t been playing the right games, but it seems like many modern games (even retro-styled ones like Celeste) abandon proper difficulty curves in favor of lateral changes, so I’ll cherish this whenever I come across it.
If I had to think of one problem, it’s that this game is perhaps even more gimmicky than other gimmicky games I’ve played recently. I know I’ve probably overused that word, but for this game, some of the gameplay elements are present for so short a time and are so underdeveloped, it really feels like they were only added to be an extra bullet-point in the advertising. For example, one level introduces a minecart segment (where you’re on rails and can only jump and shoot); after that level, you never see another minecart segment again. Same with the side-scrolling rocket level; one moment you can control vertical movement as well as horizontal movement, and in the next level, you’re back to the platforming (only this level has moon-jump physics that also never show up again after the level is over). Heck, the very first level has animals that charge at you and jump over gaps, and I’m pretty sure there are only two of those in the entire game, both of which are one right after the other in that very first level.
However, the biggest issue I have is with the train boss. Conceptually, it’s just fine: the player’s safe spot is on the left and the boss is on the right; the boss has a wind-up animation for its punch, and when it launches a bomb at the player, you can see it fly across the screen from the boss to the player’s side, and the bomb’s explosion spikes slowly come toward the player, giving plenty of time to jump over them. Plus, when it gets around half health, it starts using another attack where it sprays sludge toward the player’s side, with the player having to get behind a wall. The issue comes in when you juxtapose it next to the player’s relatively slow movement speed; yes, the punch’s wind up animation gives you just enough time to realize it’s coming and try to run away, but your movement speed means you won’t be able to make it before you get hit. Plus, even though the sludge also moves slow enough for you to react to it, it still moves faster than you can move. What’s really annoying is when it uses its sludge move right after throwing a bomb; you see the bomb coming so you try to jump over the incoming explosion spikes, but then it sprays sludge, and the safety wall is in the opposite direction you just jumped, meaning you’ll have to take a hit. In other words, this boss is less about reacting to its pattern and more about anticipating or exploiting it.
The final boss also has a sludge attack (although it sweeps the ground from above rather than spray it from the side), and yes, it also moves slightly faster than you. You can see it and start running away, but you’ll also see it slowly catching up to you until you get hit.
Oh yeah, this game is also pretty derivative. If you’re familiar with action platformers, chances are you’ll recognize the various enemies and gimmicks from other games, so if you’re one of those people who don’t like it when a game doesn’t do anything “new” or groundbreaking, then this game isn’t for you.
For everyone else, though, I highly recommend this game. It’s a bit gimmicky and there are some annoying design decisions (like those bosses), but other than that, this is a microcosm of how to do platformers right. If Celeste is supposed to be worth $20, then this is easily worth $5, except it isn’t five dollars, it’s TWO DOLLARS, which makes the game even more worth it.
The game is pretty short, though (only lasting around 40 minutes or so), so I was able to play the sequel right afterward:
Well, if there’s one thing I can say about this game, it’s that I would NOT recommend buying it…before you’ve beaten the first game, that is. This is a sequel the same way SMB: The Lost Levels is a sequel; rather than reset the difficulty curve like other sequels, this game’s difficulty curve picks up right where the last one’s left off. The only exception are the boss fights, which, outside of the last couple ones, are about the same difficulty as the bosses in the first game (maybe even a bit easier). It kinda creates this weird disconnect between levels and bosses that I haven’t seen in a game in recent memory; you have a really tough level, and it’s followed by a boss that you clear in maybe 2-3 attempts. If anything, the first game was the opposite, having bosses that were more difficult than the levels.
As far as controls go, the only noticeable difference is that, in this game, jumps are more weighty (you go through your jump arc faster) whereas the first game had more floaty jumps.
Being a sequel, this game had the opportunity to be bigger and better than the previous game, and so it expanded on the first game by adding even more gimmicks! sigh…there’s a difference between having variety and being unfocused, and this game is definitely starting to enter the latter’s territory. On one hand, the game expands on some of the previous game’s gimmicks; for example, it has one minecart level of its own, even using the previous game’s underdeveloped gravity-switching gimmick within it. On the other hand, even the very first level has collapsing buildings (that never show up again), and exactly two platforms that look like ordinary ground but start to fall down when you jump on them (that also never show up again).
This isn’t the only example of this, either. It also introduces two Starfox-esque rail-shooter levels (where you’re flying into the background and can move in cardinal directions), and just like Starfox before it, it’s really difficult to tell where you’re shooting or judge where incoming objects will end up or even see projectiles coming toward you at all, despite the 3DS’s depth slider. I seem to remember Panzer Dragoon having a targeting system, or at least an aiming-reticle of some kind (heck, I think Starfox 64 also had one), so why this game didn’t steal that concept as well, I don’t know. I will say: the second of these levels becomes a lot easier once you realize that you don’t have to fight the giant spaceship at the end; just avoid its shots for three waves and the level completes itself.
There’s also exactly one level where you’re on horseback, riding into the background. It’s easier to tell what’s going to end up where since you’re on a road and can only move left or right, but it also takes cues from old 2D racing games that had you drive into the background by having “turns”; the game pushes you in one direction and you have to fight it just to stay centered (and these segments make your shots go off-center, too, making it harder to aim).
There’s also exactly one level where you ride a panda bear. The main difference between this and the minecart level is that the panda can run (hold forward) and climb vertically (triggered automatically by colliding with a wall, although the climbing speed is much slower than the walking speed). However, this level has another gimmick: you’re being chased by a giant saw, so if you move too slow, you die. This means that the level is less about avoiding hazards and more about blindly running forward, trying not to get caught up on any walls lest they slow you down too much. Also, at the end, you have to make a huge jump right at the ledge or you fall down and die; this is an issue because you’re high enough that you won’t be able to see far down enough to know that the normal ground ends there as well (until this point in the level, all gaps in the ground were small enough that you could short-hop over them, and they never appeared while you were on a higher platform).
There’s also exactly one level that has…that dinosaur with the long neck and tail (Brachiosaurus, I think? That one looks about right). They bob their head and necks up and down, but in an arch rather than vertically, making it unnecessarily difficult to jump on the head of one from its neck. You have to do this near the beginning to reach a higher platform, and the slightest mistake in timing or accuracy causes you to slide off either the left or right side, one of which sends you into a pit and kills you. This is the hardest part of this level.
There’s also exactly one level where you ride on a triceratops, though this level is better executed than some of the game’s other gimmicks since it’s basically another auto-scroller, but now you have a bit of leniency with left/right movement (though the triceratop’s head damages you).
There’s also exactly one level that takes place on top of the water, where you have to jump across platforms that are affected by the waves. Personally, I’m glad this only lasts for one level since the movement of platforms is rather irregular: rather than bob up and down like water-affected platforms in other games, these move in the shape of a baseball diamond (angle up-left, then arc to the right, then angle down-left to the original position), with each platform starting the pattern one after the other from right to left. My biggest issue is that the timing between when the pattern stops and when it starts up again doesn’t seem to be consistent, and this is something you have to get right if you want to make some of these jumps. This is also the only level with a mini-boss.
To be fair, there is one underdeveloped gimmick from the previous game that this game gives lots of focus: the gravity-switching mechanic. Not only is it used in this game’s only minecart level, but the game makes you do some trickier jumps with it, and there’s even an entire boss fight built around the mechanic. There’s even a part in the minecart level where the track makes a circle, and the gravity mechanic lets you ride around it; my only issue with this part is that there’s a spike near the bottom-right, so if you miss the jump that lets you progress, you can’t just keep looping around (and this is especially annoying since you’ll be coming at the jump vertically rather than horizontally, meaning you have less time to react to it).
Furthering the expansion of the gravity mechanic, the final level has you jumping across small circular platforms with gravity pointing toward each side, so you can run around the entire circle. This is fine in theory, but it has the same issue that Strider 2014 does where holding a direction that starts your movement doesn’t continue your movement around the circle, making it a little bit awkward to make jumps or run away from projectiles. Also, throughout both games, there’s an enemy that hides under the floor and can open a hatch to shoot at you; the hatch, like most enemies from both games, is blue (distinguishing it from the first game’s otherwise brown visuals), and the game’s perspective usually lets you see the floor clearly. However, near the end of this level, the hatch is placed high enough that the perspective (perhaps combined with the 3DS’s resolution) results in it being, like, one pixel high (and the level’s background is also blue), so you won’t really be able to see the enemy until you get hit (and this is near the end of the level, so getting killed by this unfair placement makes you redo quite a lot).
As most sequels are wont to do, this game does reuse enemies from the previous game while also adding a few new enemies. However, all of the new enemies take multiple hits to kill, resulting in a slower-paced game than last time. There’s a new sumo wrestler enemy that just stands still and jabs its arms to the side, and they really only exist to be meatshields. The only exception is one vertical segment that lasts exactly one screen, where you have to climb a ladder while the sumo wrestlers are off to the side and can jab into the ladder to damage you. There’s also a ninja enemy that doesn’t spawn until you get close enough, then it jumps up from behind the floor and throws projectiles downward at an angle. Similar to the sludge from last game, your movement speed (which is unchanged from last game) isn’t exactly built to allow you to react, so you kinda have to learn where they are and figure out where the safe spot is ahead of time in order to avoid their attacks.
Lastly, I’d like to talk about the game’s final boss. It comes right after another hard boss that could also easily work as the final boss, but rather than have two phases, it has five. It’s a giant humaniod robot, and you have to damage each segment of it to climb up until you reach the top and can damage the real weak point. The boss itself is probably easier than the previous boss, but it will probably take longer since you have to learn each segment and redo each earlier segment if you fail on the later segments, not to mention having to climb up and wait on each part of the boss to do its thing before you can reach the current weak point (and the legs have a move where they slide together, so you just have to duck and wait it out). Also, this is one of only two bosses that shoots a laser; there’s no visual cue for them, just a sound effect and the boss becoming stationary, “looking” in a certain direction before the giant hazard suddenly appears.
Overall, this game definitely isn’t as well made as the previous game, but it’s still okay. Plus, it’s only three dollars, so if you like the first game, this is still worth checking out despite its flaws.
I actually beat both of those games before Christmas. The reason I haven’t made this post until now is because I also wanted to beat this game:
This is a collectathon platformer. You start off with your standard movement, short-range attack, and double jump, but you’ll unlock a new ability for each world you unlock (and you can buy more abilities within said worlds). As with all collectathon platformers, the goal is to explore the worlds looking for the designated collectible (in this case, golden pages with faces called “pagies”), and for this game, you stay in the level when you get one rather than being booted back to the hub like Super Mario 64 or Fluidity.
Aside from the 25 pagies in the hub, the game has five worlds with 25 pagies each. Sure, the total number of worlds is lower than your average N64 collectathon platformer, but the worlds themselves are larger. Personally, I think they’re a bit too large; the advent of more powerful tech means that the large, empty areas between collectibles can be even larger (this is especially noticeable in the casino world where you have to go all the way back to the beginning to cash out your tokens to get the level’s pagies). Sure, the game is still pretty good about giving you various things to do throughout the different areas so the empty areas aren’t too large (especially compared to some other open world games I’ve played), but I prefer more concise areas like Mumbo Mountain, or pretty much any stage from Super Lucky’s Tale.
And yeah, you do have an ability that lets you move faster, but it consumes a slowly-refilling stamina meter, so it can’t be used all the time.
However, what I really don’t like is how the game arbitrarily restricts content in earlier levels until you’ve reached a certain point in the game. Not only are there certain pagies that can’t be accessed until you’ve obtained a certain ability (sometimes requiring an ability from the last world) but worlds also have certain areas that outright don’t spawn until you spend enough pagies to “expanded” the world. I’m someone who prefers to (try to) 100% the first area of a collectathon before moving on, so it really bothers me when a game puts up these roadblocks; I made it there, but now I gotta exit the world, go forward in the hub to unlock another world, get a new power, then backtrack to where I was just to get the collectible I was already almost at (and at that point, why bother? Why not just continue moving forward? You’re already invested in the next world). What I really don’t understand is that some people praise this design philosophy as “I can explore new areas in previous worlds that I couldn’t explore before” when it really is just roadblocks and backtracking; just look up some of the reviews of Super Mario Odyssey, that game does the same thing. It’s been a few years since I 100%ed Banjo Kazooie (or at least got every jiggy, note, and jinjo), but I distinctly remember that that game was really good about NOT doing this; if there was a collectible that required a power you didn’t have, it was either obtained in that very world (kinda like a typical Zelda dungeon), or in a previous world and you missed it. It also stopped introducing new powers around the half-way point and started focusing a bit more on skillful use of the powers you did have.
However, what really gets to me about that design choice is that the game actually kinda tries to have a difficulty curve. Sure, there are still relatively challenging tasks in early levels and relatively easy tasks in later levels, but you can see a general rise in difficulty from one world to the next, especially if you compare recurring elements like boss fights (which also tweak their patterns as you damage them) and the minecart minigames. For example, in the first world, the green-spires-that-don’t-look-harmful-but-actually-are-because-they-have-small-thorns-on-them can only be found next to the boss if you’re looking in world 1, but if you’re looking in world 3, they’re scattered throughout.
Speaking of the minecart segments, out of all the parts of the game I kinda like, those are the part I like the least. Obviously, its on rails, so you move automatically, and you can assume that you can jump during these parts as well, but the game gives you a bit more things you can do: you can use the left stick to boost or brake, and you can also fire a projectile. That doesn’t seem so bad, but the problems start to show up when you realize just how restrictive the controls are: when you fire a projectile, you’re forced to wait around 3-5 seconds before you can fire a second projectile, and so on. Plus, once you use the boost or brakes, you’re committed to that move: whether you’re speeding up or slowing down, the cart keeps its new speed for a solid two seconds, and it’s another 1-2 seconds before you can activate either one again (and when you have to make precision inputs, those two seconds make all the difference). Adding insult to injury, you can’t short-hop, either; the slightest tap of the jump button will commit the cart to its fullest jump. To top it all off, it’s possible to jump if you push the button right after the minecart falls off a rail, but on top of being unreliable, the minecart segment in the fourth world (all but) requires you to perform this trick to get enough gems to pass, which would easily make it harder than the 5th level’s minecart segment even if that wasn’t how the game forces you to fight the world 4 boss (also, you and the boss are on a circular track, so you have to wait for it to charge you (i.e. get dangerously close to you) or your bullet goes in front of the boss).
With all that said, there is a lot to like here. A decent amount of the collectibles’ challenges focus on platforming or some other skill-based timed challenge, and these are pretty fun. It’s part of why I can enjoy collectathons and metroidvanias even though I’ve never been a big fan of exploration by itself. The game is also pretty good about doing wordless tutorials; for example, before you reach world 2, you come across a bridge with wind blowing across it, and beside the bridge, some glowing bowling balls (or cannon balls, whatever). In world 2, one of the abilities you can get will let you take on the properties of an object you eat, and since both the bowling balls and wind were juxtaposed right next to each other, it doesn’t take much thought to figure out that eating one of the bowling balls will prevent wind from pushing you until the effect runs out. I do wish that the game would let you unlock, like, a map or radar ability when you beat the game so that you don’t have to wander around the entire huge maps looking for the last couple collectibles you’re missing (this goes double since the game blocks certain ones until you spend enough pagies or get a certain ability).
So, on one hand, the game has a decent amount of platforming and timed challenges, but on the other hand, a decent amount of the collectibles’ challenges are based on riddles. For those of you who missed my rant about that, I’ve never been a fan of riddles because, by their very nature, there’s nothing about them that requires you to think about your situation; you either know exactly what to do, resulting in an obvious, boring segment, or you don’t know what to do and you’re forced to resort to trial-and-error or look up a walkthrough. For example, in the first world, one of the ways to get a pagie is by talking to the knights in a certain order; when you find the first one, it gives a hint to where the next one is, and so on. However, if you’ve been to the areas they “hint” at, then the hints are super obvious (e.g. only one NPC can be a “ramp pro” since only one NPC is even near a ramp to begin with, much less has any kind of focus toward one). However, if you haven’t been to the area(s) in question, you’ll have no idea what the knight is talking about and you’ll just have to wander around the map until you stumble across it. Neither option presents any kind of challenge, much less an interesting challenge. For another example, in the expanded ice world, there’s a Lost-Woods/Forest-Maze-styled four-exit room, and you have to figure out which path takes you to the next room so you can avoid the paths that send you back to the beginning. If you go down the correct path, you can see that the floor has added an extra purple tile to the floor (the first room only has one purple tile). If there was a trick to figuring out which path is correct, I never found it, but even then, you’d only have to look for whatever detail indicates the correct path, which I doubt would take much effort. On the other hand, you could do what I did and just pick a path until you happen across the next room, and keep it up until you reach the end. To add insult to injury, the pagie at the end of this path is trapped behind a light-reflecting gimmick, except the room only has one ice block while the light has to be reflected twice. What do you do? Maybe one of your abilities lets you reflect light? No other segment in the game involves reflecting light (at least, none that I found; I admit I didn’t 100% this game). I did figure out that the invisibility power will reflect the light, but only by trial and error, a.k.a. the only way to solve a riddle by yourself when you don’t already know the answer. There are even some riddles that I gave up on and left unsolved (for me, at least). For example, how do you capture the teleporting ghost? Is there a power you have to use? Is there some pattern to its movement? Do you just have to get lucky? I managed to get one of them, but haven’t been able to recreate that success.
And yeah, Banjo Kazooie (and even Super Mario 64) has its fair share of riddles, too. I didn’t like those riddles, either. I haven’t played Banjo Tooie yet, but I would be surprised if it didn’t have some as well.
However, what is easily the worst part of Banjo Kazooie is the mandatory quiz right before the final boss, and this game of course brings that back because, as we all know, every aspect of Banjo Kazooie is a flawless masterpiece, and blatantly copying what it did can only result in good. The main difference is that, while Banjo Kazooie had one large quiz board, with dedicated tiles for each subject (and even split paths), this game has three mandatory, strictly-linear 10-tile boards that show up at different points of the game, with each tile being generic, so any subject can be asked at any point. Even if we set aside my dislike for riddle-based gameplay, the quiz questions very clearly encourage the player to explore the worlds, but the worlds themselves discourage exploration since there are various areas that outright can’t be reached unless you have a power from a world beyond the quiz. At least be consistent with what you want the player to do! I would have preferred if the main bosses were mandatory instead (as it is, you have to find them in their worlds, with at least one only being in the expanded version of its world).
There’s also at least one optional quiz hosted by a pagie, and with such detailed questions like “treasures+boxes=?” you might not realize that you’re being asked about the quantity of objects within the room until after you fail the quiz and see the dialogue for trying again (and even if you did glean that from the question, you might not have thought to take that initiative before speaking to the pagie).
I also have some issues with the final boss. For most games, the final boss is supposed to be the ultimate test of how well you’ve learned the game’s mechanics and how they interact with the game’s enemies and other objects, so naturally, this game decides to introduce a completely new enemy (besides the boss itself) that you have to lean how to deal with. At first, you might think you just have to run away from it, but once you reach the fourth phase or so, you won’t be able to do that and damage the boss, so it becomes another riddle; you have to figure out which of your moves will get rid of the new enemy. That’s not testing what you know as much as it is making you learn something new (and right at the end, too; that’s always been a pet peeve of mine).
The rest of the fight is pretty okay, if a bit lengthy. For the first two phases, the only issue I had is that you have to manually move the camera if you want to keep track of the boss; even Sonic 2006 knew to keep the camera’s focus on the boss for boss fights (yes, I own and beat Sonic 2006). All the other phases keep the camera focused on the center of the now-ring-shaped arena, and for the parts where the boss stomps the floor and sends shock-waves along the ground, it works quite well, but when the boss starts shooting homing missiles and flying around the edge of the arena, it takes some getting-used-to since the camera continues to focus on the arena’s center, meaning you can’t focus on the boss or the missiles.
Lastly, I’d like to mention a couple glitches I encountered. One of the powers you can get will latch on to grapple points and sling you toward them, but only if the camera is facing them (your character can be facing them, but if the camera isn’t, it won’t count). One segment in the expanded swamp world has a pagie in a cage, and normally, you would have to jump on small platforms that shoot flames up in order to hit a switch to open the cage. However, there’s a grapple point near this cage, and I accidentally grappled on it while the cage was between the grapple point and myself, causing me to clip through the cage and get the pagie early. On a less helpful note, I tried to exit a large door in world 5 while in flight mode, and the game softlocked.
Overall, this game is okay. It wanted to be a game just like those old N64 era collectathons, and it succeeded in being just like them, mistakes and all. If you’re a fan of those old collectathons, you’ll probably enjoy this, but you might wanna replay those old games before committing to a purchase; look at them with a fresh perspective. For more general platformer fans like myself, I say wait for a good sale.
P.S. This game has a limited variety of enemies. The most common just rush at you and can be taken out whenever, and there are two segments where you have to fight waves of them to get a pagie. The second most common are pairs of eyes that can commandeer destructible scenery to attack you. There are also flying enemies that can shoot projectiles. What’s annoying about these last two enemy types is that as soon as they go into attack mode, even while they’re still stationary, you can’t damage them with your attack, and if you try, you’ll most likely end up running into them and damaging yourself. There’s also a strongman enemy that operates under the same principle, except its vulnerable state is really short and it takes multiple hits to kill, so it’s better just to pass this enemy up than to try to wait multiple times for the very small window of time you can attack it.
P.P.S. Each world has an “arcade” minigame that you can play to get a pagie, and if you play it a second time, you can see the high scores, and beating the highest score will get you a second pagie. I don’t mind the high score requirement for a second one, but I do wish that the game shows you the high scores the first time so that you don’t have to play the exact same mini-game twice just to get the second pagie. Honestly, this is another reason I decided not to 100% the game.
Also, I played just enough of Nightmare Boy to realize I probably won’t like it. Damage sponges that take a solid 2-4 seconds of hammering the attack button to kill, plus enemies that blend in with the background or are even the same color as background objects (pumpkins vs. flames) and flying enemies that (at least seemingly) randomly spawn from above AND you have to be near the top of the camera to jump upward, all within the first thirty SECONDS of game-play? I can’t say I’m a fan. Not since Nier: Gestalt have I seen an intro segment that very clearly showcased the game’s problems upfront like this.
I will mention some positive points about the game: movement isn’t momentum-based, so you can stop moving in midair simply by letting go of the D-pad or control stick. Also, the supposed-to-lose boss fight before the game begins has decent conveyance for its attacks (until you win too much and a projectile suddenly flies toward you).