New Super Lucky's Tale (2021)
I’m surprised by a couple things with Lucky’s Tale, one, that it’s a franchise that seems to have put out a few games now, and no one talks about it. And two, that the reason no one talks about it, is partially the fault of the naming scheme. Lucky’s Tale has all the makings of a great 3D platformer, and back in 2016 when the original Lucky’s Tale came out, I was sure that people would latch onto the game and it would blow up. Sadly that never happened.
So, again, a bit of backstory, Lucky’s Tale came out in 2016 exclusively for VR and the Oculus Rift. Then a sequel called “Super Lucky’s Tale” came out a couple years later and is a brand new game in the series, and just doesn’t care if you played the first one at all or not, then NEW Super Lucky’s Tale, that is a remaster just another two years later, that fixed up some stuff from Super Lucky’s Tale but is essentially the same game? I guess?
New Super Lucky’s Tale is on GamePass, and after finishing Halo Infinite, I wanted something a bit less serious to play around with as I didn’t want to get into another longer game. So I sat down and started playing, and really didn’t care for how childish and cartoonish the opening cinematic was. I don’t care about all the enchanted animals, I don’t care about how many different characters have these crazy backstories, and they are all new and don’t really matter in the grand scheme of the game. Once the game started, and I had full control of Lucky Swiftale, the little fox that I played as with my first real full VR game back in 2016… I remembered how fun these games are.
The story itself really isn’t anything fancy, Lucky’s sister, Lyra has a magical book, and the big bad guy named Jinx wants it. He sends his henchmen, who are all cats, and called the “Kitty Litter” to go get this book from her. The book opens up and transports Lucky and Jinx and the Kitty Litter to another dimension and trapping Lyra and her friends in a different Realm. It’s up to Lucky to find missing pieces of the book and get back to his sister.
In the same style of gameplay as other 3D platformers, such as Mario 64, Lucky’s Tale, it starts you off in small hub worlds.Each hub has a theme, one is a beach, one is spooky, one is a desert… and these hub worlds lets you choose to roam around and find little hidden secrets, or solve small puzzle levels to get more pages. But the real levels are in doors you travel though, just like the paintings in Mario 64. In each door level, has a different style of game mechanic, one was a endless runner style, where you just have to press jump to avoid obstacles, One is a full 3D open ended level, again just like any other normal platformer, and one is a side scroller. This really gave the game a variety so I didn’t feel like I was just completing the same things over and over through each level, and kept my interest up the entire time.
There are several of the larger open levels that have you doing collectathons, and rounding up certain NPCs to preform a special task. In the Farm level, there is a band called the Soggy Bottom Boys that are little worms that play in a band. Each of them is in a specific part of the map and need rescuing or help in some way, and you go out and do whatever it takes to get them together to preform at the big concert. Or in the spooky hub, a level requires you to earn enough tickets from carnival rides to earn the page. So you go to various booths at the carnival and partake in activities to earn a ticket, and redeem them at the end of the level.
It was much more than a simple platformer and I was baffled as to why no one was talking about it. Again, I think the naming convention for the series is really jacked up and doesn't help much. Lucky’s Tale is simple enough, but naming the sequel Super Lucky’s Tale, doesn’t tell me its a new game anymore. Maybe back in the Super Nintendo days, you could get away with that, but not now. Super in a title usually means remastered or something. Same with the New Super Lucky’s Tale, it’s a remaster, but it has the word new in it, so it must be… “NEW” right? It’s just really confusing and doesn’t make much sense to me. A numbered sequel system, or something like Lucky’s Tale 3, Lucky Switftale and the Magical Book, seems likes a way better way to go.
Really the whole point is that the game is much better than you would think it would be by the cover or name. The opening cinematic and some of the characters do feel very childish, but the gameplay itself and the way the difficulty of some of the later levels opens up the game to people like me who do enjoy collecting things. It’s a great game that deserves a chance, sit down and play through the first hub world, which should take no more than half an hour. By then, you’ll know if you want to keep playing. It hooked me fairly quickly, and I finished the game in two sittings, and really enjoyed myself, and hope there are more Lucky’s Tale games… just ones with better named titles.