New Super Lucky’s Tale (NSLT) is an upgraded version of Super Lucky’s Tale, from what I understand it has tweaks that make it a better game while not being a sequel.

Lucky is a fox. He’s the protagonist of this third person mascot platformer. Lucky has a tail swipe attack, double jump, jumps on enemy heads and can burrow like Bugs Bunny to move around. The game works with lives but hands them out frequently so while a cat can have nine lives, Lucky the fox had over fifty for me.

For the plot we get a story of destructive cats led by the villainous Jinx trying to kill foxes that are making their last stand taking on their attackers. Lucky must go through a series of levels, gathering collectibles until becoming the hero of the game.

The game is set in separate levels accessed by themed hub worlds that can only be progressed through by completing objectives. The objectives are: collecting coins, collecting letters that spell LUCKY, completing challenges and finishing levels. NSLT is a mix of 2D and 3D platforming with some levels forcing the player to run in Spyro-flight style missions. The game is a collectathon broken down into manageable chunks. There’s a boss level at the end of each hub world and plenty of statue movement puzzles (that are entertaining enough that they could have their own game) and some tilt table ball rolling minigames.

Combat is surprisingly varied with regular enemies that can be hit with anything, ranged enemies, armoured enemies that must be burrowed under, flowers that need to be butt slammed, projectiles that can be deflected and more. There are even a few different enemy designs like walking garlic, bees and cats. Bosses fit the style of game with a lot of jumping, occasionally attacking and following a rule of three. The last story boss was particularly challenging, launching a lot of stuff at the same time.

Challenges are sometimes accessed through fox holes hidden on every level, sometimes they’re just on the level somewhere. Sometimes it’s a time trial, sometimes a statue or ball or jumping puzzle but they stay within the rules of the rest of the game.

After finishing the story there’s an extra hub world full of levels to play. These are more challenging and feel more noticeably Sonic-like than previous levels.

Dialogue is done as text with noises as audio but this doesn’t stop it having charm and a sense of humour with plenty of references to other things.

The issues I had with this game were mostly visual. Although the game is pretty, I sometimes had to fight the camera when in a tight space and things would visibly pop into existence as I got close to them ruining any immersion the world provided.

New Super Lucky’s Tale doesn’t do anything revolutionary for the genre but it’s a combination of ideas from Sonic, Spyro, Crash, Banjo, Mario and other mascot platformers. Fans of the genre will enjoy this one as it is a true love letter to classic games. A good, fun game that functions well and does old ideas well. With the bright colours, varied levels and occasionally noticeable level of challenge I’d recommend this as a good one to sit through.