13th October 2017, 9:59 PM
AHiT has poor level designs, I don't see how there is much to even debate there...
In AHiT, levels so far are either such mediocre designs and so open that you need a targeting cursor, or linear corridors, Rayman 2-style but far less good. Levels vary widely in quality, but none so far are in any way challenging, save for one place I got stuck in the train level... but even that's as much because of poor design (because the game does not explain much of anything well at all, in this case the difference between getting hit and dying) as anything else. Mafia Town is not much fun to explore and has a forgettable look to it. It's a very generic and mediocre 3d platformer level. There's a wide gulf between that world and the first world in any great 3d platformer. The second world, the bird movie company, is better, but its first level is C-grade average linear 3d platformer stage, at best. It has some amusing mechanics, but why does this game fail to explain things just as often as it forgets to tell you vital information (the controls, how to play, etc.)? Like so many things, the stealth mechanic is unexplained, which is kind of annoying. It takes trial and error and some deaths to figure out what to do here, and a better game would explain that. The train level is good, but its its opposite on the other side, the 'walk around and get fans' level? That one's super short, challenge-free, and terrible! Yooka-Laylee has no bad worlds, in comparison. All of the worlds are pretty good designs, loaded with interesting things to find and nicely laid out obstacles, collectibles, and objectives. This game tries, but the developers' inexperience results in an okay but mediocre result.
Or how about another thing. In Y-L, you can use any move that you have unlocked. In AHiT, however, you can't, because a lot of moves are locked to a single hat. So, you need to either pause or hold a button down, switch to the hat in question, and then use that move. It fits the 'hats' theme of the game, and hats do change your moveset -- like how with the speed hat you can't double jump, making platforming pretty bad with that one since the double jump is the only thing saving the floaty jumping -- but as a gameplay mechanic it's kind of annoying.
Basically this game is somewhere in the mid tier of the genre, below games like Ty the Tasmanian Tiger or Vexx, but above, like, Gex 2 or something. It's got some things in common with the Spyro games too, thinking about it, though it's probably not quite as good -- like that game the game is fully voice acted and those voice lines sometimes go on too long (just let me play the game! 3d platformers do NOT need live-action voice acting.), the level designs are lacking in various ways, and both get more praise than I think they probably deserve.
In AHiT, levels so far are either such mediocre designs and so open that you need a targeting cursor, or linear corridors, Rayman 2-style but far less good. Levels vary widely in quality, but none so far are in any way challenging, save for one place I got stuck in the train level... but even that's as much because of poor design (because the game does not explain much of anything well at all, in this case the difference between getting hit and dying) as anything else. Mafia Town is not much fun to explore and has a forgettable look to it. It's a very generic and mediocre 3d platformer level. There's a wide gulf between that world and the first world in any great 3d platformer. The second world, the bird movie company, is better, but its first level is C-grade average linear 3d platformer stage, at best. It has some amusing mechanics, but why does this game fail to explain things just as often as it forgets to tell you vital information (the controls, how to play, etc.)? Like so many things, the stealth mechanic is unexplained, which is kind of annoying. It takes trial and error and some deaths to figure out what to do here, and a better game would explain that. The train level is good, but its its opposite on the other side, the 'walk around and get fans' level? That one's super short, challenge-free, and terrible! Yooka-Laylee has no bad worlds, in comparison. All of the worlds are pretty good designs, loaded with interesting things to find and nicely laid out obstacles, collectibles, and objectives. This game tries, but the developers' inexperience results in an okay but mediocre result.
Or how about another thing. In Y-L, you can use any move that you have unlocked. In AHiT, however, you can't, because a lot of moves are locked to a single hat. So, you need to either pause or hold a button down, switch to the hat in question, and then use that move. It fits the 'hats' theme of the game, and hats do change your moveset -- like how with the speed hat you can't double jump, making platforming pretty bad with that one since the double jump is the only thing saving the floaty jumping -- but as a gameplay mechanic it's kind of annoying.
Basically this game is somewhere in the mid tier of the genre, below games like Ty the Tasmanian Tiger or Vexx, but above, like, Gex 2 or something. It's got some things in common with the Spyro games too, thinking about it, though it's probably not quite as good -- like that game the game is fully voice acted and those voice lines sometimes go on too long (just let me play the game! 3d platformers do NOT need live-action voice acting.), the level designs are lacking in various ways, and both get more praise than I think they probably deserve.