Flynn: Son of Crimson (XB1, PS4, NSW, PC) Review

The second-to-last month of 2021 (wow, this year is going by fast!) sees a new review hitting SuperPhillip Central. It's a marvelous 2D platformer from a new indie studio, and their first project and release is Flynn: Son of Crimson, available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Here is the SPC review. 

A guardian dog-gone good game

When a mysterious and formidable villain steals his guardian wolf Dex's energy, our hero Flynn must search far and wide across the land of Roscantica to recover the lost energy. That is where our tale kicks off to a fast start, offering dozens of 2D platforming levels with hack-and-slash action sprinkled on top of it. 

The developer describes Flynn: Son of Crimson as a light Metroidvania, though this might conjure up ideas of an interconnected series of levels where players earn new abilities to progress through it. While our titular hero does earn new abilities in the form of weapons like an axe that can smash through crystals, and magic like fireballs that can light torches and lightning that can shock enemies, the levels in Flynn: Son of Crimson are segmented in a world map more akin to a game like Super Mario World or Donkey Kong Country than something like Metroid or Castlevania.

Flynn and his trusty guardian dog spirit Dex leap into action!

The aforementioned hack-and-slash action in Flynn: Son of Crimson involves our hero's ability to utilize one of three earned weapons within the game: a standard sword, a heavy axe, and a quick striking claw. As players progress in the game, they'll encounter a character that they can spend the in-game currency on, discovered from defeating foes and destroying red crystals of various sizes. This currency can be spent on further evolving Flynn's skillset, adding more attack power to his arsenal, giving him more health, increasing his combo capacity, and much more.

Speaking of leaping into action, both Flynn and these foes are doing just that!

Apart from offensive capabilities, our hero has some ways to help him help himself with the ability to heal himself in an almost Hollow Knight manner. By finding and smashing green crystals, Flynn can store healing energy in a vessel that can be used when his health is low. He'll need to not be interrupted by an enemy's attack to heal himself properly, but this really helps in a pinch in the more pressing enemy engagements and levels. such as in the game's secret survival levels, where you face wave after wave of enemies one after the other with not much in the way of a break in between each wave.  

When you're not slashing and slicing enemies as Flynn and taking on epic bosses in stellar one-on-one showdowns (though I must note that most of these showdowns sport very little in the way in context of why you're engaging in them in the first place--small gripe, though), you'll be solving environmental puzzles. These are rather basic, but they're fun to solve all the same. None outstay their welcome, and each level introduces a new mechanic to make for an enjoyable experience overall. One level features acid rain, which requires Flynn to occasionally seek shelter under ceilings and inside caves, or else slowly have his health whittle away, while another is an ode to the Lost Woods from Legend of Zelda fame, where players must properly choose the correct path by listening well to an NPC's words to successfully navigate through it.

One could say that our hero is "Flynn it to win it?"
...Okay, maybe not, but he's ready and able to succeed all the same.

Occasionally, Flynn, and by extension players as well, will encounter Roscantica's threat firsthand with the Scourge. This results in levels being blocked by the player until they uncover the Scourge's source in one of the levels, and completing a short but intense Scourge-version of one of the game's levels. These usually involve dark, dimly lit areas, sometimes featuring acid water, plenty of thorns, and even a magical axe that stalks our hero, ready to strike him if Flynn lingers nearby for too long. These brief roadblocks in Flynn's adventure don't take too terribly long to complete, but like many of the levels themselves, they split up any possible monotony players might face. 

Flynn: Son of Crimson is a short game, especially if your intention is to just speed or rush through it. Still, even if you're going for 101% completion, Flynn's adventure isn't a lengthy one. For me, the game clocked in at just over 7 hours for full completion with every achievement attained and every secret revealed. 

While the length of the game is a short one, Flynn: Son of Crimson does not feature much in the way of padding whatsoever, as the game maintains a steady and enjoyable pace from beginning to end. With three difficulties and a wealth of accessibility options that are much welcomed, as well as loads of hidden exits in levels and secret relics to acquire, Flynn: Son of Crimson has no shortage of goodies to discover, making repeated playthroughs a joy.

Collect hidden relics in levels to trade to an in-town NPC for massive amounts of red crystals.

Unlike the locations of the game's hidden relics, throughout its pretty pixelated presentation, which is exemplified in its gameplay, environments, and even in its cutscenes, it's no secret that Flynn: Son of Crimson is one seriously gorgeous game. Everything, from the characters to the enemies, to the backgrounds and objects, is remarkably and impeccably defined, offering a clear and colorful visual style that must be seen in motion to be believed. The soundtrack is stellar, delivering memorable tunes and melodies that will be dancing around in your head long after you end your gaming session.

Defeat enemies, destroy red crystals, and collect red shards in the wild to also expand Flynn's "wallet" of sorts.

For a first effort from Studio Thunderhorse, the team has managed to craft one of the better indie titles of the year. And perhaps that's a bit too limiting as a description. Nay, Flynn: Son of Crimson stands as one of the better titles of the year, indie or not. What it lacks in length, it more than makes up for in brilliant design--whether within its levels or its gameplay, its immaculate pixel art style, and terrific pacing. No matter if you pick it up off Game Pass on Xbox or PC or purchase the game, you're in for a real winner with Flynn: Son of Crimson.

[SPC Says: A-]

New Super Lucky's Tale (NSW) Review

Let's take a quick breather from the SuperPhillip Central's Best of 2019 Awards for a review of a recent Nintendo Switch release. It's New Super Lucky's Tale, a game that had previous versions on two different platforms. Now, new and improved, is New Super Lucky's Tale the definitive version of Lucky's first platforming adventure? Here's the answer with the SPC review.

Don't try to outfox this fox!

What a story Lucky has had thus far! I'm not even talking about his trials to become a guardian and such. I'm referring to his original debut on the Oculus Rift VR exclusive Lucky's Tale, followed by the more expansive Xbox One game Super Lucky's Tale. Now, the game moves to a new platform and with another new word added to its name. New Super Lucky's Tale is almost unrecognizable from its previous iterations with how much has changed, but do all of the game's new additions and changes make for a better experience? Well... Yes and no.

New Super Lucky's Tale sees the evil Jinx and his band of rogue villains, the Kitty Litter, seeking a mystical book that holds numerous worlds inside of it. When the pages are scattered about in a scuffle, the book teleports Lucky, who is caught in the fray, and taken to one of the various worlds. Only through taking on each member of the Kitty Litter and collecting the pages of the book can Lucky find his way home to his family.

New Super Lucky's Tale sports some voiced dialogue, but most of it in-game is through text boxes and small soundbites of gibberish. That said, the characterization in the game is top-notch with some truly charming characters. Lucky himself is bursting with personality, and I love the way he looks at the camera and greets the player when one zooms in on him. This personality is further enhanced by unlockable costumes that are purchased with the game's currency.

The characters in New Super Lucky's Tale occasionally provided me with a chuckle or two.

The goal of New Super Lucky's Tale sees Lucky entering into levels to collect Clover Pages, of which there are four per level. One of these is collected simply from clearing the main level objective, such as the first level's goal of finding and carrying three golem heads back to their lonely bodies. Another page is hidden in the level, usually locked behind some kind of platforming puzzle. Then the other two pages are acquired by finding and collecting the letters L-U-C-K-Y and gathering 300 coins in a single level. While most the goals are optional apart from clearing the level, the door to the boss of each hub world requires a set number of pages to open its lock.

Another Clover Page collected. Keep it up, Lucky!

That said, it's quite easy to just stumble upon Clover Pages as long as you're doing the minimum amount of exploration required. Nevertheless, if you want to 100% the game, you'll have to search high and low in levels and perform some rather crafty platforming spectacles to complete some of the more fur-raising challenges in the game. The post-game challenges, for instance, will cause even the most proficient of platform game players to stumble a little bit.

Lucky thinks he's a field goal kicker for the NFL all of a sudden. And... it's good!

Playful's game was sold as a 3D platformer, but it's so much more than that. There's a great amount of variety on display here with the gameplay, though that's not always a positive thing. Apart from the 3D worlds filled with entertaining exploration, platforming peril, and puzzles abound, there are side-scrolling 2D levels, which offer a decent degree of delightful design. Then, there are auto-runner levels that play at an angle, which are enjoyable enough.

The 2D levels offer a change in perspective but no change in quality, thankfully.

The unwelcome variety in New Super Lucky's Tale comes from gameplay that isn't actual platforming. While solving sliding stone statue puzzles is amusing the first five times you do it, after you see the 15th puzzle you need to solve for a Clover Page, it very much outwears its welcome. Then, there are the marble rolling mini-games, which not only are frustrating to control, but the camera angle makes seeing your ball incredibly hard when you're away from the front of the board.

If only Lucky had some pesticide for this particular petal-filled pest!

When you are running and jumping around in New Super Lucky's Tale, you're going to have a solid time. Lucky can jump and then utilize a spin of his tail, Mario Galaxy-style, to get extra distance and for last second tweaking when landing. His ability to burrow under soft ground is a highlight of Lucky's move set, allowing him to pass under otherwise impenetrable objects like cages and fences, as well as avoid detection during brief and non-frustrating stealth sections. What can be frustrating, though, is Lucky's double jump, which caused me to occasionally attempt to bounce off enemies too early. There are also some collision detection issues that needed a wee bit more polish to iron out.

Lucky is able to burrow into soft soil like this to dodge these over-sized but not over-easy eggs.

Bosses round out the action in New Super Lucky's Tale, and these aren't too amazing of experiences. They all follow the same patterns of dodging various attacks--usually barrages of fireballs--and then waiting for your opportunity to attack the boss directly. There is some variety in how you attack each boss, but New Super Lucky's Tale won't be winning any awards for exceptionally creative boss battles. They're enjoyable enough, but won't give a long, lasting impression.

This boss is beaten by flipping various switches around the arena to launch a laser beam right at it.

New Super Lucky's Tale has some performance problems with its arrival on the Nintendo Switch. Frame-rate hiccups and lengthy loading times were far too frequent for my liking through my 10+ hour play-through of the game to achieve 100%. (As an aside, I encourage going for 100%, as otherwise, New Super Lucky's Tale is a rather short adventure). There is also noticeable pop-in with objects materializing from thin air in level overviews that begin each entrance into a level, where the camera surveys the platforming to come. On a positive note, despite these performance problems, New Super Lucky's Tale is a noted beauty of a game, and proof positive that a pleasant art style can conquer all. The music is suitably catchy, as well, so much so that I tracked down some song samples on YouTube just to listen to them outside the game.

Overall, my happiness that Super Lucky's Tale was brought to the Nintendo Switch didn't diminish through playing the final game. Sure, there were headaches here and there while playing the game to full completion (I'm looking directly at you, marble puzzles), but I had more good times and favorable moments with New Super Lucky's Tale than bad. While I doubt I'll want to return to the game often due to the unskippable story sequences in levels and all of the non-platforming gameplay, I do think pretty highly of the game. That's because ultimately, New Super Lucky's Tale is a solid platformer, a definitive version of Lucky's adventure, and most welcome in any run and jump fan's ever-expanding collection of Switch games.

[SPC Says: B-]

Toki Tori 2+ (NSW) Review

How many reviews can SuperPhillip Central pack into the final week of March? Let's find out! Our first review of the week is a recent release on the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo Switch, Two Tribes's Toki Tori 2+. Should you chirp happily about the game or derp sadly for Two Tribes?

Bird is the word.

Toki Tori 2+ feels like a 2D side-scrolling puzzle-platformer with levels that command you to go in one specific direction with very little in the way of choice in how you want to do things. In your first hours with Toki Tori 2+, you might figure that the game has one path in mind of where you're supposed to go. I mean, how am I supposed to get past THIS obstacle!? I don't have the right ability However, as you progress through the game, you quickly realize that these thoughts of limitation are, in fact, in no way, shape or form truthful. The roadblocks you encounter in Toki Tori 2+ are merely those of illusion.

You see, something that Toki Tori 2+ veterans know going into the game that beginners do not is that you can pretty much go anywhere you want in Toki Tori 2+ right from the get-go. There's no obstruction or obstacle you can't get past or figure out away through or around. Unlike a Metroidvania game, you don't get access to new abilities to reach new areas of Toki Tori 2+. Instead, you already have access to all of the abilities within the game; it's just that you don't know how to use them immediately as a beginner. 

Starting off, our heroic, chirpy friend can only whistle, stomp, and move. That's pretty much all you get throughout the entire duration of the game ability-wise. It's up to you to figure out how to use these in isolation or in combination with other creatures, obstacles, and pieces of environment in order to progress in Toki Tori's adventure. 

Toki Tori 2+ is one amazing puzzle-platforming adventure.

Toki Tori 2+ is an ingenious display of having a tutorial that shows and doesn't tell players straight out on how to proceed. Hints in the environment and context clues provide what's necessary to learn how to interact with the game world and move forward. One of the earliest examples of this is being impeded by a big, stone block, which is the home of a hermit crab. Seeing as Toki Tori can't jump in the game, some other solution is needed. That's when the two aforementioned actions come in: whistling and stomping. Standing next to the hermit crab and whistling doesn't seem to do anything, so the logical next step would be to stomp. In doing so, the crab and its block move to the right, no longer impeding your way ahead. One can even experiment with the hermit crab and its stone block further by whistling while standing on the other side. The hermit crab will move towards Toki Tori. This shows the player that when they whistle and move, the hermit crab will move towards them, and when they stomp and move, the hermit crab will move away from them.

Stomping while on this side of this hermit crab will cause it to move away from Toki Tori,
building a staircase for him to climb across and proceed through this level.

This type of experimenting is key to learning how to progress in Toki Tori 2+ because, again, the game doesn't blatantly let loose what you need to do in text or spoken form. It's all on you to teach yourself on how to get through levels while solving the game's puzzles. Toki Tori 2+ lets you learn how to use your abilities in simple scenarios before eventually pitting you against puzzles that really have some involved steps to complete. Once you learn how certain abilities interact with the game world, you can go back to previous areas and reach all-new spots that you couldn't figure out to enter before. That said, if you're already familiar with how Toki Tori's basic move set interacts with the game world, you can essentially reach these areas and go anywhere you want. There is no one correct way to play Toki Tori 2+. There is no one correct path through the game. It's an interconnected game world where your knowledge on how Toki Tori's behavior influences the world around him means you can start at as easy a series of levels or as challenging as you want. 

One of my favorite-looking locales in Toki Tori 2+. Just so soothing and calming to gaze upon. 

The levels of Toki Tori 2+ span a great number of locales. Though levels have no names, you can easily tell them apart by their distinct backgrounds and environments. Such locales include a sunny beach, a hot and intense volcano, a forest filled with running windmills, a central town for the local chirping residents, cascading waterfalls that spray enough mist in the air to show off gorgeous rainbows, heavily wooded areas, and even the underside of the island itself. The island map, which is pretty sizable, tells you where you currently are, and this pops up as you move between levels. You can also call it at any time in the game by hitting the "-" button. 

This is but one half of the island map of Toki Tori 2+.

Eventually, you learn various songs played by Toki Tori as he whistles. You merely press the whistle button for a short note or hold the button for a long note. You can do a 4-6 note melody to perform a handful of songs. Some call upon a bird holding a camera to take photos of nearby creatures and obstacles. Others can call upon an eagle to pick up up and transport you to any warp point you've already found throughout he island. 

Then, there's a song that helps out if you manage to botch a puzzle, which is anything but rare in Toki Tori 2+. Levels contain an ample amount of checkpoints, usually placed before and after a puzzle. Playing one of the songs as Toki Tori transports him to the last checkpoint he reached, setting everything back as it was to the time he touched the checkpoint. This can easily rectify a costly mistake in a puzzle that would otherwise force you to completely reset the level and start from its beginning. That said, this isn't perfect. Some puzzles have two checkpoints involved, and if you find yourself butchering a puzzle and creating a no-win situation (a common occurrence in Toki Tori 2+) and then hit another checkpoint, your progress will be saved. This means that if you play the song to return to a checkpoint, the puzzle will still be unwinnable and you'll have to reset the level. 

Are you yawning because you haven't moved in quite a while,
or are you crying because we're going to have to reset the level?

It would be better if the game had a "reset the puzzle" option instead of resetting the entire level, as it's quite easy to innocently mess up a puzzle and not want to have to redo minutes of hard work all over again because you accidentally hit a checkpoint. A Switch-exclusive song does mitigate this issue somewhat, allowing you to put down your own temporary checkpoint, but it doesn't really fix the problem here.

It's like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds!

Another song is a blessing for the endgame, a song that reveals if you're missing any collectibles, aka golden feathers, in a given level. In levels, this shows up as a ring, pointing in the general direction where the golden feathers hover. On the island map, the song reveals which levels still contain golden feathers, so you don't have to revisit every level in the game and individually play the song from one location to another. Golden feathers have a special bonus at the end of the game for diligent and persistent players, and the reward is well worth it.

Toki Tori is just trying to help this lava go with the flow.

Speaking of the endgame, Toki Tori 2+ will definitely give you your money's worth. It's a game that took me close to 15 hours to reach what is essentially the end of the game. A whole slew of in-game achievements encourage even more playing, and one even welcomes the idea of completely sequence breaking the game. That's just how open the game world and rules of Toki Tori 2+ are. Just be prepared to have access to a guide, preferably a YouTube walkthrough, just in case you find yourself getting frustrated at not being able to wrap your head around a particular puzzle (or especially the timing necessary to solve a particular puzzle). 

Toki Tori 2+ is a brilliant puzzle-platformer that is so much smarter than it initially appears to be. The game world is only as limited for you to explore as your experimentation with it and the knowledge of how to use the game's mechanics. Being able to slowly and safely learn the tricks you need to utilize with only a two-ability system becomes a mighty revelation when you figure out you've always had the option to plot your own course across the island. It makes subsequent runs through the game and potentially speed-run opportunities all the more special. The lack of a "reset puzzle" feature and some truly antagonizing puzzles can cause some mild annoyance with this game, but overall, Toki Tori 2+ shows that going to the birds isn't always a bad thing!

[SPC Says: A-]

Review copy provided by Two Tribes.