#yooka laylee again

[game-boy-pocket]

I very much appreciate video games that are made to be spiritual successors to long dormant IP, either by the creators of said IP who no longer work for their company and didn't retain the rights to their creation, or from indie devs who are just really big fans of an IP that is simply going unused. They're really feeding starving fans what they want.

...but man...

I really... really wish it was not necessary for there to be so god dang many of them...

[bestfurrywife]

Rules

Character must be 18+ (if they don't have a specified age, they must be reasonably assumed to be an adult)

No explicit nsfw images in submissions, suggestive content ok

If you're submitting an indie artist's character (eg, someone's oc from tumblr or other social media) you MUST credit them

follow @bestfurryhusband lol

Submission Form

Submissions for tournament 2 are OPEN

Contestants:

Next contestants (feel free to submit again if you have propaganda to add):

Aela The Huntress (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)

Allison Goleta (Super Lesbian Animal RPG)

Applejack (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Auroth, the Winter Wyvern (Defense of the Ancients 2)

 Bonnie (@dapper-lil-catgirl on Tumblr)

Princess Cadence (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic)

Carmelita Fox (Sly Cooper)

Catra (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

Catty (Undertale)

Dabarella Yeetster (Adventure Is Nigh!)

Dean Hardscrabble (Monsters University)

Demona (Gargoyles)

Deoxys (Pokemon)

Diane Foxington (The Bad Guys)

Eclipsa Butterfly (Star vs the Forces of Evil)

Eda the Owl Lady (The Owl House)

Falin (Chimera) (Dungeon Meshi)

Fenneko (Aggretsuko)

Gadget Hackwrench (Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers)

Goodra (Pokemon)

Isabelle (Animal Crossing)

Laylee (Yooka-Laylee)

Lifts-Her-Tail (The Lusty Argonian Maid; Skyrim)

Lop (Star Wars Visions)

Merveille Million (Solatorobo)

Mrs. Brisby (The Secret of NIMH)

Miss Spider (James and the Giant Peach)

Moon Butterfly (Star vs the Forces of Evil)

Ms Tarantula/Webs (The Bad Guys)

Nala (lion king)

Olympia (Rivals of Aether)

Pinkie pie (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic)

Princess Cadence (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic)

Pyanfar Chanur (The Chanur novels by C.J. Cherryh)

Rainbow dash

Rarity

Retsuko (Aggretsuko)

Sarabi (Lion King)

Sasha Phyronix (Ratchet and Clank)

Shahvee (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)

Sophodra (Humans-B-Gone!)

Summer (Spiritfarer)

Sybil (Pseudoregalia)

The Empress (A Hat in Time)

Trixie (capitol critters)

Trixie Lulamoon (My Little Pony)

Tuca Toucan (Tuca & Bertie)

Tyranitar (Pokemon)

Vanilla the Rabbit (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Waai Fu (Arknights)

Washimi (Aggretsuko)

Wuk Lamat (Final Fantasy XIV)

Zecora (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Previous contestants:

Alphys (Undertale)

Arlinn Kord (Magic the Gathering)

Astrid (Spiritfarer)

Birdo (Mario)

Captain Amelia (Treasure Planet)

Cordelia Hendricks (The Smoke Room)

Dahlia Byrnes (The Smoke Room)

Duchess (Aristocats)

Erma Felna (Erma Felna: EDF)

Fenna van Houwelinck (Glory Hounds)

Fidget (Dust: An Elysian Tale)

Fillyjonk (The Moomins)

Fluttershy (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Freya Crescent (Final Fantasy 9)

Furryosa (Atomic Crops)

Golem (Pokemon)

Greasefang (Magic the Gathering)

Hecate (Tokyo Afterschool Summoners)

Holo (Spice and Wolf)

Hoodwink (Dota 2)

Hornet (Hollow Knight)

Ilia Shrikewood (Temptation's Ballad)

Isabelle (Animal Crossing)

Jenna Begay (Echo)

Judy Hopps (Zootopia)

Juno (Beastars)

Krystal (Star Fox Adventure)

Laika (Laika Aged Through Blood)

Laika (Laika's Comet)

Lola Bunny (Space Jam)

Loona (Helluva Boss)

Lopunny (Pokemon)

Loveander (Palworld)

Madam Dora (The Smoke Room)

Madame Vastra (Doctor Who)

Maid Marian (Disney's Robin Hood)

Marie Itami (BNA)

Maria (Extracurricular Activities)

Meicrackmon (Digimon)

Miss Piggy (The Muppets)

Molly Yarnchopper (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts)

Moomin Mamma (The Moomins)

Mother Glory (Friends at the Table)

Muffet (Undertale)

Nidoqueen (Pokemon)

Princess Celestia (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Princess Luna (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Queen Bee-elzebub (Helluva Boss)

Renamon (Digimon)

Rivet (Ratchet and Clank)

Rose (Remember the Flowers)

Rouge the Bat (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Roxanne Wolf (Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach)

Salazzle (Pokemon)

Sally Acorn (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Soraka (League of Legends)

Tigress (Kung Fu Panda)

Toriel (Undertale)

Torque (X-Com: Chimera Squad)

Twilight Sparkle (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Vipress (Kung Fu Panda)

Xenomorph (Alien)

Whisper the Wolf (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Yona (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

[also-fours]

the hi-fi rush situation really bums me out.

we had this game that looked super unique, everybody loved it, it won tons of awards

and then it barely got any marketing, feels like it only got as popular as it did thanks to word of mouth and the initial shadow drop, was deemed a "failure" despite selling what many companies would consider a success back in the day, (because it didnt sell call of duty numbers, probably.) and then its studio got shut down

the studio was just starting to spread its wings, start making shit that could inspire their peers, other devs, to start making different things and experiment

and they fucking killed them

it's gone

i mean, maybe they'll make their own studio, i've heard something like that's happened a couple times with the yooka-laylee devs and sonic mania's dev team

but i dunno

as much as i love games like spider-man and god of war (and i mean literally just those two, like, anything else sony does aside from ratchet and clank im not into) i wish they didnt worry so much about modelling photorealism

the obsession with stuff like that is what's made game development so expensive and unsustainable at this rate

i know this is tumblr so the first reaction im gonna get to saying something like "i like spider-man and god of war" at least in my circle is "GOOD GLAD THAT IT'S BECOMING UNSUSTAINABLE FUCK THEM" but like. i actually like what these games had to say and what they brought to the table.

"spider-man had nothing to say it's just a stupid marvel game cash grab and god of war is a generic over the shoulder game"

if you're going to tell me something like that, kindly, please don't interact with this post

like, please?

thank you

anyway, i want games like that that...don't have to upgrade their graphics every time and. waste everyone's time.

genuinely with how they both looked in 2018 i'd be happy with them just. not changing the graphics at all

but uh. sadly sony knows their audience, haha

there'd be hell to pay if they did that

(i hate mainstream gamers)

and as for everything else that xbox and playstation are doing right now, i still want them to do something different

and microsoft killed off the developer that could've inspired others to do that

soooooooo fuck. what now. are we just gonna be stuck in this position forever.

probably not, i mean, again, with how expensive games like spider-man 2 have gotten to produce and the amount of people in and out of the industry screaming that you gotta CHILL THE FUCK OUT, we won't stay like this forever

it might get better

maybe when we get a new series of spider-man games they can have a visual style similar to spider-verse, wouldn't that be rad?

...i mean. judging by the leaks, they might already be experimenting with that...

or something like shattered dimensions have y'all seen that game? looks fantastic, go look it up, they made four different dimensions of spidey and all of 'em have their own unique visual style inspired by their books

sorry im getting off topic

im juat rambling at this point

i just hope people learn the right lessons from hi-fi rush.

and that the people who made it find a way through and can still make great things

thats what i hope for at least

...anyway at least we still have fortnite and its really fun art style--

[velvetvexations]

I'm a fake JSR fan because I don't actually like JSR at all, I'm exclusively a Jet Set Radio Future girlie. I find the aesthetic and gameplay of the original Dreamcast game not just boring but actively bad. Which I don't say to hate on JSR, I understand a lot of people like it just as they should and that this is all my personal take, but I'm just trying to illustrate my disconnect with the fandom and franchise in general. Because like, Future is stuck very deep in my heart and soul, you know? But it's that specific version.

Based on what we've seen of the upcoming game I don't think that even if it comes back it'll ever be my Jet Set Radio ever again, but I'm willing to give it a shot. If they just put Jet Set Radio Future on Steam I'd be happy.

As for Bomb Rush Cyberfunk...it does look to be more Future than JSR, which entices me, but like I told a friend back when it came out, even when these Mighty No. 9/Yooka-Laylee serial-numbers-filed-off games are good, it strikes me as a tragedy it can't be what it's meant to be and has to be this off-brand thing instead.

[corvarrow]

2024 Books/Games Wrap up and 2025 Art Goals

Aaand its time once again for the stuff lists! I honestly don't think I'm gonna add anything else to the Books Read or Games Played lists this year so I may as well post now. Overall: productive year! Last year's list is here for reference.

Things I’ve read since Jan 2024

Heaven Official's Blessing 1 by MXTX

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Death in the Dark Woods by Annelise Ryan

Long Exposure vol 2 (Graphic Novel)

Heaven Official's Blessing 2 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 3 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 4 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 5 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 6 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 7 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 8 by MXTX

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

Haunted Hallways anthology (Outland Entertainment)

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Dead Detectives Society anthology (Monstrous Books)

Animus Mundi anthology (Outland Entertainment)

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #1 by MXTX

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #2 by MXTX

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #3 by MXTX

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #4 by MXTX

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #5 by MXTX

To Root Somewhere Beautiful anthology (Outland Entertainment)

SCP Foundation: Red/Yellow/Black Journals (Parabooks) (These are basically a selection of about 100 SCP articles published into 3 books with a lot of nice illustrations)

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

Dragons Rising by Alisha Klapheke

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

Delicious in Dungeon manga 1-14 by Ryoko Kui (full series)

Comments: Yeah...there was definitely a theme here. My favorite book this year was the entire TGCF/Heaven Official's Blessing series. The characters are all SO good, though Xie Lian is my favorite <333

Also this is the first time I've read any of Brandon Sanderson's stuff... overall I think they're pretty good! ALTHOUGH, I will say, I started with Yumi and the Nightmare Painter because I knew it was a standalone book and that was almost a mistake. For whatever reason he uses so many parentheses right off the bat - that's fine in a text post but in a novel I actually find that Quite Annoying so I almost gave up on it early. Glad I didn't though! Ended up liking it and was inspired to try some of his other books, which I enjoyed even more.

Currently Reading: Godkiller by Hannah Kaner. I don't think this is a very long book but I don't have the bandwidth required to finish it in the next couple days

2025 Book Goals: If you can believe it I have more danmei novels waiting in the wings lol. I am probably going to also read more Brandon Sanderson books but he has so many that I've just been checking them out at the library. I'm at the mercy of "whenever it comes in", and just read whatever in between.

—

2024 Video Games:

Super Mario Wonder

Baldur's Gate 3 (and it only took 171 hours)

Iron Lung

Logiart Grimoire

Monster Prom

POOLS

Atomic Heart

Dredge

Trombone Champ (can't believe this has an endgame state lmao)

Dave the Diver

Last Call BBS

Animal Well

Still Wakes the Deep

Crow Country

Nancy Drew and the White Wolf of Icicle Creek (played before a LONG time ago)

Raging Loop (DNF - Visual Novel - got about 7 hours in before deciding it wasn't for me)

Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor

Pseudoregalia

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Escape Simulator

Strange Horticulture

Mouthwashing

Comments: This was an interesting year for me because I finally burned myself out on FF14, which left me open to start playing other games instead. I had gotten to the point where I was going for Triple Triad/Jellytoast mount so I was working on getting cards, and I actually got most of them. HOWEVER, I then got roadblocked by Eureka and Bozja. You have to do their storylines to unlock the NPCs for cards. Now, Eureka you CAN mostly do solo, its a miserable grindfest even if you do manage to get in a party, but you can still solo if no one is around, and the story quests don't require other players, so I got through Euraka. Bozja...no. No not really. The story quests have events that do require other players, and I found it really intimidating aaand my FC didn't want to help x_x So I finally just stopped and started playing BG3. I do want to play Dawntrail at some point but I just got so tired. (and yeah for the record I don't have any dedicated groups to play games with so I do mostly play solo games... FF14 is very solo friendly actually, if you're willing to sometimes put up with roulette queueing, just not some of the side content lol)

ANYWAY. Getting through a "large RPG" was one of my video game goals from last year so I accomplished that with BG3...then I started really getting through my backlog! Obviously I like a lot of different genres. If I had to pick a favorite I would say....🤔 Maybe Still Wakes the Deep storywise, but I'll pick Escape Simulator for gameplay because it's REALLY fun. Puzzle rooms are absolutely my jam. Mouthwashing was also very good, storywise. I am not going to label that one "fun" though. LOL.

Game that I wish I could like more...Animal Well. I didn't know this in advance but this is a very pixel hunt & ARG heavy game as well as being a metroidvania. I LOVE metroidvanias, on the other hand pixel hunts & ARGs are not for me at all. You cannot get to the "true" ending of this game without messing around with all that, and the regular end is like, nothing. Metroidvanias are usually pretty light on story as the format is challenging, but this may as well not have a story at all. So, that's irritating. On the other hand, the game is freaking gorgeous, and is one of the most eerie games I have played in a long time. Love the atmosphere, wasn't thrilled about the other stuff (to those that like it though, you would probably love this!)

Currently Playing: Undecided. Right now I'm thinking either Signalis or Sorry We're Closed. But I also have a lot of Nancy Drew games I picked up from a sale so maybe one of those first instead.

2025 Game Goals: I am tempted to say I'd like to do another "Large RPG" game since I still have several in my backlog, but honestly I would like to continue just knocking smaller games out of the general backlog as its been very satisfying.

---

Other 2025 Goals/Art Goals

So this was an interesting year because I ended up doing a 365 landscape drawing challenge in my hobonichi journal...trying to keep up with this has been the ultimate test and has been really draining my brain since like June. However, I am almost done. My ability to doodle random landscape in pen has definitely improved. Am I doing another yearly challenge next year? ....No. Absolutely not lmao. Break now.

Anyway some general goals are:

Finish at least 1 sketchbook

Do/Post more finished pieces

These are copied from last year though I would like to note that I ended up doing all those refs this year instead. Which is fine! They were very badly needed and I'm really happy about them. However my brain has been so drained otherwise I didn't really do much regular finished pieces and now I feel out of practice. 🤔 Ideally I'd like to work on figuring out a coloring process that works for me since it has legitimately always been a problem. But, I think that's also going to be driven a bit by 'what kind of look am I going for', which I have an idea (I love really interesting lighting), so I think I have to explore how to get to That.

3. Finish designing a sona

I got partway through this this year and got sidetracked. It also occurred to me that I could make more than one 🤔 I really want to update my icon art (and like... make some banners) so I kind of need to finish this thought.

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Midnight Gaming: A vain attempt to justify my wasteful expenditure

So last night I played Banjo-Kazooie and Mario Party past midnight, didnt really find anything worth talking about on social so lets just move on.

So Banjo-Kazooie is a game that carries a lot of nostalgia for a lot of people who grew up with the Nintendo 64 console. Its a 3d platformer made by Rare during their golden age arc with Nintendo. An age that ended when Nintendo didnt buy them, leaving Microsoft to do it instead. A move thats considered a massive fumble on Nintendos part for not securing one of their most prolific developers from the N64 days.

Now despite growing up with an N64, I didnt really play Banjo-Kazooie until the remaster on Xbox live arcade, managing to accomplish a 100% playthrough before moving onto tooie before dropping off for something else. Back then the only games made by rare I played were Donkey Kong 64, Goldeneye 007, some Diddy Kong Racing though that was at my cousins, and some Jet Force Gemini a lil later, so playing the Og game on the Nintendo Swich Online expac was an opportunity to get a glimpse on what was different from the remaster. Now you maybe asking, EJ why the fuck did you buy an NSO sub + xpac when Nintendo is garbage and you could just emulate BK instead. Good question and I say its due to a lack of judgement/sanity. Plus they had a deal where if you bought a 1 year sub, they give you a code for another year to give to a friend. I decided to get it so I can give the code to my self so I can have 2 years for the price of one.... was it worth it? I dunno lets talk about the game.

The game carries a vibe with it that makes it difficult to be in a bad mood while playing, banjos happy go lucky charm, kazooie's snarky abrasive attitude and the musics vibrancy and diversity help fuel what is essentially a grand ol time collecting items throughout its many worlds to help you progress through gruntys castle and towards rescuing banjos sister.

Is there really anything I can critique this game for? You can search up Banjo-kazooie and find everyone gushing over it. There isnt really anything I can say about it that isnt petty and forced. I guess the fact that the notes you collect in each level can be lost if you lose a life, with only the highest amount collected being saved for that level but thats only an issue if you're aiming for 100%.

I suppose this game can be thanked for helping inspire all those new age 3d platformers you see popping up from indie devs nowadays, games like corn kids 64 and cavern of dreams. I should mention that some of the devs along with the composer for BK are now in a group called playtonic with their own game known as yooka-laylee, which was meant to recreate the BK gameplay and vibes. Thats getting a remaster too apparently.

Well, now I may not have much to say other than that its good, so on that note lets move onto Mario Party. Now I played quite a bit of Mario Party in my days.

I played one but missed out on 2 & 3. I did however get all the gamecube games from 3 to 7. Didnt get any of the games past that and right now it seems that the most recent game released is Super Mario Party Jamboree which apparently folks are enjoying atm.

Now Mario Party 1, that game has quite a reputation in thanks to its series of minigames that require spinning the control stick. A lot of kids did that by using thier palms, hurt their hands real bad and thag lead to a lawsuit for Nintendo. Its part of the reason why Mario Party one never showed up again on virtual console for wii but 2 did. So the fact that its on NSO now is interesting to say the least, though a warning does show about the stick spinning.

So heres the thing, I played Mario Party 1 quite a lot in my youth, I've done the palm maneuver every time. I even regularly did the wind up shy guy toy in the minigame hut were you spin to try and get the toy to go as far as they can. And yet the worst I got was an imprint on my hand that went away in a couple of minutes. No breakage of skin, no lasting pain. I was fine everytime. Just thought that was interesting to tell.

A big draw for Mario Party is that it was a board game you play with friends, moving around a board, collecting coins and stars to try and get ahead with each turn broken up with minigames. This game was made to be played with others and naturally... I was a loner. I think I only ever got to play mario party with one other person, being a family member, rather than with 4 people. So I usually just played with the bots only, occasionally getting an easy victory now and then. At times however I just end up starting a 50 turn game and switching my character to a bot too and watch the game play itself. I did this with every mario party game I had, just watching bots run around and playing the minigames. I guess watching mario party playthroughs such as therunawayguys and party crashers is the successor of those bot matches huh...

I definatly have fond times with the series, the variety of minigames available help add a little excitement and challenge in between turns. Its nice to see that 1, 2 and 3 are available on NSO and can be played online with other people. Maybe someday I can do that in the 2 years I have NSO for. Though I have to ask, why did we get Banjo Kazooie but not Donkey Kong 64? Why did we get Mario Party 1 but not Diddy Kong Racing? Why have we not got the og Super Smash Bros on NSO???? How many people do you think would kill for that to be on the service?? Atleast Rugrats Scavenger Hunt isnt on their.

Well that'll have do for today. See you all another time. Feel free to leave feedback and game suggestions. Thank you all for reading Midnight Gaming.

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Fin or Bin: Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Only a couple of days ago, I finished playing Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. It didn’t get a backlog entry because I rented it and therefore it technically- technically- was never actually on my backlog. I guess the dice saw fit to punish me for my loophole, because immediately afterwards I rolled Impossible Lair, a game so DKC-coded you could asset flip the two and be none the wiser.

The similarities to DKCR in particular are a banana-skin away from just outright plagiarism, right down to actually having barrel cannons the player character(s) stick their heads out of after two seconds of waiting. TF has winged bananas who leave a trail behind them, collecting all of which grants a bonus; so too do YL have winged quills who behave in an identical fashion. It’s uncanny, and I certainly would be uncomfortable sitting next to these guys during an exam.

If you copy a great game though, you surely will make a great game, and copying only takes you so far. Playtonic prove they still have what it takes with the level design, one standout moment involving a level themed around water fountains that had multiple alternate routes that were just out of my reach, revealing after I had completed it that it was possible to play the same level again but with an alteration- in this case, an icy blast that froze all the water- and explore those other paths. The overworld too is more than just a level hub but a level of its own, requiring exploration and puzzle-solving to open up the way to the next stage.

Fin or Bin:

So here’s a controversial take- I think I actually prefer Impossible Lair to Tropical Freeze. DKCR/TF were great games, but I had my problems with them- and it just so happens that YLIL fixes those specific issues. Exploration was largely optional in TropicalReturns, the absolutely dire puzzle rooms actively discouraging it and the reward of a puzzle piece being equally lackluster. In YLIL these are functionally replaced with the TWIT coins, which are necessary for level progression, giving an actual incentive to find them all. I still prefer the DKC123 formula over either alternative presented here, but for my money YLIL lands a lot closer to what I'm looking for. It's basically the same game as Tropical Freeze, so why not Finish this one too?

(Steam)

[blazehedgehog]

Say the stars align and we get a "true" Banjo-Threeie. What would you want from it, in a general sense?

I mean, what I think about is like...

Banjo-Tooie wasn't super great. It was from that DK64 school of "way too much of everything", and though it wasn't quite as bad as DK64, it was still too much.

And then you think about what Rare became, the bad habits they developed, the end of "that era" for their company, between Star Fox Adventures, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, etc.

And then you shine that light on what happened with Yooka-Laylee, which was basically just a bunch of ex-Rare people trying to make Banjo-Threeie in spirit. And I think... that's just... what it is. It's all of their bad habits wrapped around a low-budget game trying to look and feel like a high-budget game.

It's slow, and too big, and there's too many weird progression gates, and a lot of the characters are ugly, and none of it feels cohesive...

Like, to be clear, there are a lot of Rare games I like. I think they had a capacity to make great stuff. But at the same time they were very British developers making games that scratched on a lot of the weird British game design tendencies you had from the Amiga and Spectrum.

I don't like calling that stuff out, because I have friends who grew up with those games (your Fantastic Dizzy, Super Frog, etc.), but a lot of them feel weird and alien to me. Obtuse, and mean, and stiff, in ways that were less common on game consoles like the NES and Genesis (edit: upon further review, this is a smarter way of putting it). Rare, to me, split the difference. Wizards & Warriors feels like it could have been a Amiga game, in some ways. It's got that feel, while still also feeling more like a console game would.

And it's kind of shocking to consider that Nintendo handed Rare the Donkey Kong license, given their track record. Nintendo has a certain standard of quality and high accessibility that a lot of Rare's pre-DKC games do not exhibit. But that's the thing, right; Donkey Kong Country is a very sharp explosion in quality for Rare, I feel like. It was one of their defining moments as a company.

But I also feel like the further away we get from DKC1, the less of a guiding hand Nintendo was giving Rare, and the more that British-style sensibility starts creeping back in.

The ultimate being Yooka-Laylee, which straight up has half of an entire world be this homage to frustrating isometric platformers like Knight Lore.

If they did a new Banjo platformer I would want it to be, at most, more of that first Banjo-Kazooie game. And specifically the Xbox Live Arcade version, which saves note totals and things like that.

But the idea of having another game like that first Yooka-Laylee... or even a game that tries to pick up where Banjo-Tooie left off... I make a stink face at that.

Then again, I also really liked Nuts & Bolts, so I assume "true" Banjo fans probably view me as an assassination target.

[heart-star]

My Au's animal crossing characters in families, Tortimer went to live on the tropical islands after retirement and became the new member of the kappa family; the beavers and chamaleons are land neighbors and I jist made Flick in Yooka laylee style as try his kind is actually regular animal.

Some spinoffs I thought God of war would've possibly have after ragnarok: Atreus meeting other versions of him from the other dimensions & Kratos meeting Shovel knight again cause I knew their fight was canon.

[lapismaid]

i have a bunch of games i've started/gotten near done on and need to go and actually uh Finish

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Pizza Tower (mid World 3, was going for completion as i went but might have to just bite the bullet and beat the game "normally" first)

Sonic Frontiers

7th Dragon (DS)

Etrian Odyssey 2 HD (mid 3rd stratum)

Etrian Odyssey 3 HD (have played original before but this game fucking rules. also want to get 100%)

Resident Evil 2 Remake (at the final area)

Super Sami Roll

Yooka-Laylee & the Impossible Lair

Tears of the Kingdom (just doing loose ends at this point)

Pikmin 4 (in the "postgame")

Metroid Prime Remastered (again played the original before but god The Gramfics.....)

i need to clear off at least Some of these before i actually consider adding more to the backlog.....

...or i could do Another Fucking Dark Souls 2 playthrough either one works really

[pixies-and-poets]

Donkey kong tropical freeze is such a bad game, it's not even really about playing or having fun, it's just strictly super technical and all about inhumanly perfect timing. It seems like a game designed for a cpu that has all the perfect inputs already programmed into it. Playing it as a human player is like... oh, sorry, but you didn't wait until literally the very last frame to jump off the last platform, so now your jump won't be able to cover the distance to the next platform. Sorry, try the last 2 minutes of gameplay you just did all over again! Like what kind of weird ass game devs think that's what makes a game good? Instead of filling a game with nothing but ridiculously challenging platforming that demands inhuman precision, just find ways to make it creative and interesting. I swear so many professional game devs come off like those stupid kids in mario maker who just make stupidly impossible levels where theres some secret shortcut only they know about like "hehe nobody will beat MY level" and its embarrassing. Whatever happened to the old donkey kong style of game where I remember swimming around as a cool swordfish and not worrying about my every input at rapid speed like I'm playing dance dance revolution on expert, but just exploring and enjoying the music and collecting bananas and having fun? The elitist direction of this series is so depressing.

This ask made my eyes bulge when I first saw the preview, but... while I don't necessarily agree with you, I'm gonna meet you where you are.

Tropical Freeze is a game that I think I respect more than I actually enjoy. Its music is incredible, its enemy team is about as fun as can be without actually being Kremlings, its levels are beautiful and you can play as Dixie again, AND Cranky (and now Funky). I don't know if you thought I'd find this ask insulting but I've only ever played the game twice to my memory, and I don't have a huge amount of personal attachment to it. Once, as co-op when the game was brand new, and again when it came out on Switch I did Funky Mode. Whereas I play the original SNES trilogy at least once a year. (edit: actually I'm pretty sure I've done Funky Mode twice)

Because it's been so long since I did the "normal" game, and because I played co-op, I don't have a strong remembrance of how difficult it actually is. But I do remember it being quite hard for us both. If I'm good at any games in the world, I'm fucking good at the old DKCs. I used to speedrun them, I grew up with and was molded by them. And while Retro Studio's work is built off of them, there's a slightly different feel and weight to its demands that are just different enough that I can no longer innately be an expert. (Side note, if you want a game that actually feels more similar to the old games, check out Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair!! It's great!)

So I get where you're coming from, I really do. I think TF is a masterpiece. I say that, anyway, so... Why do I never feel the urge to replay it? But honestly I think that's down to how the game feels overall, its length and level design, its overlong bosses, and not due to its difficulty, which is neither here nor there for me. ...and the fucking rocket barrel levels, I kind of hate them.

See, I do appreciate a good challenge and have played games since that I would consider far more demanding than TF. Of course many of them are indie games, or classic games. Tropical Freeze is pretty hard for a mainstream Nintendo game of the modern era, but lots of people out there love a good challenge and I think it's a good thing that Nintendo/Retro respect their players enough to issue one. Unfortunately, people who want to chill with the silly cartoon animals might end up being frustrated, BUT! That's what Funky Mode is for. It really was a genius idea. Funky Mode is like, so much more fun IMO, it really does replicate the feel I get with the original DKCs, allowing you to go faster and be more confident even if you're not that familiar with TF's level layouts. Even then, it's not totally easy- you still have to be somewhat careful and pay attention, but you can get through the game a lot faster.

And I do want to say, while TF may be the most difficult DKC game, the originals were no walk in the park either. I don't know your experience with how much you've played them, but like I said, for ME they seem easy- after all these years- but I've been around streaming communities, and communities that specifically like to do challenges and casual races, for a long time now. I've seen so many people struggle getting through DKC, DKC2 or DKC3 for the first time. I've seen people give up on doing it without save states. I've seen extremely skilled gamers get frustrated when attempting speed or challenge runs, which granted is a special case, but they have hours and hours of practice and the game meets them there and still kicks them. The DKC series has always been on the harder side, compared to something like Mario which would be the average. I know someone who, like me, has DKC2 as his favorite game ever... but still struggles while playing it. So your description of the older games seems a little rose-tinted. Maybe the early levels were all fun times collecting bananas, but tell me how much peace and vibes you really had in Snow Barrel Blast or Poison Pond or Lightning Lookout or Koindozer Klamber or Parrot Chute Panic or Toxic Tower or- (and that's not even to mention lost world levels)

TF has become a fan darling, but it's ok to not like it. That said, I think its Switch release crafted it into an ideal: a legit challenge for those who want one, and a different mode for those who just want to storm through and yet without it being a totally babymode no-brainer experience. I would like to see any future games offer a balance similar to this, if we ever get them.

....they really do gotta bring Enguarde back though, that's the important thing. I'm not kidding.

[rubalotl]

Tunnel vision

I get such tunnel vision when something grabs my interest, I focus on that thing so much to the point of making my brain feel exhausted. Honestly, it's kind of a problem. I shouldn't push my brain's energy capacity to its limit all the time.

Lately, that has been with games. But I hope I can direct that hyperfocus into art one day once again, but learn to pace myself better so I don't exhaust my brain and burn out again.

At least I've got to play a lot of games during my art burnout (which started around mid 2020 or the start of 2021), a bunch of these games were on my to-do list but didn't have time to play and it feels very good to have gotten through them.

I'm gonna try to remember them all and roughly when I played them:

Replayed Okami on Switch

A bunch of small indies: ABZU | Koral | Fe | Koi DX | The First Tree

Pokémon Sword & Shield (Started Nov 2019)

Animal Crossing New Horizons (Started Mar 2020)

Guild Wars 2 (Started Dec 2020, still playing daily)

Age of Calamity (Feb 2021)

Shiny hunted all the legendaries in ORAS (Finished Apr 2021)

Temtem (Apr 2021)

Pokémon Snap (May 2021)

Pokémon XD Gale of Darkness (Won an auction for it Jul 2021)

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin Demo (Jul 2021)

A little bit of Planet Zoo (Aug 2021)

Shiny Hunted some in HG (Lugia Oct 12, 2021 | Mewtwo Oct 31, 2021 | Charmander Jul 7, 2022 | Kyogre Jul 19, 2022)

ACNH Happy Home Paradise (Nov 2021)

Pokémon BDSP (Nov 2021)

Pokémon Legends Arceus (Jan 2022)

GW2 End of Dragons (Feb 2022)

Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Jul 2022)

Coromon (Aug 2022)

Replayed Slime Rancher on Switch (Aug 2022)

Ooblets (Sep 2022)

Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Sep 2022)

Slime Rancher 2 Early Access (Sep 2022)

A Short Hike (Sep 2022)

Stray (Oct 2022)

Nexomon (Oct 2022)

Bugsnax (Nov 2022)

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet (Nov 2022)

Nexomon Extinction (Jan 2023)

Age of Calamity DLC (Feb 2023)

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin (Mar 2023)

Next on the list is: Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak DLC | Tears of the Kingdom | Yooka-Laylee | A Link Between Worlds | Four Swords Adventures | The Teal Mask & The Indigo Disk | More Planet Zoo

I want to finally build a proper zoo in Planet Zoo, it's not a game that goes well together with creative burnout since it requires creativity to build stuff in it. So I haven't been able to give it the attention it deserves.

I've already decided that 2023 will be another gaming year. I'm almost all the way through my to-do list of games, and after that, I'll assess what I want to do next.

[game-boy-pocket]

And so I finished a run of Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. I didn't start a new file or anything, I just played all the levels again. Never gonna beat those special super hard levels, they're just too tough for me.

What a fucking good game. I still kind of resent Retro Studios for giving is "We have the Kremlings at home" instead of just giving us them outright, like I say this every time, but Lord Frederick is such a cheap copycat of K. Rool it hurts. I almost prefer the Tikis to these guys cuz at least they were unlike anything DK faced... but that's enough negging the game, this one of the most imainative platformers ever made and really does the DK series justice. I can't wait for the next DK game, it's been way too long.

With that it seems i've replayed every single main series DK game except for DK Land 2 and 3. I'll get to them. I'm thinking next I'll focus on DK '94, and I may even delve into some of the Paon era games that I largely ignored in the past. Anything to get a little more DK in my life. And if I really get desperate, there's always Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair but man... I really cannot get behind that kaizo final level...

[kierancampire]

Ya boi's got another platinum

Although, I have thoughts. So PSN Profiles says Hades was a 5/10, and Yooka-Laylee was 3/10 on difficulty. Hard disagree. Besides when I just got bad runs or wasn't great with a weapon, like the bow, yeah it took me 100 hours more, but I wouldn't say I ever had frustrating experiences or a bad time getting the platinum for Hades. That's not the case for Yooka-Laylee

Multiple times I rage quit and had to come back later to try again, especially Rextro's final 2-3 games, like they were so fucking difficult to beat let alone getting the high score for. Also, the casino boss was so fucking challenging! By far the hardest boss in the game and so stress inducing. But even then, to address the elephant in the room, the less than great controls, the unpolished aspects, it just made the game really tedious and annoying at times

I want to love the game, and I think I do like it, multiple times it made me laugh, I like the characters, the humour, the worlds and exploring them can be fun, the transformations can be good, exploring Hivory Towers can be enjoyable, like there are aspects to it I really liked. But. Eh

With games like this, when you play them you want to 100% collect everything, do everything, it's a collectathon platformer, it comes with the game. But I just don't know if I ever could/would want to. Cause, yes, getting some of the pagies was *SOOOOOO* stress inducing, some of the gameplay mechanics didn't work, like the tongue grapple and flying being really challenging. Obviously I did it and I accomplished it, but some of the challenges are so incredibly difficult with exceptionally tight time limits (then others you can finish with a minute to spare?), also, glitches. I had to try entering the first world 3 times, one time none of my controls would work, then the next time my camera was stuck to the floor. But then finally, with no map or checklist, collecting items can be hell, especially the quills. I spent 2-3 hours towards the end just trying to find quills and pagies I missed, going through each and every area while I checked, and having to use the Yooka Wiki to help me

That's just really one thing I would not want to repeat. I know they are doing a remaster that hopefully fixes some issues, like the roll not taking energy, and apparently flight controls are better, and there's a map to show you things you missed (really hoping quills are included on that). So maybe the remaster would solve most of my issues and make me love the game, but for now, glad I played it, glad I persevered and 100% it, but I can't imagine replaying it

[anthromediasometimes]

Yooka-Laylee (2017)

Yooka-Laylee is a platformer game released on PC, the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and the Amazon Luna over the course of a few years. Considered a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, with that game's team even having been responsible for it, the game features its titular characters, a chameleon named Yooka and a bat named Laylee. The two must work together to reclaim the magical One Book after it is stolen by the greedy CEO Capital B and Dr. Quack.

Using their unique powers, they traverse through a series of different worlds to collect the One Book's "Pagies" and put a stop to the nefarious duo. Over the course of the adventure, they learn new powers, face peculiar challenges, and meet 'unforgettable' characters. The game has a local co-op mode and contains several secrets to search for, such as minigames and collectibles.

It was developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17. Some critics believed the game was unoriginal and relied too heavily on nostalgia to truly be successful, and reviews on Steam lean positive, though some complain of slow movement in oversized maps, awkward controls, and various technical bugs. However, there is also a considerable amount of praise for the graphics and lovable characters.

In 2019, a spin-off, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, was released. Unlike the original, this game is a 2.5D platformer, in which the duo aims to stop Capital B from enslaving a kingdom of bees. Like the original, this game holds a plethora of secrets, puzzles, and collectibles, as well as extra challenges for an added layer of playability.

This game plays as more of an homage to games like Donkey Kong Country than Banjo-Kazooie. This game also boasts mostly positive reviews on Steam, with praise on its graphics, overworld, and level design, though, once again, some seem to feel the movement is too slow and a few agree that the final level is quite a challenge. Most critics seem to be in agreement, calling it much more modern and polished, but perhaps a bit too difficult.

Currently, Playtonic is working on a remaster of the original Yooka-Laylee, intended to boast "all new challenges, secrets, mechanics, and accessibility options", as well as a new map and customization options. It also claims there will be a better camera and controls. A release date, as of writing this, has not been announced (that I can find).

[clownkiwi]

actually as much as i joke and jest about yooka-laylee, i think yooka-laylee is prime to getting re-evaluated again in the 2020s. especially now that theres renewed interest & demand for 3d platformers following the successes of a hat in time, pseudoregalia, corn kidz 64, & countless others that have been released in between the original release and now