Let's Talk About New Super Lucky's Tale

I've played a lot of big adventure games this year, Trials of Mana, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Paper Mario the Origami King, Indivisible. I'm worn out on big adventures. I need something simpler, something easy, a palette cleanser of some kind. Thus we have today's game, New Super Lucky's Tale, developed by Playful on Nintendo Switch, though it is coming to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One very soon.

Lucky's Tale has had an interesting history. It started out as a VR platformer for the Oculus Rift simply titled Lucky's Tale, then a reimagining was released without VR exclusively on Xbox One under the name Super Lucky's Tale before we got an updated version called New Super Lucky's Tale. This game is like the Street Fighter 2 of 3D platformers. But let's take a look at New Super Lucky's Tale and see if it's any good.

Since this is a platformer you'd expect it to be light on story, and it is, but I was surprised at the effort they put into the writing. The story is about a young Fox named Lucky trying to stop an evil cat named Jinx and his family, The Kitty Litter, from getting a magic book called The Book of Ages and using it to take over the world. A standard plot for a platformer but I have to give Playful some credit here. They tried to give Lucky's world mythos. The opening cutscene is a lot darker than I was expecting which I liked, it's nice to see a kids game take it's audience seriously for a change. Even if it doesn't really match the tone of the rest of the game.

There's a lot of little details in the plot that help make Lucky's world feel bigger. You can tell it has a history to it that can be explored in future games. It is still a light hearted adventure. You'll visit a lot of colourful worlds and meet a bunch of quirky characters along the way. The Kitty Litter aren't the most interesting villains but they have their own personalities that make them fun villains to go up against. Each world has it's own race of NPC's and they are fun to interact with.

My favourite world is Wrestful Retreat. It's run by Yeti's who used to be wrestlers but they've given up their violent ways and turned into peaceful monks, that still talk like professional wrestlers. That's pretty funny. The writing is funny on the whole actually. I was surprised at how many jokes actually landed. Oh there are jokes that fall flat but not nearly as many as I thought there would be, even then the bad jokes are charming in a weird sort of way. During load times you can get some additional lore from Greg the Mail Golem that add a bit more context to Lucky's world. Or maybe he'll just say something utterly wholesome. Either way it made the loading times more interesting.

So the writing is surprisingly decent. It's nothing spectacular but at the very least it's fun and charming. That's all I ask for in a game like this. Visually speaking Lucky's Tale is quite nice. The worlds are bright and colourful, Lucky is animated well, the character designs are charming (there's a yeti based on Randy Savage for God's sake how can you not love that?) Lucky's Tale is a good looking game. It's all the little details they added that I love. Like the little animals you see populating the levels, they don't do anything but they help make the world feel lived in. Lucky's tale does use fairly typical level themes, you've got your standard canyon, beach and spooky themed levels but you also have levels based on a farm and the opening levels take place in an abandoned castle. Even the standard themes are done very well and do have things that help them stand out from other games. Again, former wrestling yeti's turned monks, name me one other game that has that.

The opening and ending cutscenes are done in a hand drawn style and they look great and fit the cartoony nature of the game. Lucky's Tale nails the look of a cartoon, everything is so bouncy and lively it's hard not to like it. Lucky himself is a great character too, he's so lively and full of wonder and he always has a big smile on his face. He's adorable. That being said the game does suffer from some stuttering when things get a little busy. It's not too bad but some of it did lead to me dying once or twice. This is a very rare occurrence however.

But that's my only real complaint in terms of the presentation because everything else is great. I already went over the visuals but the music is fantastic. The thing is though, for as good as the music is it did remind me of other games. If you listen to the opening level theme and don't think of Spyro you cannot be doing it right. Not as if that's a bad thing or anything. Lucky's Tale takes a lot of inspiration from 90's and early 2000's era platformers so I think the similarities were intentional. It helps that the music is very good. It's upbeat and catchy but my favourite tracks were actually the more atmospheric ones. I'm a sucker for nice ambient music, you can blame Aquatic Ambience for that. There's also a tiny bit of voice acting. Though outside the opening and ending cutscenes most of the voices are done in a Banjo Kazooie/Sims like gibberish. It's cute and fits the game so I can't complain about it too much.

Now we move on to gameplay. Like every good 3D platforming protagonist Lucky has a variety of moves he can pull off. You've got your standard double jump, you have a tail swipe attack that's good at dealing with enemies and extending your jumps, but Lucky's most interesting moves are his dive and burrow ability. By pressing the trigger buttons Lucky will burrow underground, this is useful for getting buried coins or getting under certain obstacles. If you press them in the air Lucky does a dive move that also acts like a makeshift ground pound. If you try to burrow on hard surfaces Lucky will do a quick slide instead. You can chain most of these moves together and it's pretty satisfying to pull off. There's a flow and rhythm to it that feels really good when you can successfully chain several moves together. I kind of wish Lucky didn't automatically move forward whenever he digs but that's only because I like having full control. Other than that Lucky controls great.

Lucky doesn't have the biggest move set but the game definitely takes full advantage of it with tricky platforming and fun puzzles. Bare in mind that tricky does not necessarily mean challenging. New Super Lucky's Tale is one of the easiest platformers I've played, intentionally so. Playful have admitted that the game was designed as a super beginner friendly game. Something that's great for young kids. This runs the risk of making the game so easy that it's boring. Luckily, pun intended, this game manages to find the right balance between fun and engaging gameplay and accessibility.

Let me put to you this way, there are two different ways of handling a beginner friendly game, the Final Fantasy Mystic Quest way and the Mario RPG way. Mystic Quest is often mocked for how overly simple gameplay, it's an RPG with systems so braindead that it basically becomes a game of tap A to win. Mario RPG on the other hand, offers a typical RPG experience that is simplified just enough to make it accessible to newcomers while trusting their intelligence to learn how everything works. One brings the game down to the players level, the other brings the player up to the games level.

Lucky's Tale is in the latter category. The game is simple, yes, but not brainless. There are platforming challenges that do require you to be patient and time your jumps, it's just a bit more forgiving than others. Because of this, Lucky's Tale is a fun and engaging experience throughout despite the easy difficulty. The final world, Foxington, even features additional challenges that do offer more of a challenge. I can get through them pretty easily but younger players will definitely find them a good test of their skills.

The level design is excellent and the levels themselves are varied. There are three different types of levels, 3D levels, 2D side scrolling levels and auto running levels. Even within these 3 categories there's a variety of different types of levels. Take the 3D levels for instance. Some are akin to Super Mario 3D World and are a series linear platforming challenges while others are more open and require exploration to progress. The variety in the game is strong but it never deviates from the core platforming gameplay, which is the best kind of variety in my opinion.

There is some form of consistency in each level when it comes to the collectibles. Like every good platformer, Lucky's Tale has collectibles required for progression in the form of Clover Pages. You need a certain amount of them to reach the boss of that world though the amount needed isn't that many. Every level has 4 Pages to get. The first one you get by simply beating the level. The second involves finding a secret page within the level, usually you find these at the end of an optional challenge. The third page you get by collecting 300 coins, you can also use these coins to buy costumes which don't offer gameplay tweaks but are just a cute extra. They do look pretty adorable though. The last page you get by collecting five letters that spell LUCKY which can be pretty well hidden.

These collectibles do help keep things consistent in each level despite how varied the levels become. At the very least I have a consistent goal in each level which keeps things grounded, it never goes off the rails into different playstyles like a lot of other platformers do. That's not all the game has. In each hub world you'll find optional puzzle challenges in the form of either slide puzzles or ball rolling mazes. These are fine but they do come across as filler. I will give credit that the last few slide puzzles can be fairly tough, I imagine younger players may need to ask for help with these.

Then there are the boss fights. They're alright but the final two fights are definitely the highlights. They are fairly easy, like the rest of the game, but they have a surprising amount of things to dodge. Some of their projectile attacks felt Bullet hellish. It's not as hard as a bullet hell game but still.

Super Lucky's Tale doesn't really have that many problems. I can't really think of any major design issues the game suffers from though there are a few niggling issues. The camera can be an annoyance at times. Apparently it was worse in the original Super Lucky's Tale where you had no control over it but it's still not perfect here. It's also a pretty short game too, you could probably clock this in an afternoon. I don't mind a game being short, especially an easy game since it doesn't over stay it's welcome, but it feels like Lucky's Tale never gets going. It builds up to something big near the end but then it's over, just like that.

Another issue with the game is in some niggling technical issues. I already mentioned the stuttering earlier but the hit detection can be a little wonky. I swear I would get hit by things that were nowhere near me at times. Then there's this weird issue where I would sometimes respawn in places where I was forced to take a hit. One particular moment was during the carnival level where I respawned under the level and died whenever I fell off the Ferris wheel. Speaking of that level, I also managed to soft lock myself out of completing that level. One of the tickets I needed to beat the level de-spawned after I died and I couldn't pick it up again. Admittedly that was my fault for not picking it up but it was still annoying. These technical issues aren't enough to hamper the games overall enjoyment. Honestly they're so infrequent that I'm basically nit-picking at this point. The game is so easy they aren't that frustrating either.

New Super Lucky's Tale is a very easy game and it might be a little too short for it's own good but I still enjoyed my time with it. The fun world, charming characters and excellent level design make it a great game for younger players. Even older players will enjoy it because of it's excellent level design. If you have a young kid and you want a game that's easy for them to get into that doesn't insult their intelligence then New Super Lucky's Tale is perfect for them. It's a great beginner level platformer to ease them into the genre before they tackle something like a Crash Bandicoot. And yes, it makes for a good palette cleanser after you've played a long and exhausting game. Because sometimes you just want something simple. Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.