Memories of Melodies and Melodies of Memories, Memody: Sindrel Song

Just today, Memody: Sindrel Song released on Steam. It was a few months ago that I helped beta test the game, and finally it's out! I really enjoyed beta testing the game, and through the efforts of developer Tobias Cornwall as well as helpful feedback from me and other testers the game was polished into its current state. It's a game I strongly recommend, and I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to talk about why!

There's the titular Memody

Memody: Sindrel Song is a rhythm game... But actually, it's not! Memody is quite a brain-buster when it comes to genre, since its core gameplay loop has more in line with a carefully curated and musical game of Simon Says than your typical rhythmical QTE-like game. It's more like Space Channel 5 than Guitar Hero!

The main gameplay consists of an NPC playing a melody and the player repeating said melody back. If the player messes up, they have to try the segment again (optionally slowed down) and if they succeed they carry on to the next segment. Every song is broken up into these listen and repeat segments, interspersed with a few key melodies that later come back as duet segments where the player has to play back these key melodies purely from their memory. It's rather challenging, but it also makes it very fulfilling to get through an entire song, especially if you do it without making any mistakes! But don't just trust me word, look at this gameplay video I just made!!

The game thankfully has several different modes to ease players into its rather challenging gameplay, with a casual mode where you get unlimited attempts for every song existing for people who want to just experience the story and get through the narrative as well as serving as a practice mode, but there's also challenge mode where players start with only 6 attempts and lose an attempt every time they make a mistake. Luckily, the game still has systems to accommodate people who might hit a brick wall in challenge mode, since playing a sequence of chunks correctly lets you earn back attempts, and failing one specific chunk consecutively lets you keep retrying that chunk without losing more than 3 total attempts.

This gives the game a good feeling of flow, where my preferred tactic was to first play through the song a few times in the casual/practice mode, then trying to finish the song in challenge mode and finally going for a high score in challenge mode by playing songs with as little faults as possible and mimicking the rhythm of the song's notes as closely as possible! These results are all graphed to give a visual indication of your progress!

Hooray for sufficience!

Did I mention yet how satisfying this gameplay loop feels? Because it does! I played this game last a few months ago and when I turned the game on again I still remembered so many of the melodies from heart just because I got so into the game! Memories of melodies, quite literally!! Playing a song well gives a good sense of rush, and playing a song better than last time feels great too. A large part of the game's narrative is about overcoming challenges and overcoming yourself, and it's integrated really well into the gameplay.

And speaking of story and narrative... Memody also has a story and narrative worth talking about! The setting of the game is a rather strange one, taking place on an island inhabited by Sindrel, humanoids who share a lot in common with plants of all things. Memody is one such Sindrel, though while most Sindrel are born with a plethora of innate knowledge of the world thanks to the little flower embedded in their head, Memody's flower appears to be defective. It knows little of the world and needs NPCs to explain basic concepts any Sindrel ought to just know by default. 

-blushes-

The flower in her head constantly speaks to Memody, something she's not sure the flower is meant to do, and worse still the flower acts as Memody's harshest critic. Irrational to a fault and negative to the extreme, the flower constantly pushes Memody to seclude herself from others due to her inability to fit in. And worst of all, this flower is stuck inside Memody's head. It's a part of her mind she cannot free herself from, or at least, not that she knows of...

The story takes place over the course of six days, six days until the world Memody's born into falls into a deep winter and all life is snuffed out. All life except for the few other Sindrel inhabiting the island. One of the Sindrel offers Memody the key to this prolonged life, but Memody is hesitant. Does she deserve to live on? Does she even want to live on? The Sindrel urges Memody to explore the island and connect with the other Sindrel through song and listen to their stories and reasons for choosing to live on.

Memody in a nutshell, really

This is where the main gameplay happens, as the Sindrel all tell Memody their outlooks on life through song, while also being ready to talk with Memody about other topics that happen to be on their mind at the time. By returning to these stages and talking more with the other Sindrel, their character arcs get fleshed out and reach fruition, but Memody is left ever unsure whether she can measure up to the other Sindrel.

And when the final day comes and Memody has to make her decision... Well, you'd have to play the game yourself to find out, of course! But I can guarantee the game's got plenty of dialogue to go through and it's very much worth seeking out! 

Everybody has very sensible things to say!!

Again, the game's available on Steam! I do recommend checking it out!

Galar Dex review: Sw/Sh and Flick

Woo, Pokémon Sword and Shield! There's so much to say about it. Let me not do that and just talk about the leaked dex. I've been quite negative about it, but I want to look at every evolutionary line separately and see whether maybe my gut reaction to the dex was too negative based on the whole Dexit baggage the game has come packaged with. (Spoilers: It was, sort of.)

Also, no individual images for each Pokémon. It's a lot of busywork to scrape these together from all corners of the internet. Most of them should be in this image here, barring the odd Dynamax or two.

This also sums it up nicely.

The Pokémon

Grookey/Rillaboom: Grookey was my least favourite of the starters in terms of first evolutions. It's a fine design, but the series is rather oversaturated with monkey and ape Pokémon, especially considering gen 5 already has elemental monkeys and Chimchar also exists already. So I'm quite happy to find out that Rillaboom is very distinct from all those! It's a fine design, again, and I do this sort of rocker drummer theme it's got going on. Shame it's just a boring monotype though, yuck.

Scorbunny/Cinderace: Oh, fall from grace. To go from the best first stage to the worst final stage. Scorbunny is just really precious and cute, the most out of all rabbit Pokémon I'd say, which makes its inevitable evolution into just a generic cereal mascot a disappointment. Just nothing about it appeals to me, the whole sports theming this generation is something I 100% do not care for and it flows through in this design. Sorry but Diggersby is still ten times cuter and the best bunny Pokémon. Pure Fire type as well, which is a disappointment.

Sobble/Inteleon: How did this line go from supremely sad to supremely smug? I do not know but I do love it. Sobble's a narrow second after Scorbunny, but Inteleon is by far my favourite final starter evolution. Inteleon looks like some sort of 90's attitude platformer mascot and it's a look I am 100% behind. Not quite Greninja levels, but it's up there. The spy theming it quite fitting once again, considering the whole James Bond 007 British superspy trope. But also, monotype again? Ugh, they also did this in gen 2 and it sucked hard back then too.

Yes I am just skipping the middle stages. They're middle stages. They never really look great. Still, Raboot > Drizzile > Thwackey.

Corviknight: Can I just talk about how cool Corviknight is and how it's actually the best regional birdmon? No, I have to address the prevolutions too. They're nowhere near as good as Corviknight. The placement of their eyes and their facial markings around the eyes are just confusing, it looks like their red eyes are just the pupils of their seemingly larger eyes which somehow seem to go outside of their eyes, but no those are just in fact facial markings. Did that make sense? Maybe not, but these design aspects don't make sense so shrug. Corviknight is still really good.

Skwovet/Greedent: Don't they usually reveal regional rodents before leak season? Well, I can see why they didn't reveal these, they're just kinda boring and bland. Disappointing following gen 6 and 7's successes at making the regional rodents interesting. They look like the sort of designs some show would use in a Pokémon parody segment or something.

Wooloo/Dubwool: Poor Wooloo, made into a mouthpiece by people in that Wooloo signpost meme. Wooloo is just a solid, pleasant design and the best sheepmon we have so far by a wide margin. The giant wool, those strange sheep eyes. The evolution is similarly solid as well, it's bigger, woolier, angrier but it's also still got that sort of cuteness, those weird sheep eyes and a pair of horns plus vaguely football-coloured wool. I really do appreciate that they kept those eyes for the evolution, good job on that.

Gossifleur/Eldegloss: Wait, that's it? Eldegloss doesn't evolve? Huh. It really looks like a middle stage to me. Gossifleur's design just looks messy to me, it's hard to tell what exactly every part of it is meant to be, don't care much for it. Edlegloss is alright, it's got a sort of condescending look to it which I do like. It's better than Jumpluff. 

Nicket/Thievul: I just really don't have anything to say about these. They really remind me of Purrloin/Liepard I guess. I suppose the evolution's got like this gentleman thief aesthetic, which I feel like I should like more, but I just don't. Eh.

Yamper/Bolthunt: Wow these are shit. These are some UGLY Pokémon. Horrible. Just, ugh! Terrible colour schemes, weird eyes, lazy electric type theming, boring conceptually. Yamper was hate at first sight, and somehow Bolthund is even worse. It's just a generic dog, but also it's got a ugly neon colour scheme, and a weird ugly face, and I hate it and I hope it gets culled next generation. Awful! Bad! Yuck!! Manectric did this way better 5 generations ago.

Milcery/Alcremie: Guess they are continuing the trend of fairy types being associated with sweets and cream. This just feels very derivative off of Slurpuff. As a design it's fine, it's the most basic feminine cake decoration they could have gone with I guess. I was sort of hoping there'd be a male variant based on those wedding cake toppings, but I guess that in Galar they only have lesbian weddings or something. Good for them, I suppose. Oh, and Milcery is just very boring and visually unpleasing with its drab and beige colour scheme, maybe it looks better animated, but it makes me thing that a drop of milk was just not a good design basis in the first place.

Blipbug/Dottler/Orbeetle: Die! With a nuke! Awful, again! Terrible, just, what? What am I even looking at here? Blipbug has absolutely horrible, awful, grossly over-exaggerated proportions and it's just way too much. It looks like a mess, why is the head so elongated? Yuck! Dottler is also way too angular for my liking, looks very unnatural and unappealing. And yes, I realize it's going for like a nerd glasses and bowtie theming, but they fucked it up so it's still bad. Well, still, Orbeetle is fine. Still not as good as Ledian though.

Morpeko: By Pikaclone standards this is... Pretty low on the tier list, I'd say. I don't like the ay it's shaped, I don't like how instead of a tail it just has weird tail markings on the back of its pill-shaped body. The Hangry form change thing is certainly a gimmick, but not a compelling one. Its face also looks kinda weird, but I suppose it is meant to be a Dark type so maybe that's part of the reason why it looks that way. The pockets thing is neat I suppose, so it's nowhere near "Yuck!" levels, just eh.

Chewtle/Drednaw: Horrible! Nasty! Awful! Again, just these walking and talking natural disasters. Chewtle has the same issue of Blipbug of having extremely distractingly horrific proportions, like the way its boated, thick, gigantic head sprouts out of of its entirely too small shell with this weirdly thickening neck, uuugh. Disgusting! And Drednaw is also shit! Like, the body is fine but the head is like a plastic toy and doesn't fit at all, it's like they glued together two totally different designs and it really doesn't work. Just two absolutely ugly, uncharming, unlovable Pokémon. 

Hatterene: Now this is more like it. The Witch aesthetic is a good one, the trans flag pastel blue/pink and white colours are visually appealing and fit well for a soft design like this. It's just a good design. It's also clearly this generation's waifumon, so that's gonna lead to some specific sorts of art. But that's fine, really. I don't mind that. I do mind that the line is exclusively female though, why is that? There's no reason for it, there's been very feminine leaning Pokémon before that weren't exclusively male or female, this just seems like a pointless thing to tack on. Let boys be witchy princesses too GAME FREAK, you cowards.

Barraskewda: Probably the best a regional generic fishmon has been. I just like the way how it and its prevolution look, I'd say only Basculin comes close to appealing to me like that as a generic fishmon. So that's another hit.

Cramorant: Looks weird and dopey, in a cute and appealing way. It's good. Much better than Pelliper. The gimmick where it can shoot Arrokuda is funny.

Sandaconda: Well, I do like Snakemons, so I do like this. It looks really grumpy and upset over something, I do like that. I like the way it's coiled, but that weird giant flotation ring around its head confuses me, what is that supposed to be? It's sand-themed so it's probably not even meant to be a flotation ring.

Polteageist: Cute!! Just a very cute design. Very region-appropriate as well, and another in the list of Ghost Pokémon themed around the possession of some object which are usually my favourite Ghost types.

Rolycoly/Coalossal: Wow! It's disappointing! I was expecting something great from Rolycoly, I think it's a good first stage and I really like its eyes especially, but it just evolves into a shitty Graveler/Rhydon hybrid. Which by the way totally drop those cool red furnace-like eyes. Carkoal also has just weird, ugly face. The mouth looks wrong, the eyes are totally deformed, and it just looks like one of those deformed Mario 64 faces. I hate Mario 64! Coalossal also just looks like a pile of poop or something. Stupid, bad, badbad ugly design, not good.  

Copperajah: Wow that's ugly. Really do not like the proportions here again, and those lumps on its head look way too rocky and unnatural. It's also very cubic. Maybe this is meant to look like something. If it's meant to look like something ugly then they did well, because it's ugly.

Impidimp/Grimmsnarl: Ohyes, Impidimp was my favourite revealed Pokémon before all the leaks started, and it's still high up there on my favourites list of gen 8. Such a wonderful, awful imp. I like how Morgrem is basically just an even more wonderful, even more awful teenaged imp, very good middle stage. And then there's Grimmsnarl. I think Grimmsnarl is just too much. I can appreciate that it's such a demonic and menacing looking Pokémon (just think of all what the overly concerned 90s Christian anti-Pokén moms would say), but it also loses that charm that the two previous lines had. It's barely even pink anymore! Barbie disapproves! Overall it just looks more like a mega or dynamax design than a third stage to me. I'm ambivalent towards it. Or should I say "him", because for some reason this line is male-only. Because girls can't be asshole imps apparently. Again, just like with the Hatterene line, this feels like an unneeded and tacked on gender restriction. These are supposed to be Pokémon, they don't need to conform to our human understandings of gender presentation. I thought we already settled that with Primarina's 87,5% odds of being male.

Toxel/Toxitricity: Don't realy care for Toxel and don't have much to say about it. I do love Toxitricity though. Toxitricity quite reminds me of Toxicroak and Scrafty, who are also both great, I could easily see those three getting together and getting up to all sorts of trouble. Toxitricity also gets both a regular and an amped up form, the amped up form has a very pleasant colour scheme combining purple and yellow, I do very much love that also. The base form still works quite well too though, I like how lanky it looks with that long neck. Yes. The Poison/Electric typing is also a new one and one I've been hoping the games would implement sometime. 

Snom/Frosmoth: Snom is just a middle of the road larval stage bug, though its Ice typing is rather interesting. Frosmoth is a pretty good design, I can see why people would like it, but it also doesn't really do a whole lot for me. It's a fine, competently designed Pokémon.

Sizzlipede/Centiskorch: Ooh, I do like these. I like these a lot. These designs just feel very smooth and right, Unova had the Venipede line, but I like these two more than those. The way their bodies are segmented, their flat and broad abdomens (whatever you call those), theirs expressions and faces, and of course their many tiny feet. Love everything about them.

Cobbopus/Grapploct: Well, it's more interesting than Octillery, but that's a low bar to cross. I get that their facial markings are like wrestling masks, their tentacles like boxing gloves and Grapploct has a tentacle belt, and it is neat to get more non-humanoid Fighting types in the vein of Hawlucha and Crabrawler, but something about it just doesn't come together to be more than the sum of its parts. It's passable.

Duraludon: This is a standalone Pokémon? Weird. It's also ugly. The way its face is connected to its body is really awkward, its official art has it making an angry expression but it just looks dopey (and not in a cute, charming way), it's got those weird arms and legs, it just doesn't even look like it should be able to move around at all or exist. Just, very weird body shape and I don't like it.

Stonjourner: Well, I guess a Stonehenge Pokémon was inevitable. This just does nothing for me though, and I say that as a frequent lover of objectmons. Maybe it looks better in motion, but as is it does absolutely nothing for me and just like Dualudon doesn't look like it should be able to exist.

Pincurchin: Eh, it's alright. Don't have anything to say about this one. I guess it reminds me of Pyukumuku or something.

Ideedee: Apparently these are supposed to be based around a maid or butler respectively. Why weren't these just Galarian Audino? They look very similar and they would need to change very little to just make them that instead of its own species. It's fine as-is, but way too similar to an apparently wholly distinct type of Pokémon. This really would be better if it was just Galarian Audino.

Applin/Flapple/Aplletun: I am quite split on this line. I absolutely ADORE Applin and Flapple, those are amazing designs! Appletun is a resounding meh though. So I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist, it's a version elusive anyway. Applin is a very simple design, just an apple with big ol' appleflap eyes. And that's cute! I like that, it's just really cute and precious. Strange that it's dragon type though, but it makes more sense when it does evolve into Flapple. And Flapple is such a cool visual idea, a worm infesting an apple that has split the apple open and is using it as wings, that's really cool! It also keeps those strange eyes from its first stage, and the pun of an apple worm being a wyrm is neat as well. This is a top tier design.

Eiscue: What the hell is this mess doing wedged between two amazing Dragon type lines. This is up there as one of the worst designed Pokémon in this dex, it's just a boring penguin with an ugly face. The design of the body is completely mundane and lacking in interesting features (no, those blue splotches don't count) and the whole "hiding its face in a block of ice" gimmick could've been handled much better I'm sure. There's a workable idea and theme here, but the execution is a big mess. This would work as an enemy in a weird RPG like Undertale, and it really does feel like it'd belong in Snowdin, but as a Pokémon this is severely lacking.

Dreepy/Dragapult: Alright. This is amazing. This is fantastic. There's nothing I don't like about this whole evolutionary line, and it's a strong contender for best-designed pseudo-legendary. Dreepy is just cute, with the way its head is shaped, the way it has those arms stretched out like a basic scary ghost pose, and the spooky little ghost tail. Man that's cute. Drakloak is a fine transition between that and the amazing Dragapult. Wow, I just think every aspect of that design just works. It shooting Dreepy, having a longer ghostly tail, the head being used to launch the Dreepy, just all around excellent. 

Falinks: huh, I wondered why this wasn't Bug type at first, but it's actually a bunch of tiny little warriors forming a line. A link you could say. A link phalanx. Oh that's just precious. I love these little guys, they're really cute. They don't really strike me as a Pokémon, but whatever right, it's still a good design. Really want to see how they animated these.

Fossils: They're all shit. Absolute garbage. Another instance of them going for a theme and totally, 100% botching it. I hate them all and would have rather have gotten four regular fossilmons instead. I get that they were going for the theme of scientists messing up a bone reconstruction, but they took it way too far. These Pokémon just look miserable. Dracozolt actually just kinda disgusts me, Arctozolt is probably the most salvageable design of the bunch, Dracovish just looks miserable and I don't even understand Arctovish. Purposefully bad designs are still bad designs, they could have done this mismatched theme while still crafting Pokémon that are lovable on their own merits. These aren't.

Zacian/Zamazenta: Booooring! Worst cover legends barring Dialga/Palkia. Their base designs are just much too plain, not nearly distinct enough and just an all-around mess of colours trying desperately to get some intrigue out of a concept as boring as "two wolves" and failing miserably. Their armed forms are somewhat better, but they are still huge letdowns compared to the brilliance of gen 6 and 7's cover art Pokémon. What a giant step down. These two don't belong on cover art, but I suppose it is fitting the more bland and boring cover legendaries got the most bland and boring game cover art.

Eternatus: Uh, wha? I'll need to see this one in motion to even figure out what's going on with it. 

Galarian Forms

But wait, there's more! Yes, that's right, Galarian forms! Appreciate them while they still exist, because they're definitely going to be culled until we get Sw/Sh remakes 20 years from now. I do not look forward to that future.

Meowth/Purrserker: Uh, another one? Guess they need their anime fuel. Galarian Meowth really makes me think of Yokai-Watch for some reason. Maybe it's the mouth and eyes. It seems rather superfluous though, since its evolution Purrserker looks more like an alternate form or side-evolution than an outright evolution. The design itself is fine, I like that it combines a berserker look with a miner's helmet, plus that scraggly beard. Still doesn't feel like an evolution though.

Ponyta/Rapidash: Yeah, they're fine. Typical magical colourful unicorns. Everyone threw a fit over Ponyta not being Fairy just for Rapidash to be pat Fairy anyway, strange how that went. I like these more than the basic Ponyta and Rapidash, but that's a low bar to cross.

Sirfetch'd: Oh boy, another smugmon. I do like the smug white knight in shining armor thing it's got going on. Plus its leek gets long and turns into a jousting lance! It's just like Alolan Exeggcutor! What a neat concept. I do like this, anyway.

Weezing: Alright, this is pretty funny. A good reversal on Weezing's original design and attributes, and Poison/Fairy is an interesting typing. I think its expression could've been more smug, but I suppose the smoke facial hair makes up for that. It also gets smokestack chimneys, which are of course long. It's just like Alolan Exeggcutor! What a neat concept. Again.

Mr. Mime/Mr. Rime: Jesus Christ why. Just, just why? I do appreciate that Galarian Mr Mime looks a bit more like your typical mime, but I think they could've gone a bit further with it. Mr. Rime is completely unnecessary though and definitely doesn't feel like an evolution. This actually truly does feel more like a character from a cartoon than a Pokémon. A very clear example of the shifting design philosophy of GAME FREAK away from Pocket Monsters and towards cartoon characters. This really truly and genuinely feels like a mediocre fakemon evolution, I think we've all seen our fair share of those, and Mr Rime wouldn't even be the best among them. Sigh, to think we almost got so close to having a true murderclown Pokémon. One day I will have Ballio in Pokémon. 

Corsola/Cursola: Oh my god, that's brutal. Bleached coral Corsola, and it's actually Ghost type. Hunted to near extincting in Alola, polluted to death in Galar. Being Corsola is suffering. Very cool concept though, and executed wonderfully. Cursola is definitely one of the edgiest Pokémon out there and feels like something out of an edgy romhack, but in a good way. Great regional variant and evolution.

Stunfisk: Hm. Well, I get that it's a bear trap with a Pokéball lure kinda like Voltorb and Foongus. But also, I like the regular variant more. I still do like Galarian Stunfisk, and it's a conceptually interesting way to transfer it over to Galar, but not as much my cup of tea.

Zigzagoon/Obstagoon: I really like what they did with Zigzagoon and Linoone, these designs truly exceed their originals and are very aesthetically and thematically pleasing. They fit Galar well. Obstagoon I'm more ambivalent on, the design here is much more "guy in a fursuit" than other anthropomorphic designs, which is compounded by the fact that it just really doesn't follow up from Linoone's design to become this bipedal manguy. Well, anyway, I'm sure it's going to make for some interesting fanart. Ohyes. People've already been busy, and I couldn't be happier.

Darumaka/Darmanitan: Heehee, funny. Turning Fire types into Ice types and vice versa is interesting, and the way they did it here does quite amuse me. These two are some of my favourite regional forms out there. Also nice to see Unova getting some love, finally.

Yamask/Runerigus: Ohh, that's really cool. Yamask's not changed much, but Runerigus is perhaps even cooler than the already great Cofagrigus. The way its spectral body lines up with its rune art, the way it can extend its runes and retract them, it's just really cool and visually interesting. 

I'd say they did a better job with Galarian forms than Alolan forms, at least. Not only doing Kanto mons is already a great change, but these Galarian forms also feel more experimental and out there, for better of worse. I think the new evolutions are a mixed bag though.

Gigantamax 

But wait, there's more. That's right, Pokémon who gain new powerful forms in battle, and the ability to use special attacks, under the right conditions of course! Naturally, I speak of Mega Evolution and Z-Moves Gigantamaxing.

Charizard: The urge to just put in "Fuck you, Charizard." is quite strong here. The design itself is fine I think, I like this more than Mega Charizard X, but also I just absolutely hate what this form represents for these games and the series as a whole. Charizard already had two special forms, now they're getting rid of those just to add in a third new form? And it's the champion's ace? What happened to showcasing and getting attached to new Pokémon? This is just pointless. It's nakedly obvious pandering, and there's little more annoying than being pandered to with stuff you don't care about while crucial features are missing. Fuck you, Charizard.

Pikachu: It just gets fat. Boring. I know it's a gen 1 Pikachu meme, but this is a waste of time and space. Put in more Pokémon instead of this nonsense.

Eevee: This is somehow even worse than Pikachu, honestly. The way they're trying to make Eevee the next Pikachu is ridiculous, and they're undercutting the whole point of Eevee's eight split evolutions by shoving the base form at us like this. Its voice acting is also bad, it doesn't sound like what Eevee should sound like, localize that stuff! Oh, also, the design itself is just even more boring and bland, it just gets angry and fluffy. Why? What a waste.

Meowth: Hurr hurr, it gets longer. Stop it already, you did this thrice already, and better in each case. This is just clearly a forced meme Pokémon. Garbage. Memes used to be funny. Past tense. 

Butterfree: Yeah, ok, it's alright. Bigger, other colours. Mega Beedrill was way better though. But you cut that one out. 

Machamp: Why have they been shilling Machamp so hard ever since Alola? It appeared a ton in that game with NPCs fawning over it and whatnot, now it gets a new form. Strange that Alakazam didn't make it in though... Uh, anyway, the design is ok I guess. Plain and basic again. Its eyes light up, its arms are super hot lava now or something. What a shock. Megas were better than this.

Kingler: Nope, not even Gigantamaxing can make Kingler anything but a boring crab. 

Lapras: Couldn't find any good still shot of this one. But if these other Kanto Gigantamaxes are any indication my hopes are low.

Gengar: Didn't you already have a mega? God I don't care about these. Well, actually, I suppose this design is fine, but it's also so derivative off of Mega Gengar's design of being stuck to the ground... Why reinvent the wheel like this?

Holy shit it's my boy Garbodor: Yeeeees. Garbodor finally getting some due recognition. And it's got a train rammed up its butt! God, goals am I right? It's neat that it's got some references in the garbage cluttering its body, like some of the toys from N's room, a model from one of those in-game boats, Pokédolls, a Magikarp skeleton. Man, there should have been less Kanto Gigantamaxes and more Unova Gigantamaxes. 

Corviknight: Yeah, it's fine. Corvinight but Corviknightier. It's got red stuff, ooh. Woo.

Alcremie: Kind of a letdown really. Alcremie itself looks the same and the cake isn't very visually interesting either. I get that it combines all the Alcremie variants, but that isn't enough to make the cake interesting to look at, and the cake is most of the design.

Drednaw: It's better than regular Drednaw because they did theyr absolute best to hide Drednaw's bad face. It's still there though, so eh.

Hatterene: Hm, I think I like the regular Hatterene more really. 

Coalossal: Oh hey, it fianlly got its eyes fixed. Neat. Doesn't make the rest of the design any less of a bland mix of Golem and Rhydon. 

Grimmsnarl: Alright, I do think this one is a substantial improvement actually, it just gets even more menacing somehow, I do quite like this one unambivalently. See, I don't every Gigantamax! I just don't like the vast majority of them. Hm.

Copperajah: Wow it gets even uglier. I'm sure there's a theme here, but I hate this.

Duraludon: It's a skyscraper? Uh, sure. Still not a good design though.

Centiskorch: It's Centiskorch but longer and whatnot. Kinda makes it look almost like a dragon. That's cool. It's a good design.

Flapple: Ooh, I do like this one. Flapple but the apple's closed again. Makes me wonder whether this one is based on the apple of enlightenment with the worm substituting for the snake? That's an interesting idea for a Pokémon. Flapple just is a gift that keeps giving.

Overall thoughts

Honestly, I'm not sure. I had a pretty visceral reaction to some of these Pokémon, more than I had with other generations. There's still some definitely great designs in here and sufficient Pokémon to form several different teams, but I still think it's much less consistently good than generations 6 and 7, and it doesn't make up for it with having a lot of additions either like gen 5 did. 

I still think this is a dud generation, but that doesn't mean there's a shortage of good designs in there. Inteleon, Dubwool, Hatterene, Polteageist, Toxitricity, Morgrem, Centiskorch, Flapple and Dragapult are all great new additions after all. But conversely, when the designs are bad, they are BAD. Bolthund, Blipbug, Chewtle, Carkoal, Eiscue, the fossils, Mr Rime and Gigantamax Meowth/Pikachu/Eevee are all just absolute trash tier designs and I hate all of them. I've never had that many Pokémon I just outright hated in a generation I think. 

Designs also do feel more like cartoon characters than ever, as stated when talking about Mr Rime. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in some cases they got attached to this idea of a theme that any actual charm or quality was tossed out of the window just to maximize the theming. 

Well, anyway I'm glad to have got that out of my system. Thanks you sincerely if you read this all the way here! Do tell me whether you disagree with me or not! Maybe you think Bolthund is a good doggo instead of a piece of shit, or think that Impidimp is an ugly noodley-limbed mess in a bad instead of a good way, and that's fine! 

The tragedy of Syrus Truedale, an analysis

A common and valid complaint I hear about GX is that the initial friend group of season 1 contains the rather annoying duo of Syrus and Chumley, two lackluster duelists who oftentimes complain and mostly just get in the way. In Chumley's case this derives from the school simply not being the right place for him and the writers wisely write him off the show in a respectable manner while even giving Crowler a nice moment as well.

VERY RESPECTABLE

Syrus doesn't get so lucky.

Season 1

Syrus does get an arc in season 1 revolving around his brother Zane's advice on being able to play a card vs knowing how and when to play a card, starting off not knowing the difference but eventually proving his worth in his tag duel against the Paradox Brothers alongside Jaden, his idol and pretty much his mentor.

Wow Syrus actually did something cool?!

Aside from that there's a moment where during Zane's duel with Camula Syrus admits he still considers himself to not belong and be a far inferior duelist to Zane and Zane should just allow Syrus's soul to be sacrificed so Zane can win. But then Zane's brotherly love for Syrus is reaffirmed when Zane without hesitation decisively surrenders to Camula at the risk of the world just to spare Syrus's soul, and Zane even tells Syrus he was wrong to think Syrus didn't belong at the academy and he loves him as a brother.

There's no way this'll turn sour come season 2!

So everything seems to be going smoothly, Syrus has proven to the others that he belongs at the Academy and Zane's words of encouragement have convinced Syrus of this fact as well. He's still but a first-year Slifer Red though, so there's ample time to show how he develops with this newfound confidence.

Season 2

Then season 2 happens. And things are looking good for Syrus! Syrus gets to prove his worth again early in season 2 when he earns a promotion to Ra Yellow and gets the crowd to cheer on him as Syrus Truesdale rather than just as Zane's brother. He even gives Power Bond away to prove he can win without relying on his brother's ace card, and he does. Things are looking up for Syrus and even Jaden is impressed, giving Power Bond back to Syrus, Syrus's worries that his friends are all ahead of him and that he lives in his brother's shadow seem to fade.

SÜPËR VËHÏCRÖÏD JÜMBÖ DRÏLL ÏS DÏGGÏNG THÏS WÄY

Then immediately during the next episode Zane loses. And loses. And loses. And then he goes insane. And then he wins. And wins. And wins. Oops. Syrus is crushed at first, but steadily grows determined that he has to be the one to save Zane.

The whole Dark Zane arc is already rather weird, and we see that nobody's able to talk sense into Zane. He easily conquers Chancellor Sheppard, his mentor in the Cyber Legacy, and quite brutally says he doesn't care at all that Cyber Dragon is crying out to him in pain during the duel, all he cares about anymore is victory. 

He shrugs off Jaden and Aster, who have drawed with and beaten him before respectively. His friend Atticus tries to free Zane from the darkness that controls him in a duel, but Zane retorts that he's not being controlled by anyone anymore and crushes Atticus. In the end it's Syrus who has to resolve his character arc and challenge the brother he once looked up to and now it has to be Syrus to teach Zane how to be a respectful, honorable duelist rather than the other way around.

Oof

But Syrus just... Fails. He tries his hardest, he uses his brother's signature card Power Bond once more now that he feels worthy of using it, he uses all sorts of spells and traps to try and play around Zane's moves, but it's still not enough in the end. I guess the writers realized that Zane's edginess and mecha dragons were cooler than Syrus's geekiness and googly-eyes vehicles. Contrary to the show's morals about fair and respectful play and treating one's deck and opponent's with dignity, Syrus instead gets manhandled by Zane and is actually hospitalized. Zane doesn't even show a slight care and he just drops out of the season altogether, I guess the writers made too much filler to give Zane a real climax this season.

I'll also briefly point out the small mini-arc between Syrus and Hassleberry where the two clash over who's Jaden's right-hand man and eventually they make up and even have a tag duel together against a powerful duo of tag duelists and they eventually fuse two of their monsters as part of their supposed winning play. Sounds similar to that time Syrus tagged with Jaden against the Paradox bros? Well, no, because Syrus and Hassleberry lose because the plot requires it, so that whole arc kinda ends on a big dud, losing to one-off characters who nobody even remembers.

What

Season 3

So come season 3, Syrus is now in Obelisk Blue? Somehow he promoted off-screen and it's barely remarked on by anyone, but character-wise he regressed more into his Slifer Red persona. Hes got no confidence in himself at all once the survival duel program is instilled. Perhaps he's still shaken by losing to Zane, or it's season 3 pushing away its season 1&2 cast in favor of the new season 3 cast. Axel uses him as bait to duel Jaden under Viper's orders and Syrus chooses to drop back to Ra Yellow voluntarily so he can be closer to Jaden. But oops, there's Jesse and he's got much better chemistry with Jaden than Syrus ever did.

Hm yes character development

So Syrus doesn't really get to do much at all except stand back and become self-aware that he's a sidekick in an anime series (god I love the dub) until the Dark World arc, where most of his friends get sacrificed and 'sent to the stars' (god I love the dub), Jaden blames himself for it and becomes the Supreme King which makes Syrus completely disillusioned with Jaden who he'd always put on a pedestal like his brother and he even meets and reconciles with Zane. Wow, there's a lot of hooks for them to develop Syrus, his friends are gone, his brother is back and seems a little more reasonable and now Jaden has fallen to the dark side just like he saw happen to Zane. Everything seems set up for Syrus to overcome his disillusionment and prove himself once again, he can be the one to save his best friend Jaden from the darkness and not fail this time, and perhaps even still save Zane from self-destruction.

Also, the BEST TEAM-UP IN ANIME HISTORY

But that doesn't happen. In the end it's Axel who gets to sacrifice himself to save Jaden. Yes, Axel, who thus far had one duel with Jaden and like zero chemistry whatsoever, mostly being either puppeteered by Viper or playing the role of the savvy soldier survivalist. I guess it's season 3 so the honor of beating the Supreme King has to go to a season 3 character. Syrus is just stuck as a neutral observer from a distance, making sure to never get involved and just passively overcoming his disillusionment when Jaden duels Yubel.

Also Jaden just flat out dies here in the dub, ouch.
Final shot of the dub is Syrus crying, season 4 never happens. :(

Speaking of Yubel, in the end it turns out to be her to finally give Zane a defeat after his turn to darkness. Yubel, who has absolutely no interest in Zane whatsoever beyond as a means to hurt Jaden. Syrus does admittedly get an emotional moment with Zane as Zane's 'sent to the stars', but it leaves a very shaky foundation for season 4 which tries to round up Syrus's development.

Season 4

So come season 4, Syrus once more gets promoted to Obelisk Blue and once again it happens off-screen. A shame, but I realize they were on a tight limit on the number of episodes this season. Luckily Syrus does get a focus episode this season, where Zane strands on the beach of Duel Academy, apparently surviving his heart attack in season 3. He's still in a critical state though, and requires Syrus to look after him. Zane cannot even safely duel anymore, and when he gets challenged by a rival from the Jinzo Legacy (who also crushed Sheppard, poor Sheppard) he ends up unable to resolve the duel, so he instead gives his deck to Syrus for Syrus to master.

Being a bald character in YGO, of course Sheppard could only lose.
Too lazy to retake this screenshot, sorry.

I will admit this is a decent moment of growth, Syrus makes the deck his own, he beats the rival from the rival school and Zane flat out states to Syrus that Syrus has surpassed him. Zane asks Syrus to found a new pro dueling league with him, which Syrus is happy with but also fills him with doubt, both due to his still enduring self-confidence issues and Zane's deteriorating health. In the end this makes Syrus prey for the seasonal villain Nightshroud/Darkness just like everyone else, until Jaden bails them all out.

And that's fine, really. I think season 4 handles Syrus well just like they did with Chazz and Alexis who also got kinda shafted in season 3. So I don't mind them having to be bailed out by Jaden, the moment still works and feels meaningful. Syrus graduates at the top of the class alongside Chazz and Alexis, having finally proves he does indeed belong with his friends in the pro league unlike his worries early in season 2.

The problem

So overall I think the problem really starts with the duel between Zane and Syrus. Syrus's loss here basically completely derails his character arc for no real reason. Syrus fails at what he's been trying to do all season while Zane completely shrugs off the victory and just walks away until season 3. It leaves Syrus without any proper resolution for his work all season while Zane is given no cause for his mellowing out and change of heart come season 3.

And then when season 3 does happen, Syrus is mysteriously an Obelisk Blue all of a sudden only to choose to get demoted and be forced into a role of hanging on by the sidelines neutrally observing and contributing nothing to the plot despite being given importance of being the only surviving friend and his bond with Jaden.

This in turn makes season 4's resolution feel limp. Syrus doens't get a conclusion to his arc in season 2 and did nothing in season 3, so why does Zane suddenly respect him so much? Why doesn't Syrus ever get to prove himself against Zane, but rather has to prove himself by beating a proxy in the rival from another school?

The solution

Make Syrus defeat Zane in season 2. Heresy, I know, but think about it. Rather than reforming Zane, Zane instead develops the first signs of heart problems due to the shocks from the loss. Syrus succeeds in winning the duel, but Zane's not saved. Zane instead gets hospitalized in a coma, and thus is unable to reconcile with Syrus. Syrus cannot stay alongside Zane in the hospital during the climactic battle between Jaden and Sartorius, after afterwards Zane's out of the hospital already, against the wishes of the nurses and doctors. Perhaps Zane leaves a note or message for Syrus that sets up his death wish and desire to duel the strongest spirit in season 3.

Come season 3, make an episode where Syrus graduates from Ra Yellow to Obelisk Blue and make it about how Syrus feels Jaden doesn't really care since he's too busy with Jesse. Syrus is scared Jaden is drifting away, and he'll lose yet another idol he looked up to. It's an elephant in the room the show barely addresses, so let's address and deal with it.

Jaden and Jesse can't make it to Syrus's graduation duel because of Viper's machinations, leaving Syrus disappointed but still determined to make it on his own, without having to rely on Zane or Jaden. Then, just when the duel seems to be turning against him, Jaden and Jesse show up, start cheering for Syrus and Syrus gets to win his promotion match and get over his envy towards Jesse and worries he's drifting apart from Jaden.

Nothing else needs to change until we get to the Dark World aside from Syrus having more of a surprise when Zane duels Jesse to power the dimensional rift. In the Dark World, Syrus loses his friends, becomes disillusioned with Jaden and meets a cold, aloof and distant Zane. Zane has clearly mellowed out since losing to Syrus, but he won't say that outright. Their dialogue in season 3 doesn't need to change much, things are tense between the brothers and Syrus still sees Zane as someone who stands above him and who he couldn't save even though he won the duel. Eventually Zane tells Syrus he has to be the one to defeat the Supreme King and save Jaden, stating Syrus has done it before. Before Syrus can process all this, Zane's off to face Yubel alone against Aster's protests, which means Syrus gets to take Zane's place in the raid against the Supreme King's forces.

Syrus gets to duel the Supreme King instead of Axel and after a hard-fought battle it ends with a draw. Jaden is saved, but at the cost of Syrus being sent to the stars. Yubel couldn't be happier, she got Jaden to defeat his best friend, Jaden's more determined than ever to stop Yubel and Axel's inspired by Syrus's bravery, being surprised to see him like that after all of Syrus's bumbling earlier in the series, this way even Axel still gets a little bit of closure on that tiny arc.

Axel can accompany Jaden from there on instead of Syrus, taking a more active role in things such as calling out Adrian for falling for the same trick that Viper fell for.

Not much would need to change in season 4. Syrus would already be Obelisk Blue to start with and he can still have his full reconciliation with Zane where Zane finally flat out admits Syrus has surpassed him as a duelist, not only by proving to be a respectful duelist who can win but also by taming and making his own the Cyberdark Deck.

And then he can get absorbed by Darkness and saved by Jaden. Happy endings for all!

Oh no this became a fanfic didn't it

Yeah, it kind of did near the end. I just started thinking about why people look down on Syrus so much and how odd Zane's arc in season 2 was and it just struck me how harshly Syrus's whole arc got derailed by that one fateful loss against Zane. He simply never recovered from that which also left the final attempts of season 4 to salvage his character arc feel a bit stilted.

I hope people liked reading this analysis! It's no secret GX has a rather bloated cast and you could probably make a write-up like this for characters such as Alexis and poor Bastion as well. I still love the show very much, but YGO shows seem to have a knack for taking characters with bright potential and ripping that potential away for the strangest of reasons.

Yooka-Laylee? More like Yooka-Yaylee

Yooka Laylee is an interesting game. Wildly successful on Kickstarter, it released in 2017 and there still doesn't seem to be a consensus on whether it's a Kickstarter success like Undertale and Shovel Knight or a Kickstarter failure like Mighty No. 9 or any number of games that get completely stuck in development hell.

Banking really hard on nostalgic appeal to 3D platforming collectathons of the days of the N64 and Playstation, the game released to little modern competition but plenty of old games to compare and contrast it with, especially the Banjo Kazooie series which it takes very clear inspiration from wholesale.

Zooks! It's Yooksa Laylee!!

I never played Banjo Kazooie or backed the Kickstarter. I only got the game in 2019 when it was on sale. I'm quite late to the party! The game came on my radar early in its development, I liked an early trailer and was impressed with its Kickstarter performance, but when it came out the reception was all over the place, varying from it being a worthy successor bringing a dead genre to the modern age to a lifeless imitation that fixed none of the problems that held the genre back.

So, why did I get it anyway? Well, it was cheap, and I was just interested in finding out whether it's bad or good.

And overall? It's kinda bad. But also good! I liked it a lot!! There was an omnipresent feeling of jank around every corner, much of the visual design leaves much to be desired and some specific sections of the game just don't control well. Yet I still felt genuine joy at exploring each stage, collecting all collectibles and listening to the music. I groaned at some dialogue, I laughed at some dialogue. I got angry at a few segments, I felt very satisfied with a few segments.

Nothing is quite as satisfying as that tongue.

Being a collectathon, most of the gameplay consists of exploring the game's 5 main world and the hub world. The overall quality of the levels does vary, I found myself liking the first and fifth world the most, those being Tribalstack Tropics and Galleon Galaxy, the first felt like the most polished and refined world overall, no doubt to make the game have a good first impression. I especially liked the water moat and ice rink races, those felt really satisfying to beat! Scaling up the several landmarks that reach for the skies also gave a good sense of progression. It also meant some nice views! Being the first level, there are also a lot of times where you just cannot do certain quests yet due to lacking the required powers, which can be annoying if you don't realize this at first and assume you already have all you need. Sometimes it also turns out you can finagle a way through quests without required powers anyway, which is both a positive and a negative. The plant transformation also just isn't very interesting, it moves slow and has no aerial or aquatic movement at all, so you just slowly hop over to the plant NPCs and do a quest that could've just been implemented using the water breath mechanic anyway.

Yooka spraying his pollinating fluids all over the place

The fifth and final world meanwhile has the most interesting theme by mixing pirates and space. And frogs. This is also when the player has all moves available as well as health and energy extenders, so there's no backtracking involved and your movement options are quite varied. The level is very open to promote the use of the flight power, so it's very easy to move around and get to where you need to be. The level also mixes up the boss battle by having you fight it while transformed as well as having its minecart section play with low gravity, fun surprises! On the other hand, the flight power is so convenient that it becomes second nature to just fly past a lot of obstacles and do events out of order.

It also makes it easy to set up shots like this.

The other stages still fare well, but less so. The second world is an ice world, but luckily it's still easy to get around by using the jump command. My major issue with the level is that the middle part of the level is just a big lake, which is slow to navigate, especially before getting the underwater bubble powerup. This made reaching certain parts of the level annoying because you couldn't just directly roll over there but have to use a door system instead. On the flipside, the Icymetric Palace area in the middle of the stage was a blast to explore, mixing things up by making a large series of small rooms with their own challenges each rather than being one large area of connected rooms. It also features our lord and savior, THE SNOW PLOW.

SUPER VEHICROID JUMBO SNOWPLOW IS CHARGING THIS WAY

The third level suffers from having a rather lackluster boss with predictable attack patterns and the mechanical swamp theme just being rather bland and not aesthetically pleasing. It's the level with the most aquatic sections, though thankfully the swimming controls are easy to adapt to! The bubble power makes underwater platforming as natural as regular platforming, but more slippery, while the swimming mechanics are intuitive enough to make getting around areas you cannot reach by bubble doable. Overall the level feels somewhat forgettable, right in the middle of the game.

Too much swampwater, 7.8/10

The fourth level is a casino level! A giant, oversized casino, for some reason, so it feels rather like a stage out of the Toy Story 2 game! Nostalgia!! I was rather worried the level would be a gimmicky mess, but luckily the level was more coherent than that. I really enjoyed familiarizing myself with the Casino's layout, exploring the side areas and the helicopter transformation! I was dreading the helicopter having hokey controls, but it turned out to be really easy to control and bombard otherwise invincible enemies with its cannons! The boss was a lot of fun too, taking place during a minecart ride for a change of pace! It felt real good figuring out how to get through each pattern and beating it with just one life left. On the other hand, there are still a few gimmicks. The sot machines were more tedious than fun in how precise they require you to be, one even requiring lining up 5 slots correctly. The NPCs were also rather bland here, all the slot machine NPCs used the same blabber voices and looked too similar! The other levels all had unique, clearly differentiated NPCs, something the casino sadly lacked, they could have done much better!

Very appreciative of these statues of what look like peeing Corplets though.

The levels all feature various collectibles. The most numerous are the Quills, there's 200 per stage all over the place and they tend to be the easier to miss one of. Most of these are out in the open, though some are rather hidden away. The way they're scattered feels rather haphazard sometimes though, some areas have a lot of quills bundled together while others are mostly devoid of quills at all. They don't do much to guide you through a stage, as might be expected. Luckily the game has a special power that does help find nearby collectibles and it'll also help find quills provided you've already found 85% of a stage's quills. The quills do serve a purpose, since they can be used to purchase new abilities, so collecting enough is quite vital! That said, if you search them diligently it'll be easy to buy all powers in a level immediately after unlocking it from excess quills from past stages, so you needn't collect them all unless you're after 100% completion.

Turns out my final quill was right in the starting area.

Hidden in each level are also Health and Energy Extenders, these as their name implies give you increased maximum health and energy. The extra health only really comes in handy during boss battles since the game's combat is mostly easy and avoidable and few obstacle sections are s risky that they will fully drain your health. The energy extenders make a remarkable difference however! To start with you only have a little energy, which severely limits the use of special moves, so collecting these feels very rewarding since it lets you travel around quickly for longer periods and use your special moves more liberally. These powerups do a good job of giving a strong sense of progression.

Every level also hold an Arcade Coin for the Arcade Minigames!! Most people seem to hate them! I thought they were fine. There's a big, garish pink neon arcade machine in each world with its own arcade minigame to play, and they range from pretty fun to inoffensive to just bad. I'd say the casino level was the only one where the minigame was bad, though, the others were all basically just quick diversions from the rest of the game. One problem, though, is that the game makes you play them all twice! Once to reach the end of the minigame, then a second time to beat a highscore. Yes, even if on your first try you already topped the highscore. None of the highscores were particularly hard either, I'm pretty sure I beat every arcade machine in the two mandatory attempts and didn't need to replay any of them. It's probably for the best though! Overall they do their job of mixing up the gameplay adequately, and they do get in some good game design jokes with the Rextro character, though there's some cringy groaners mixed in too. I would have liked it if these minigames looked more like arcade minigames rather than the rest of the game though.

Rextro doesn't make it very hard.

Rather similarly, each level also has a Molly Cool which can power a device that gives Yooka and Laylee a unique transformation in each world. These also serve to mix up the gameplay, but unlike the arcades you get to move around the world with your new form. The aforementioned plant transformation was kinda boring, and the Swamp's Piranha Shoal transformation also just amounted to a basic "easier aquatic movement" style of gameplay. The Snow Plow, Helicopter and Pirate Ship were more satisfying however! These vehicles each come equipped with increased offensive capability and mastery of a certain mode of travel. The Snow Plow can easily dash through enemies and can traverse any land-based terrain with ease, the Helicopter can fly around through the air and bombard with missiles and the Pirate Ship can coast along the water and actually has a flamethrower as well as spreadshot ice and cannonball cannons. So a net positive overall, since the less interesting forms aren't really used much anyway.

Is that you, Gyroid?

But oh no, there's still more to collect! Every world also has five ghosts to hunt down, these vary from just being placed out in the open to being hidden away quite well. Each of the five ghosts has their own characteristics, so one requires you to feed it with an elemental breath attack, one makes you chase it around to catch it, one forces you to battle it to catch it and one calls out for you but is in hidden away places and hard to find. Then there's the fifth ghost that requires you to use sonar abilities to reveal its hidden location. Actually finding its location is pretty easy since it's sometimes visible and giggles a lot, but figuring out you can reveal it with Sonic Sonar abilities is never really explained properly.

No, not this kind of Sonic.

But wait, there's more! Pagies!! Pagies are the main collectibles of the game, they're used to unlock new worlds, expand existing worlds and face the final boss. Pagies are found either by completing challenges to unlock a Cagie holding a Pagie, or they are handed out by NPCs for completing a quest. You also obtain one for collecting all of a world's ghosts as well as one for getting all Quills. These challenges and quests can take on basically any form! Many of them are platforming challenges, but there's also plenty of puzzles and whatnot! The diversity for these challenges is great overall, they make Pagies the most fun collectible overall to acquire. Luckily, very few of the Pagies are very difficult or tedious to acquire, though there are several instances of them being unintuitive, and having to google them does remove the feeling immersion.

Personal space, please.

So yes, quite a lot to collect in this collectathon! Who'd have thought! Luckily it's pretty easy to get around the world with all the movement options. Yooka walks at a suitably brisk pace while the roll ability lets you cross long distances easily while the much later fly ability lets you do it even quicker as well as letting you easily reach great heights. Just don't use those two for precision platforming! The game's thankfully sensible enough to know that so any segments that rely on you using these specific abilities are pretty generous with large platforms and forgiving targets.

There's other abilities too, such as the high jump and sonar attacks. There's also upgrades for the roll ability such as the ability to do a rolling dash for great speed and breaking glass, as well as a rolling shield that grants invulnerability and damages nearby enemies. These are a bit more rough, since it can be hard to know some areas require these powers before you obtain them, I know I certainly sequence broke some sections with very precise and unintended platforming to reach platforms I was meant to high jump to. Then there's the sonar abilities and roll, which interact with various elements in ways that just aren't intuitive at all. This could have been alleviated if they made the salesman selling you these abilities offer you to do a small tutorial course showing all applications of an ability.

I got here with the high jump, I clearly needed the fly power for it though!

Speaking of the salesman, NPCs!! The game has a lot of those! Every world has some unique NPCs and there's some NPCs that recur in every or in some stages. The design of these are nicely varied, though as with many things the quality does vary a bit. I wasn't a fan of the casino's slot machine NPCs as mentioned before, for example. One common complaint people have is that the NPC dialogue voice sounds are annoying, but personally I never thought that. They're all pretty silly and goofy, so in the end I left the option to have them play on and liked the game better for it. I wouldn't be against them adding voice acting for specific scenes though, but it's still a step up from wholly silent text boxes or universal generic text bleeps.

I rather like Shovel Knight's Yo Ho Yoho sounds

And on the topic of NPCs, there's the dialogue. Again, it's all over the place! A lot of the dialogue is very self-aware of the game's status as a game and its legacy, and it has mixed results. Sometimes they're these little aside remarks and they work well, sometimes they go on too long and too much though. Some characters have fun quirks, like the slimy snake salesman or the wooden sign who always mistakes the player for someone else, but other characters like Vendi the vending machine or Yooka himself are just sort of bland and nice. Yooka generally is just kinda boring and there to move things along when Laylee's being difficult, they should have done more with the character if they wanted to push him as a belittled underdog, because it currently seems like he should care more given he's not exactly coded as being too dim to care. Laylee thankfully is more interesting with her sour outlook, though it can at times become too much and come across less as self-depreciation and more an admission of incompetence on the part of the developers. It's good to joke about characters being annoyed, not good to joke that the player must find sections or characters annoying. Either they don't and the joke fails, or they do and the joke just reminds you the devs were aware of the problems but wouldn't/couldn't fix it.

>:0

The game does have some rather risqué dialogue or moments given it's still marketed as a game for kids. I think it's fine anyway, that stuff'll just fly over their heads anyway or just give them a chuckle if they're perceptive enough. It's not like that's a modern thing anyway, that sort of stuff was already common back in the days it hearkens back to.

Special shoutout to the cloud you need to stimulate to make it rain

The world expanding mechanic is rather clunky! Once a world is unlocked, you can exit it and spend some Pagies to expand it, which adds more areas to explore, collectibles to find and quests to complete. This is rather awkward though, since the unexpanded world have red herrings in them as a result, causing frustration when trying to explore somewhere and finding nothing, then later realizing the area just wasn't expanded yet. The game also isn't sure whether the player will expand worlds ASAP or move on to later worlds first, which can lead to doing segments out of order! I did the second minecart ride after the first because I chose to visit the second world rather than expand the first world, and the first minecart track only appears in the first world when expanded! As a result, my first minecart ride was way too hard, while the second was way too easy.

And speaking of minecarts, minecart sections! Another one of the more controversial elements in the game, I didn't really like them at first due to a bad first impression, but I also somehow totally blanked on the ability to shoot away obstacles and enemies. This made them much harder than needed! Once I realized I could use the shooting feature, the minecart sections became much more tolerable and another nice diversion from the main gameplay again. Special shout out to the minecart boss which I expected to hate but wound up loving. That said, the midair jump is definitely broken, so honestly never bother going for the valuable gems that spawn below tracks, you'll just fall off when trying to jump back on track. Again, consistency issues.

Looks familiar?

It seems many of these features that are quite controversial were actually stretch goals! So that's quite odd, perhaps they stretched themselves too thin with Yooka Laylee and were overly ambitious? It does bring to mind the idea of trying to do everything rather than focusing on one thing, with less than stellar overall results. The quiz sections feel like another instance of that, as sometimes in the hub world an antagonist will quiz you on various topics in the game. The questions themselves are fine, some of them are kinda obtuse and unfair but I thought it kinda fitting, the quiz is still remarkably easy to solve since most questions are easy to answer and you only need 5 correct answers with 3 lives. The presentation really lets the quiz down, as it's just a boring bridge walkway you slowly travel across. Where's the flair? It feels bare.

GOREGONZOLA 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Oh, and there's a plot I guess? Honestly it's a really barebones plot. Villain steals valuable book, collect Pagies to reassemble book and take it back from villain. That's fine by itself, but Yooka and Laylee barely interact with the main villain Capital B! There should've been some scenes setting them up as enemies, cause right now it's just limited to the final boss battle, a silly appearance in the casino that is appreciated and some taunts in the hub world. It comes off as really flat, since the villain had more potential than that.

Crowdfunded? Hm.

I think that's most of it, yes? The music is very nice overall! Most of the game also looks fine, the visuals are good overall, though you can tell it does look sort of like an indie budget game rather than a real big AAA game. The visuals themselves sometimes just don't match up with the gameplay purpose clearly enough and some areas have lighting that just don't look well on Yooka and Laylee. Yooka's design is also not quite chameleon enough! They're such weird creatures, though I suppose they preferred to keep a consistent artstyle overall for the eyes and whatnot. There's eyes on everything. So many eyes.

THE EYES HAVE EYES

Oh boy, and there's jank! A looot of jank! I took a bunch of screenshots of jank, which I'll dump down here. Yet nevertheless, I did enjoy the game very much despite its jankiness! The basic gameplay of exploring the world, interacting with NPCs, collecting Pagies and platforming was still satisfying, so I have nor egrets I played and 100% completed the game! It took about 23 hours in total, and it's 23 hours well-spent I'd say!

Satisfying.

Here's hoping Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair doesn't disappoint! And, of course, I do look forward to Twooka-Laylee!

And for anyone wondering whether this game inspired me to go play Banjo Kazooie? No.

Now enjoy the rest of the screenshots! If you want to see Yooka licking a Corplet's crotch, and of course you do, it's in there!!

Oh there's so many pics of this face to come.

Hitboxes!!

More of this.

:V

Walking on air

All chests are like this.

Clipping

Oh no, not Vendi too!

Spicy

Falling into nothing

Chad pose

:O===D

I get a lot of mileage out of the lick button

Yooka no

YOOKA STOP

Water breath looks kinda funky

Why can I stand on this

Yooka's Inside Story

Are you okay, Mr. Blowy?

THE SNOW PLOW CAN FLOAT

Gonna plow Vendi

ALL HAIL THE MAGIC SNOW PLOW

You often get stuck when ground pounding cages
(It fixes itself in a few seconds, luckily)

The Magic Snow Plow can stand on people!

0/10, worst game

Laylee, stop gnawing the books.

Bubble clips through walls!

Endless fall, again

If only we fit through...

Invisible wall and hitbox, nice combo

YOOKA NO DON'T JUMP

Yooka's very well-read

I can see the skybox

Again with the tongue

Just a cute pic of us

SNOW PLOW > TROUSER SNAKE

A.R.S.E.

Hot tongue action

vore

Watch out for its double damage direct attacks

What makes infinite falling better? Tongue!

RIP Sonic Boom, we'll never get Season 3 :(

Hard to see but its texture is screwed up

A Yooka in Time

UI overlap

Standing on nothing

Hey guys welcome to my Let's Play

Behold, the most broken area in the game!

0◡0

What

Yooka stop

No comment needed

Is that so?

IS THAT SO REXTRO?

What's that? Pirate ships have no arms either?

And yet I am armed.

Slipping during a cutscene

Pain

My most hated collectible

Actually had to reset to get out of this one.

Hooray!

This game has the lengthiest credit sequence I've ever seen.

Alright, you were waiting for it. Here it is!

HOT ACTION IN THE DARK
BAT VOYEUR