12th October 2017, 8:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 12th October 2017, 10:29 PM by A Black Falcon.)
So I got to world two, and here's what I think so far.
Between Yooka-Laylee and A Hat in Time, in my opinion, it's not even close! Based on gameplay alone both games are fun, but Yooka-Laylee has significantly better graphics, better music, better controls, and better level designs. It's a fantastic game and one of my favorites of the year. That the developers did the right thing by dropping Jontron is awesome, but the game itself is fantastic.
Meanwhile A Hat in Time has a lot of issues which hold it back significantly. Jontron is the biggest one of these, but the others, including the bad past behavior by the lead developer, how they baited Wii U owners for Kickstarter money, and the questionable at best issue of why Grant Kirkhope didn't write more music for the game are all important to consider. There are a lot of reasons outside of the game to dislike A Hat in Time.
As for the game itself though, the game is charming and, once you get used to it, fun to play. It feels like a decent to good, though not amazing, 3d platformer from the early '00s, I think. The controls are too floaty, though, and the collision detection has problems -- you can get stuck behind things way more easily than you should in a commercial game. The controls are also entirely unconfigurable. The defaults are okay, but this is a PC game, support control customization! The collision detection is one way that this games' low budget shows, I think. Because of that budget I can understand why that'd happen, but still, after so many years I'd hope for better. Sure, Y-L has some control issues too, but AHiT's are worse.
The issues aren't only in the controls, though; you can get used to those eventually. Another big issue I have with the game is in the level design. Yooka-Laylee uses the Banjo style, where each level is an open world you wander around collecting stuff in. This is probably the most popular style of 3d platformer world design. A Hat in Time uses the Mario 64/Sunshine style, where you enter from the hub into a set level with a single objective, then exit back out between objectives. It makes for a different style in each game, and I like both; I don't think this makes one of these games better than the other, it's just different. Its design does mean that Y-L has larger levels, though, as each needs to cover a lot more space in order to have room for all of the stuff in it. Exploring 3d platformer levels is fun. It's also a longer and more challenging game, while AHiT is short and pretty easy. This should count for something in Y-L's favor; AHiT won't challenge you much.
I also have an issue with the level design of some parts of AHiT, such as the first level, Mafia Town. While both games have expansive levels for you to learn your way around, in AHiT the designers decided that in this level at least, they needed to have an objective indicator that you can bring up on screen. If you hit a button with the default hat it shows a marker on screen towards where the current mission's objective is. This is great, because the open levels are large enough that it would be easy to wander around lost not having any idea where you're supposed to be going for this mission, but isn't that also a problem? I've never seen an objective indicator in a 3d platformer like this before, and as much as I like games helping you figure out what to do -- and I think it is very important to do that -- somehow it feels wrong. Like, I think that with better level design, like you see in Y-L, you should have been able to guide the player without needing that indicator... but AHiT doesn't have that. (On the other hand there are times in Yooka-Laylee where I wished it had a map, but it's not essential, it'd just be kind of nice. It's not hard to learn the stages.)
The second world in AHiT is different -- these stages are much more linear. That's sort of better, but the control and challenge issues are here. Is there ever anything in this game in between 'so randomly open we needed a targeting cursor' and 'pretty much completely linear'? As I said I've never seen this genre do the former, but the latter can be great (Rayman 2!). But in general you need balance, areas that are open but which have clear goals. The Rare N64 games and Y-L do that masterfully well. They make levels that are large, but fun to navigate and full of stuff to find and do. This is not that.
Now, Yooka-Laylee does have areas in levels you can't do with your current powers and will need to come back to later, that's how it works in a Banjo-style game where you get more powers over time, but because of the open nature of the levels that's fine, once you realize that you need to return to this area later you can just do that. It never has something like this happen.
As for the graphics and sound, AHiT is a nice-looking game for the most part, they did a good job with what budget they had. However, there is a sizable gap between the two games here, the Rare experience and larger budget really show. I do have one issue with AHiT's visuals though, the black dithered outlines it uses when when you get up close to objects or characters go behind something looks bad. On a different presentation note, on the subject of story and comedy, both do that fairly well. I like the British comedy style Y-L uses more so than A Hat in TIme's jokes, but AHiT has charm as well and is amusing at times, certainly. But this is a genre that focuses on gameplay, not story, so this is a minor factor either way.
So, my first impression on the game is that A Hat in Time It's an alright game, but it's kind of average. I'm sure that my bias -- that I went into Y-L wanting to love it, while with this one all of those controversies seriously soured me on the game long before its release -- has an effect, but still, just looking at the games I do think that Y-L is a whole lot better across the board. I can't think of any major game element AHiT does better, it's a wipeout in Y-L's favor!
Normally though, I'd say that anyone who loves the genre like I do absolutely should get both games and see for yourself which you like more... but thanks to the Jontron issue, I can't recommend it for A Hat in Time, whatever the reason is for their keeping him on, people should vote with their money and not financially support that.
Between Yooka-Laylee and A Hat in Time, in my opinion, it's not even close! Based on gameplay alone both games are fun, but Yooka-Laylee has significantly better graphics, better music, better controls, and better level designs. It's a fantastic game and one of my favorites of the year. That the developers did the right thing by dropping Jontron is awesome, but the game itself is fantastic.
Meanwhile A Hat in Time has a lot of issues which hold it back significantly. Jontron is the biggest one of these, but the others, including the bad past behavior by the lead developer, how they baited Wii U owners for Kickstarter money, and the questionable at best issue of why Grant Kirkhope didn't write more music for the game are all important to consider. There are a lot of reasons outside of the game to dislike A Hat in Time.
As for the game itself though, the game is charming and, once you get used to it, fun to play. It feels like a decent to good, though not amazing, 3d platformer from the early '00s, I think. The controls are too floaty, though, and the collision detection has problems -- you can get stuck behind things way more easily than you should in a commercial game. The controls are also entirely unconfigurable. The defaults are okay, but this is a PC game, support control customization! The collision detection is one way that this games' low budget shows, I think. Because of that budget I can understand why that'd happen, but still, after so many years I'd hope for better. Sure, Y-L has some control issues too, but AHiT's are worse.
The issues aren't only in the controls, though; you can get used to those eventually. Another big issue I have with the game is in the level design. Yooka-Laylee uses the Banjo style, where each level is an open world you wander around collecting stuff in. This is probably the most popular style of 3d platformer world design. A Hat in Time uses the Mario 64/Sunshine style, where you enter from the hub into a set level with a single objective, then exit back out between objectives. It makes for a different style in each game, and I like both; I don't think this makes one of these games better than the other, it's just different. Its design does mean that Y-L has larger levels, though, as each needs to cover a lot more space in order to have room for all of the stuff in it. Exploring 3d platformer levels is fun. It's also a longer and more challenging game, while AHiT is short and pretty easy. This should count for something in Y-L's favor; AHiT won't challenge you much.
I also have an issue with the level design of some parts of AHiT, such as the first level, Mafia Town. While both games have expansive levels for you to learn your way around, in AHiT the designers decided that in this level at least, they needed to have an objective indicator that you can bring up on screen. If you hit a button with the default hat it shows a marker on screen towards where the current mission's objective is. This is great, because the open levels are large enough that it would be easy to wander around lost not having any idea where you're supposed to be going for this mission, but isn't that also a problem? I've never seen an objective indicator in a 3d platformer like this before, and as much as I like games helping you figure out what to do -- and I think it is very important to do that -- somehow it feels wrong. Like, I think that with better level design, like you see in Y-L, you should have been able to guide the player without needing that indicator... but AHiT doesn't have that. (On the other hand there are times in Yooka-Laylee where I wished it had a map, but it's not essential, it'd just be kind of nice. It's not hard to learn the stages.)
The second world in AHiT is different -- these stages are much more linear. That's sort of better, but the control and challenge issues are here. Is there ever anything in this game in between 'so randomly open we needed a targeting cursor' and 'pretty much completely linear'? As I said I've never seen this genre do the former, but the latter can be great (Rayman 2!). But in general you need balance, areas that are open but which have clear goals. The Rare N64 games and Y-L do that masterfully well. They make levels that are large, but fun to navigate and full of stuff to find and do. This is not that.
Now, Yooka-Laylee does have areas in levels you can't do with your current powers and will need to come back to later, that's how it works in a Banjo-style game where you get more powers over time, but because of the open nature of the levels that's fine, once you realize that you need to return to this area later you can just do that. It never has something like this happen.
As for the graphics and sound, AHiT is a nice-looking game for the most part, they did a good job with what budget they had. However, there is a sizable gap between the two games here, the Rare experience and larger budget really show. I do have one issue with AHiT's visuals though, the black dithered outlines it uses when when you get up close to objects or characters go behind something looks bad. On a different presentation note, on the subject of story and comedy, both do that fairly well. I like the British comedy style Y-L uses more so than A Hat in TIme's jokes, but AHiT has charm as well and is amusing at times, certainly. But this is a genre that focuses on gameplay, not story, so this is a minor factor either way.
So, my first impression on the game is that A Hat in Time It's an alright game, but it's kind of average. I'm sure that my bias -- that I went into Y-L wanting to love it, while with this one all of those controversies seriously soured me on the game long before its release -- has an effect, but still, just looking at the games I do think that Y-L is a whole lot better across the board. I can't think of any major game element AHiT does better, it's a wipeout in Y-L's favor!
Normally though, I'd say that anyone who loves the genre like I do absolutely should get both games and see for yourself which you like more... but thanks to the Jontron issue, I can't recommend it for A Hat in Time, whatever the reason is for their keeping him on, people should vote with their money and not financially support that.