Super Lucky’s Tale Review

A jolly platformer seems relative novelty in video games these days. Yooka-Laylee had some success throwing players back to the late 90s with its Banjo Kazooie-aping platforming gameplay along with those irritating noises that disguise themselves as the voices of the characters. New Super Lucky’s Tale does boast classic platforming, but unlike the lizard and bat combo this platformer does save your ears from the grating noises most of the time and dodges the iffy platforming of many of its contemporaries. Instead, New Super Lucky’s Tale graces players with a colourful and simple platformer that’s great for youngsters and adults alike – even if it doesn’t do anything particularly surprising to elevate itself to headier heights.

Your adventure begins by introducing you to the strife of foxes, where Lyra Swiftail narrates the struggle they’ve been enduring thanks to the upheaval reigned down upon them by an evil cat named Jinx, along with his brood of children aptly named “the Kitty Litter”. Lyra and her order had been trying to outrun Jinx for years whilst trying to keep Jinx’s naughty cat paws off the sacred Book of Ages that harnesses worlds within it. One day Jinx casts a mighty spell against the book and the book’s reaction was akin to a regurgitation, as it started to swallow up everything in its vicinity – which included Lyra’s brother Lucky. And thus the journey begins, not one about Lyra and her order, but about Lucky and his adventures across various vibrant worlds. An adventure as it turns out that is a purrrity good one or, if fox puns are more your thing – a foxy good time.

Lucky and his Basil Brush proportions will swish their way through a handful of colourful and picturesque hub worlds. There are 5 main worlds for you to explore, and within these worlds there are a handful of portals you can access that’ll take you to missions that’ll get you jumping hopping, bouncing and burrowing towards your objective, with the primary objective being to collect pages from the Book of Ages that will ultimately allow you to break a portal to a boss battle against members of the Kitty Litter. Sometimes you’ll be contending with 2D platform levels that are relatively breezy like the rest of the game, but there are wrinkles that keep things interesting, like avoiding rolling barrels with spikes on them being hurled by some ape – which may remind you of a certain Nintendo primate and the mischief he gets up to. Collecting stuff is also on the menu as there are hidden pages and letters including Ls, Us,Cs,Ks and Ys that collectively spell out LUCKY that you will stumble across and encounter if you indulge in your curiosity enough or randomly stumble upon as you traverse.

Besides the main portals there are hidden foxholes that hide miniature challenges, often involving statue-arranging puzzles and collecting colourful coins under a time limit. Completion of both of these kinds of challenges allows you collect more pages to aid in progress. Statue puzzles are relatively simple where you move fox-resembling statuettes along a sliding grid and arrange them on green plus symbols. These start pretty easy, but the challenge toughens up slowly as you make your way through the game – although they’ll wear on you slowly, making you wish for minigames or asides that are more digestible and playful. The coin collecting time challenges can be found various times throughout your adventures and they are simple but do require more pinpoint precise platforming than you will be used to.

The feeling of jumping, running, bouncing, bounding and burrowing around the environments in NSLT is delightfully simple and works as cheerfully as the best in the genre. Jumping feels precise and pinpoint, your inputs replicated onscreen accurately like if you double-jump, and on the second press you hold the button down, Lucky will gain an extra bit of distance – which is a decent flourish. The flow of platforming is also impressively nimble and swishy – making levels a total joy as you bound across obstacles and avoid traps. More imagination and unpredictability would’ve been welcome to shake up the standardised platforming some, but what’s here is pleasing nonetheless. The camera is unfortunately a bit jammy and can make planned jumps a bit annoying at times, which will become further addling if you find yourself landing in bodies of water because this Canidae can’t swim.

Lucky makes good use of his tail as he can spin attack to take out his troublesome foes, smash open chests and boxes to collect coins and is even able to deflect the oncoming projectiles of his enemies and send them hurling back in their faces. You’d be forgiven for thinking the game is called Super Lucky’s Tail – because Lucky’s tail is used so many times to solve the game’s headscratchers and repel enemies – that Tale seems like a weaker substitute because story is of minor concern in this one compared with the jolly and cute nature of your exploits. 

Colourfully splendid and eloquent, New Super Lucky’s Tale pops with eye-pleasing visuals that are elegant even if they’re quite basic and lack the emphatic grandeur of a few of its contemporaries. Whilst you won’t be bowled over by how it looks, you will find a lavish and inviting array of worlds from a haunted and spooky carnival setting, to a postcard paradise-like beach, to a rural outback. The settings are as magical as the cutesy characters that vibrantly lift the game up from the dregs of averageness. 

Audio works wonderfully alongside the bountiful characters and the lushly animated environments. Characters have their own dialogue sounds but are nowhere near as annoying to listen to than in other similar platformers – but those hued ghosts you meet in the Hauntingtham level are prone to getting a little too giddy with their spooky utterances. Music is suitably etched into each level to bring a magical sense of discovery to each land you visit. It’s subtle, but the soundtrack certainly delivers on the vibes that each level represents.

Conclusion

As unlikely as it may appear, New Super Lucky Tale is a punchy and polished platformer that does a great job of thrusting you into its luscious worlds. While there’s nothing truly astonishing here, New Super Lucky’s Tale does a splendid job of giving its players a joyful and fun platforming adventure game with lots of puzzles and challenges to keep one busy for the duration of its six-seven hour runtime. Youngsters will certainly find a lot to love here and in this vein New Super Lucky’s Tale is a triumph. Everyone else will find a nice and pleasant platformer but might want more excitement and memorable moments that they probably won’t find here. Ultimately Lucky’s tale is one worth taking in no matter your age, just keep in mind that you may not find enough excitement or story for your liking.

This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.