Super Lucky’s Tale, for me, is a burst of nostalgia in every direction. Think about it; when was the last time you saw a cartoony 3D platformer that wasn’t a Mario game? In the late Nineties and early Two-thousands they were everywhere. I feel like a lot of people missed on a pretty quality game when this game released nearly 2 years ago on Xbox One. Now, New Super Lucky’s Tale is on the Nintendo Switch so you take our little buddy Lucky on the go with you.
Lucky’s mission is to protect the Book of Ages from the evil cat, Jynx, and his minions. But chaos has happened and pages have gone missing from the mysterious tome. Lucky gets separated from his family and needs to find the pages in order to find his way back to them. Each area, or chapter if you will, has levels that you can enter to complete the challenges within each and find pages. Think Mario 64 with the paintings if you’re having trouble with this concept. It’s your basic platformer; no more, no less.
Lucky doesn’t have a lot up his sleeve in terms of an array of fighting moves, he’s got a lot he can do. You can jump into the ground like a mole of cartoons past, and then he jumps out as you release the button to have him burrow. He can double jump to get to high to reach places. And his attack, a simple tail whip. The levels are pretty straight forwards, not too tough, not too easy. Playful Entertainment really knew how to put together a simple straightforward platformer, that kind of sucks you from moment one.
You also have a collector part of the game for those completionists out there. Not unlike Super Mario Odyssey, you are trying to collect outfits for Lucky as he goes along his journey. I may have been doing something, though, because it seemed like such a grind in order to get enough currency to purchase these outfits, so I was always behind on what was being offered in the current level. New Super Lucky’s Tale also comes with the DLC packages released for the Xbox One, giving you a lot more to do after what is a relatively short story, including more of these outfits to collect.
The controls are responsive and make it easy for you traverse each level. The only that may get you in trouble is camera angles. They can be a little wonky on some levels, and could cause you to misjudge a jump. But after playing for a little bit, you learn to look for these awkward angles and how to get around them.
New Super Lucky’s Tale has some big competition on a platform that offers possibly the most recognizable video game brand ever, and not to mention Odyssey winning Family Game of the Year. However, it is a good time to be had by all with plenty of gameplay. Definitely worth a grab for households with younger gamers.
4 stars out of 5
