Super Lucky’s Tale Xbox One Review

Luck and kitten-bashing is the aim of this game – cat lovers might want to give this a miss! You play as Lucky, a cute fox that is absorbed into a colourful and mysterious world of cats and clovers. Lucky is a guardian and these evil cats have managed to do what real cats only wish they could do – take over the world! It is up to Lucky to set things right by confronting these ferocious felines and returning everything back to how it was.

Super Lucky’s Tale is a 3D platformer that takes some inspiration from Sonic games and mixes up gameplay with some 2.5D sections. With 4 worlds to unlock, you arrive in a linear hub world full of coins and gems to collect and puzzles to solve, with your main goal being to complete levels and collect enough clovers to access and defeat the final boss of that world.

This is comparable to the recent Yooka-Laylee, though unlike that game, Super Lucky’s Tale has much more spit and polish and knows where its focus lays. Super Lucky’s Tale is a very kid-friendly game, its only issue being that it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table; everything here has been done before in some way or form. This game will definitely appeal to a younger generation, though there isn’t much appeal for older audiences. It’s full of cute characters, cute worlds, cute villains – it’s all very cute. 

Controls are smooth and very simple, and Lucky is equipped with some basic abilities; he has a tail swipe, which he can use to stun enemies or flip certain switches, and he can simply jump on an enemy’s head to defeat them. Lucky can dig underground to uncover hidden coins and other treasures, and can jump into a defensive ball. He also comes with a double jump to gain some extra height – unfortunately though he doesn’t have two tails allowing him to fly. Lucky controls well, whether it be when he runs on all fours, or when pounding an enemy, and his animations are equally smooth.

There are a ton of items for you to collect, but they aren’t particularly varied. Mostly you’ll be collecting coins and sometimes you’ll also pick up gems, the value of which will equal a certain amount of coins. You can pick up extra hearts to gain health, and can also pick up extra lives. The only irritation for me is that when you emerge from a level, everything you previously collected has respawned; for the players who are meticulous and love knowing that they have collected everything, this will be a slight annoyance, but certainly nothing to deter from playing the game.

There is some replay value in the way the game has been structured. Each level has four goals, and four clovers for you to win; the first is to simply reach the end and get the clover; the second is to solve a puzzle hidden somewhere in that level; the third is to collect 300 coins; and the fourth is to find every letter of Lucky’s name. Whilst you don’t need to collect every clover in order to access the boss, you’ll find yourself playing levels several times in order to try and find the clovers needed, and you may think that this would become repetitive, though levels aren’t the most strenuous and with some practice, it doesn’t take too many tries to collect the clovers you need.

Super Lucky’s Tale is very much a kids game; everything here is aimed at children – the colours, the controls, the cuteness overload. Super Lucky’s Tale is a very traditional platformer though, and I am happy to see developers willing to try and bring new platforming mascots to the fore; had I been a lot younger, this would probably have become one of my favourite games. As an adult though, I do prefer a bit more substance, though that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy playing this game. Its simplicity allows for you to have some casual enjoyment without making you feel controller-busting levels of anger, its gameplay and goals being very straightforward and pretty much self-explanatory.

There’s a variety of objectives for you to complete, and the game itself is short and sweet; it’s one of those games that has very few faults, but still lacks any kind of impact. It doesn’t break any new ground, and it doesn’t really stand out from the crowd, but Super Lucky’s Tale is still a fun, very well made and happy-go-lucky game to play nonetheless.