New Super Lucky’s Tale Review

Demos are important for games. In this age where we can instantly download games in the blink of an eye, with the caveat that we can’t refund them if we turn out to not like them, demos continue to be one of the most important aspects of gaming; that little, free taste can be the final decision-maker for someone on the fence about buying a game.

It could confirm every hope and dream they have about the game, or dash them against the rocks. Either way, the players get the information they need. To that end, New Super Lucky’s Tale having a demo is a brilliant move.

Billing itself as a “love letter to classic 3D platformers”, it undersells itself. It’s less a love letter and more and bombastic, intricate musical number with a heart-shaped spotlight.

The game opens with, naturally, backstory. The voice work is incredible as it divulges the tale. A mad magical tyrant by the name of Jinx and his feline compatriots, the Kitty Litter, sought the Book of Ages, a powerful artifact protected by a noble group of animals known as the Guardian Order.

With much of the order fractured by Jinx, Lyra Swiftail, the current leader, gathered up the remnants of the book’s protectors and ran. Eventually, Jinx and his crew found them, but the book had other plans.

Unleashing a whirlwind of pages, it drew in Jinx, his Kitty Litter, and Lyra’s younger brother, Lucky. Now it’s up to the rookie Guardian to set things right, find the pages, and defeat an almost absurd amount of cats to save the worlds.

It’s not a bad story, honestly, and the hand-drawn cinematics play out like a 90s cartoon, lending further to the retro feel New Super Lucky’s Tale provides. But of course, the true meat lies in the game itself, and is it juicy.

Controls are fluid, the graphics popping and crisp, and the music perfectly encapsulates the bouncy, poppy catchiness of old-school platformers while keeping the fresh energy of the modern era.

Within each level, you’ve got objectives to tackle. Naturally, the main objective is to get the page found at the end of the level, but to get 100% for the levels, you have to gather 300 coins, obtain a special page for completing the secret mini-levels, and spell out LUCKY with the letters hidden about. Thankfully coins are aplenty, the sub-levels relatively easy to find thanks to their glowing indicators, and the letters, while hidden enough to provide a challenge, aren’t so obscured or out of the way they’re frustrating to find.

The worlds are vibrant and expressive, teeming with so much life it's hard not to get distracted by it. There’s no major dip in quality when you’re switching from docked to handheld, thankfully, the game looking fantastic either way. And controls are simple; you can run and jump, tail swipe to attack, and burrow underground to reach new areas/evade attacks. It might not be a laundry list of moves, but it’s all you need.

When I first saw New Super Lucky’s Tale, I was jazzed about it, but platformers have a long and storied history of being frustratingly hard. New Super Lucky’s Tale goes against the grain, being easy enough for newcomers to just pick up and play, and providing just enough fun and familiar challenge for veterans of the genre.