Super Lucky’s Tale Review: Four Leaf Clovers and Spinning Fox tales

<p><em>Super Lucky’s Tale<&sol;em> caught me by surprise at E3 this year&comma; I was thinking the same thing as everyone else when I saw that tail on the screen&semi; &&num;8220&semi;CONKER&excl;” But no&comma; we were being introduced to Microsoft’s new mascot for the Xbox&comma; Lucky&period; This year has been great for platformers on both the Switch and PlayStation 4 with <em>Mario Odyssey<&sol;em> and <em>Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy<&sol;em>&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s going to be a tough time for Lucky as he&&num;8217&semi;s a new IP among gaming&&num;8217&semi;s family favorites and has a lot to prove&period; Does <em>Super Lucky&&num;8217&semi;s Tale<&sol;em> stand up to the rest&quest; Will Microsoft have the mascot it so needs for the child-friendly market&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;131669" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-131669" style&equals;"width&colon; 1440px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-131669 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;11&sol;13100632&sol;SuperLuckysTaleBagogames3&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1440" height&equals;"810" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-131669" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Super Lucky&&num;8217&semi;s Tale &lpar;Playful&comma; Microsoft&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>You might be looking at <em>Super Lucky’s Tale<&sol;em> and thinking &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;has Rare gone back to developing their award-winning platformers&quest;” Surprisingly it’s nothing to do with Rare but you can see why people might be confused&period; Lucky represents everything from 90’s platforming games with a bright&comma; colorful next-gen presentation to encourage both children and older gamers who grew up with the likes of Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie to join in&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Lucky is filled with all the classic hallmarks of 90’s platformers with visually beautiful worlds to explore&comma; tokens to collect&comma; various challenges to overcome and cartoony villains to defeat&period; While Lucky is a refreshing change of pace from all the shooters and blood-soaked mayhem we’ve seen recently&comma; there are some issues&period; As much as Lucky captures all that was good of 90’s platformer&comma; it also captures it’s biggest problems&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Players will embark on a journey with Lucky&comma; a sweet-natured Fox who’s been trapped in a book along with some villainous felines&period; Within the book&comma; Lucky must collect a series of four-leaf clovers in order to proceed with his adventure and defeat the evilest cat in the universe&semi; Jinx&period; Everything here is simply reminiscent of what storytelling was like in the 90’s&period; There’s the big bad&comma; the ultimate good and plenty of collectibles to grab&period; There’s no damsel in distress which is great but instead&comma; we get Lucky’s sister who in my opinion would’ve been a better lead and focus of the story&period; Lucky’s sister is an awesome adventure who travels the world&comma; fighting evil and kicks ass&period; Here&comma; we get her younger brother who just gets sucked into the book&period; Why couldn’t we play as her&quest; She has personality while Lucky would be replaced with playable Tofu and you wouldn’t know&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1280px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;static&period;trueachievements&period;com&sol;customimages&sol;072889&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1280" height&equals;"720" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Super Lucky&&num;8217&semi;s Tale &lpar;Playful&comma; Microsoft&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-131668 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;11&sol;SuperLuckysTaleBagogames2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1440" height&equals;"810" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In Lucky’s quest&comma; you must obtain a series of four-leaf clovers in order to unlock various doors that allow you to progress&comma; collect more clovers to fight one of the bosses in the game&period; Each world has its own unique visual style which is very colorful and uplifting if not a little bland&period; The main issue here is that we’ve seen these worlds done so many times before and this rarely introduces something that could be considered new and inventive&period; Instead&comma; it borrows from other games without placing anything unique overall&period; It’s pretty&comma; sounds great and in terms of level&comma; it’s actually great fun&period; With altering terrains&comma; hidden collectibles and a good sense of exploration that rewards keen adventures and those willing to explore very highly&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What saves Lucky from being a run of the mill platformer are the creative aspects of many of the levels themselves&period; <em>Super Lucky’s Tale<&sol;em> is confident in bringing level variation that includes your standard platforming&comma; Side-scrolling levels&comma; levels focused on running and collecting&comma; levels that has an intense amount of frantic platforming and much more&period; There are even neat side quests with lateral elements that reward more clovers upon completion&period; The marble maze and chess style puzzle quests were a highlight in the roaster of missions&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1440px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;static&period;trueachievements&period;com&sol;customimages&sol;066648&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1440" height&equals;"810" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Super Lucky&&num;8217&semi;s Tale &lpar;Playful&comma; Microsoft&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There’s plenty to like about this game and I would say it’s highly engaging no matter your age&period; However&comma; for people like me who remember 90’s platforming&comma; there are a couple of issues which are present here such as the terrible camera and awkward controls&period; I’m not sure who thought it was a good idea to not implement a camera that rotates freely in a 3D platformer as it becomes an issue very quickly&period;  Many segments of the environment require you to view as much as possible in order to save yourself that hassle of miss-judging jumps&period; You could be traversing a walkway with a series of jumps and as you can’t rotate the camera well enough&semi; the depth perception will be unbalanced&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This is only made worse by the clunky&comma; tank-like controls&period; This reminded me of the awful controls of <em>Conker’s Bad Fur Day<&sol;em>&comma; but that game is excused due to the limitations of the console it was on&period; These issues in a platforming game are unforgivable and can ruin the flow if you have to keep replaying certain areas which require perfect timing and precise jumping&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While <em>Super Lucky’s Tale<&sol;em> may not live up to that of <em>Super Mario Odyssey<&sol;em>&comma; it’s still an enjoyable platformer&period; It’s sadly held back by its technical limitations of a forced camera and clunky controls which should be refined for a platforming game&period; I would like to see Lucky’s universe expanded upon and hope a more refined sequel comes out soon&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I will say that Lucky is far superior to that of Bubsy&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;