Just finished New Super Lucky's Tale! Honestly, I wish there was more! It was a super duper fun game. Definitely easy the majority of the time because it's definitely aimed toward younger kids, but I still had a really fun time playing it.
This is what I'm talking about! This is the quality kids deserve in their video games. Easy to play, very simple game design, no bugs, no weird crap. Just a short and fun adventure with a bunch of funny characters.
The music was about what you'd expect from a 3D platformer. Not anything memorable, but still good.
For a 3D platformer, it was pretty unique! There are only so many gameplay tropes you can use for a game like this, but it blended them pretty well.
You have 6 different hub worlds that let you play different levels. There are ones that are very Donkey Kong Country inspired, ones that are essentially just the minecart levels from those games, slightly more constrained Mario 64 type levels, a couple mazes, some mildly tricky puzzles, and even a few marble balancing levels. The gameplay never got stale because there was a decent amount of stuff to do all the time.
A Hat In Time is like a more expanded Mario Sunshine. Yooka Laylee is a more empty Banjo Kazooie. I'd say New Super Lucky's Tale is like a more expanded Donkey Kong Country. If the DK series went more towards Mario than it did Banjo with the N64 game, I think this is what it would have turned out like. You still get a good amount of that classic DKC gameplay but it opens up another axis of movement.
A big reason why I think this too is because you can collect letters that spell out "LUCKY" within every stage. That's 100% DKC blood right there.
The movement is very simple and very snappy. It was pretty easy to control and once you get a hang of it you can actually pull off some really nice maneuvers. The only thing that's really missing here is a dash button, because there were times I definitely felt like I was moving around too slowly. The dig mechanic perhaps could have been sped up a bit because it feels only like 1% faster than your default move speed.
Something really fun that I noticed is that you could use a combination of moves against a wall in order to gain infinite height, so long as the wall was there. Depending on the wall this trick ranges from dead easy to needing an extra step to perform, but it's really funny breaking the game this way. I haven't watched a speedrun yet but I noticed so many places to do this that I'm sure they abuse the heck out of it, unless there is something even more broken. This isn't a bad thing about the game though, because it's not like you can do it on accident. If anything, it made me enjoy it more because I could hop around to places I wasn't supposed to be, like this photo that I took here on top of the castle from the first hub world.
Great game. Would really recommend it if you're looking for a short and fun platformer, or if you have young kids! I'm pretty sure it's on every console as well as PC, so hey, pick it up if you want :) I had a good time with it!
8/10. Wish it was longer.
@berkberkman from what i understand, NSLT is the better version of SLT, but LT is the VR-only one and the technical "first game" of the series.
i'm not big into VR so i'll never play it. seems fun enough though, just a 3D platformer that you look at in VR.
NSLT ran at a solid 144 fps at 4K on my PC without really putting a dent in my usage. my fans were only just a little bit louder than they are at idle. very well performant game and it looks great too.