Recent reviews by Mumle

It's pretty good.

This game doesn't deserve to be this addictive.

You move freely around a map while you dispose of the ever spawning enemies. Level up and pick your desired upgrades. The way you can make your own item builds is too good and has gone on to inspire other similar games. There's a fair bit of progression and secrets to discover. The interface and graphics are questionable. If you know, you know, I guess.

Terraria has been out as a fully fledged game for over 8 years now, but it keeps getting new free content even to this date. Not sure how long they will keep this up, but the post-release developer support for this game has time and time again left me in awe. It's truly a testament to how much they love their creation, and might also suggest that they laid good ground work that made this process easier on them.

The game is immensely fun to play with friends online, with loads of things to do in the uniquely created worlds. It's a survival game. You start from scratch and gather materials to build your dwelling and craft items to allow you to further explore the world. You'll fight powerful bosses and find treasures that unlock new abilities that might come in handy when you go for the tougher bosses or areas. It's fully viable to play by yourself, but playing with one or more friends is where this game shines, as you can collaborate on world progression while you battle each other for loot.

This was as far as I know the trend setter for this type of 2d survival game, and in my opinion still the best of its kind. The pixel art still holds up after all these years, and I can't believe how much content they packed into the otherwise cheap game.

A messy ordeal, but somehow immensely fun to play with friends!

Cuphead is a journey of hardships and amazement from start to finish. You play as Cuphead (and Mugman as player two) who is tasked with gathering soul contracts for the devil after losing his own soul in a bet. Each contract is earned in the form of a scripted and beautifully animated boss fight. The old-timey music compliments each boss wonderfully.

Taking on Cuphead is challenging, but as you learn and beat each boss you'll be left with a strong sense of having achieved something that you worked towards. Not that you need to learn the fights to beat the game, as attacks are telegraphed and the controls are snappy. A great player could in theory beat the game without dying once.

This reviews contains no major spoilers. Everything mentioned in this review is encountered in the first level of the game.

Background

This game was launched on Kickstarter in 2015 as a spiritual successor to the original Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie, with key persons of the same development team behind it. They promised a game that would basically be what a "Banjo Threeie" could have been. A lot of negative reviews rely on the opinion that the 3D platfromer and collect-a-thon is an outdated format. I supported the kickstarter personally back in 2015.

Exposition

You control a lizard named Yooka and a bat, Laylee, on an adventure to retrieve the golden pages of a special book that was stolen from you. A corporate bee named Capital B has stolen all the books in the world in order to monopolize the market and maximize profits. To find all of the golden "Pagies", you have to enter the worlds inside the Grand Tomes laying around Capital B's hive.

Gameplay

If you are expecting an alternative to Mario Galaxy or Sonic with a definite start point and end goal for each mission, this is not the game. This is an open-ended 3D platformer. You can jump into a world and go anywhere your moveset will allow you. There are areas you can't reach until you've unlocked new moves, which can be purchased with Quills that are all strewn over the various worlds. You are also restricted by needing golden Pagies to unlock new worlds, but there is never just an invisible wall keeping you from advancing further into the game.

There are five worlds in total, along with an overworld that also contains a few collectibles. The five worlds can be further expanded after opening, which means that when you first open them up they are missing some segments, and you need to spend more Pagies to expand them to their full size. This mechanic works great, because it allows you to advance through parts of the game without completing the more advanced segments of the world, hoping to uncover new movesets along the way. On the other hand, you can choose to spend all your Pagies to expand the worlds quickly and complete more of them immediately with the moveset you already have.

Being a collect-a-thon with much of the gameplay revolving around collecting items, there are certainly a lot of items to collect. All of the items, even the 1010 Quills, are cleverly placed and not just put randomly across the map. While the Quills often guide you to new areas, some are placed on some hard-to-reach platforms or used as decorations on larger objects. Pagies, which are needed to progress the game's story, usually require you to complete challenges or puzzles to get, and while many of them are outright easy the latter pages can be a real challenge to earn. There is also an arcade game inside each world that may be played from the main menu and with up to 3 friends in multiplayer.

All in all, Yooka-Laylee is a great game that seems to have accomplished exactly what the devs set out to do! It is a true successor to Banjo Tooie in all but its name.

Controls

Reviewed with a Xbox 360 game pad.

Controls are often what makes or breaks any platformer, 2D or 3D. Luckily, the controls work great on a gamepad. Yooka-Laylee's movements are crisp and responsive and it doesn't ever feel slow in any aspect. From accelerating, to decelerating, to turning around and suddenly switching direction. You start out with a simple double jump which gives you great control of your jumps, and the game also features rolling jumps (roll of an edge before jumping) and jump attacks (roll in air to perform a forward jolt). As the game progresses you also unlock moves that enable you to high jump and glide, to name a few.

In some parts of the game you control other characters than the usual Yooka-Laylee. Their controls might be a bit slow, floaty or clunky, but it seems like that is what was intended by the devs for these characters.

Some people are complaining about the camera being terrible, but I can't say I share their sentiment. I seem to have great control over the camera while running around, and the axes are invertible via the game options. There are a couple of very specific locations which enforce a side view making the game almost 2.5D, but I find it appropriate in those locations. The only issue is that the camera will sometimes jolt into another position when it has been restricted by the environment, making you suddenly run in another direction.

Perception of depth may also be an issue in 3D platformers, but with Yooka-Laylee's shadow to guide and moveset to assist you it never really feels like the game itself makes you miss a platform. And don't worry if you do! Dying in this game doesn't really have any repercussions at all.

My verdict

Great game for any old school platformer and collect-a-thon fan. The platforming is never too hard, but sometimes a bit challenging. The story is nothing more than a simple children's cartoon plot. The puzzles are varied and the not-so-subtle humour keeps the game fresh and fun, even though you don't care about the story. The enjoyment all lies in the gameplay and sheer enjoyment of exploring a diverse world of challenges and secrets. Within the general direction of the game's progression, you have full control over what you want to do first and last.

Summary

If you've played Half-Minute Hero (the first game), The Second Coming is a true sequel that certainly builds upon its origins but on a much larger scale. You control a small, useless "hero" in an RPG world, set to save that very world from certain destruction. Not much different from most other classic RPGs, I know. The one caveat is that you only have 30 seconds to do so, and therein lies the series' unique gameplay and quirky humour.

Rush through the intro, the world is about to end. Battle monsters to level up, do side quests to unlock alternate routes or equipment, become better than the Evil Lords and destroy them, all in less than half a minute. Just as you've completed the credits, a new threat appears, and you have to do it all over again! While it is possible to beat many of the quests (levels) within this time limit, you actually get to rewind time to make it all more digestible. Though, the Goddess of Time is not a fan of the greater good, as she takes an increasingly larger fee each time you make use of her ability.

New additions

The Second Coming contains several new campaigns to a tried and loved concept without changing the formulae too much. While the first game was a nice little distraction from daily chores, you'll have to take a week off to complete all of the content in this game. And you should complete it all, as that is where a lot of this game's quirkyness and gameplay challenge actually lies. In addition to a plethora of new quests, there's also a map editor and a multiplayer segment added, so the fun can continue endlessly if you so wish! And if the map editor is not enough, there is literally an endless mode as well, which is comparable to a boss rush.

It's definitely a title that hands you a unique experience along with a lot to do compared to what you paid for it. Did your download finish yet?