What are you playing? c'mon, tell me punk!

[Kriven]

Lately I've been doing this thing where I don't allow myself to buy a new game unless I've played all of the other games I've bought recently (with the exception of bundles/seasonal sales), which has actually pushed me into playing a lot of the "midlist" games that I always pick up but never end up playing. My girlfriend and I picked up a bunch of titles in November and I've been slowly working through in my free time (in addition to continuing to play Pikmin 3's Bingo Battle mode often and occasionally revisiting older games for grinding and whatnot). The top of that pile was Hey Pikmin!, which I wasn't sure I would like but which turned out to be a very satisfying strategy game. A lot of people are branding it as a puzzle-platform, but I don't feel like that's exactly an appropriate classification. It's really much more of a sidescrolling strategy game than it is a platformer, and while there are puzzles the focus of the game is exploration--which is exactly what a Pikmin game should focus on! Granted, the exploration is fairly limited without a three-dimensional world to explore, but it's still fun enough. There were a lot of times I felt cheated by the game, however... it would have helped dramatically if Olimar wasn't so sluggish. Not only is his movement speed pitiful, but there's a bit of a delay on every command you send him, and then an additional delay until he commands the Pikmin. For instance, an enemy is charging at your stupid Pikmin, so you click the whistle button... but first you have to wait a second... and then Olimar shouts "HEY!" and then he whistles... and then you wait... and then the Pikmin will come running... maybe... because sometimes the little shits just don't respond. Meanwhile, the enemies are all fast and unlike Pikmin 3 you have no opportunity to save your little friends once they're scooped up or lit on fire. Weirdly, I found the most basic enemies (a dwarf breadbug, which behaves like the dwarf bulborbs from the other games) to be the most challenging of the common enemies that you encounter. You have to hit them in just the right spot--come up short but still above them and your Pikmin are instantly munched. This was a real problem when trying to get the no-death bonus in each level.

After that I moved onto Kirby: Triple Deluxe, which is in my opinion the best Kirby game short of Kirby 64. Usually with Kirby games they all kind of run together in my memories. Sure, I have a great time playing them, but I almost never can make heads or tails of the story, the characters, their motivations, or even the level designs (and that last one was still an issue at times). Worst of all: I often can't tell you which level or boss or enemy or power-up is from which game, because they're all just so samey. I don't think I'm going to have that problem with Triple Deluxe. Even though a lot of the environments and sub-bosses are pulled right out of the previous games, there was a certain amount of new life breathed into them. There's an element to the visuals that I think helps with making things more memorable, but I feel like the gameplay was simply more engaging than Kirby usually is. I wasn't just pushing right and trying to reach the end of the level, I was exploring and remembering routes and was able to actually distinguish one doorway from the next, one room from the last. I also really enjoyed all of the sub-game variety, and actually took a bit of a break from the game itself to tackle DeDeDe's Drum Dash Deluxe--which I had downloaded but never got around to playing. In my folly I thought it would be about as simple as the four Drum Dash stages in Triple Deluxe and so would make a suitable game to play five minutes at a time on days where I really shouldn't have had the time to be playing games... but that somehow soaked up close to ten hours Oops...

I just completed Triple Deluxe last night (aside from grinding for the rest of the keychains... the game says I'm at 98% completion and I cleared the True Arena, that's good enough for me), so now it's on to the next game in the pile: Super Lucky's Tale. I popped this in for a good couple of hours tonight not expecting too much, since almost everybody is bashing this one (even the cashier when I bought it went on a derisive rant for five minutes...), but honestly... I don't know what they're talking about! The whole time I was playing it I had a smile on my face. The characters are all cute and charming, and I love the way the little citizens in the hub world will run and play and sing songs when you idle near them. The levels are basic, but that doesn't make them unenjoyable. I dunno guys, maybe something's wrong with me, but this is honestly my favorite XBONE game right now. Hopefully the good feels keep coming.

Edit: That's weird. Why is the emoticon appearing at the end of my post instead of at the end of the second paragraph where I typed it?

Edit-Edit: Beat Super Lucky's Tale last night (so overall it only took me about 10 hours to 100% the main game). Loved every second of it. I think it's probably the number three new game that I've played for the year, behind Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey (although I never did get a chance to try out Horizon or Nier Automata...) It's so cute and charming and oddly polished for a game that isn't made by Nintendo. The more explorative players will definitely be able to go out-of-bounds and find various instances of clipping and such, but you actually have to really try and get fairly creative with your exploring to break things too much. And honestly, clipping through the walls and all that brought me back to the N64 in a very good way... finding that 101st red banana in Donkey Kong 64, for example. And there were a couple of weird things like that which I encountered, that made me baffled and curious for the rest of the game. Nothing but a positive experience, and I can't wait to check out the DLC.