Played for 3 hours so far... Went through some of the first level and some of the hub world, I got 11 pagies and 115 quills. I was kinda taking my time at first, just enjoying the music and getting used to the controls. I didn't bother expanding the 1st world yet. I'd rather come back to the expanded version of each world later after I've been to every world once.
General non-spoiler thoughts:
The first level of the game already feels more confusing than the early levels of Banjo-Tooie were. I'm finding it kinda hard to recognize where I've been in the level cuz there's not many unique landmarks to go off of.
Other than that, I really like the controls. I like how easy it is to control your speed while rolling, even though the physics of it don't make much sense. You can even stop while rolling up a slope.
The music and writing are great, just as good as Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie in those aspects. Maybe even better.
The graphics look really nice. Playing the superior PC version of course and turned the settings to max, and still getting super smooth framerate. The hub world looks really cool and I like all the little details in the environments, like the glass tubes with pieces of paper getting sucked in through them.
The hub world is fairly simple so far. I've found 3 of the ...10 pagies there are to find in the hub world just by exploring everywhere I can get to at this point.
Unlike in BK, it seems most of the pagies make you solve a puzzle or do a fetch quest in order to collect them. There aren't many that are just sitting out in the open.
Also unlike in BT, the worlds and hub don't have any warp pads. but I guess it doesn't matter much since your character moves a lot faster in this. Going from one side of the first world to the other doesn't take much time at all.
It seems at first like there's no fall damage in this game.. it's weird.. maybe there is but it's a lot more lenient with how much distance you can fall before you take damage.
Recap of my playthrough:
- Hivory Tower 1 -
I wandered around a bit before going to the snake character that teaches you the basic attack move. I was surprised that there's only one move to learn in the first area of the game. Normally in the Banjo games, the first area of the game is a big optional tutorial where you learn several moves and get to practice using them. This game's first area, there's nothing to do except get the attack move from Trowsers and then open the chests that are scattered around and grab a few quills, to open the way into Hivory Tower, where the magic book flew off to. It seems like there's probably more things to do in this first area later on, but I dunno.
Then you find the snake again inside the tower (the main hub world of the game), and he teaches you the roll move that lets you go fast and go up slippery slopes. Then there's a short platforming tutorial to get your first pagie ontop of the gold statue of the villain, Capital B.
and that pagie lets you open the grand tome that leads to the first world, Tribalstack Tropics.
- Tribalstack Tropics 1 -
This level is a complex, unorganized mess of grassy paths and small rocky mountains and temples that seem to just be strewn about randomly.. a lot of the time I forget where things are because there's no sense of cohesion. I tried going up to a high vantage point and looking at the level from way up high and I still have trouble recognizing where anything is.
The world is a floating land mass, but the skybox shows mountains and stuff in the background to make it look more believable.
At first I'm just going wherever I see quills and collecting them, and talking to whoever I run into along the way...
I found a cloud character and she challenged me to a race. I managed to beat her on the 2nd try easily, only lost the first try because I didn't know that the butterflies restore your stamina.
Found where 4 of the 5 of the "ghost writer" things are in this level, which I guess are this game's equivalent of jinjos. Instead of just being different colors but using the same model, each of these 5 ghosts look and behave differently. I couldn't figure out what to do with the pink ghost that keeps pointing to his mouth as if he wants me to feed him, and the white/blue ghost that seems to be hiding from me and laughing meekly.. the yellow one just gladly lets me collect it, and the green one tries to run away from me but is easy enough to catch...
Found a skeleton character that's inside a boiling pot (which is also a character), and defeating all the enemies to save the skeleton girl gets me a pagie... but for some reason the skeleton girl stays in the boiling pot anyway... also she tells me about the level expansion feature and points to where there will be more of the level after I expand it.
Also found the dinosaur character, Rextro... the joke about him being a "dinosaur" because he's into retro games is laid on way thick... finding one of the play coins in this area gives me access to the racing arcade game... these arcade machine things look so cool. I played the racing minigame a couple times and got the high score.. it's not very fun.
Somehow, Trowzers was one of the last characters I found my way to, even though he is in the temple in the middle of the level. He has 3 new moves for the price of 30 feathers each. Got the sonar move (lets you activate certain sleeping statues, and probably has other uses), the ground pound, and the ability to eat elemental food that changes your attacks temporarily.
Found an astronaut girl with octopus arms, and she wants me to bring her these things with a weird name that I forgot.. she is this game's transformation character. I transformed into a flower that can hop around and shoot pollen... I pollenated some young flowers and got a prize. only other thing you can do with this is talk to some other flower characters to see their dialog.
I wandered around some more and found the pig knight characters who hinted at where a treasure is... underneath some Rampo character, which I guess is this world's boss or something. I found some more pagies and then it got to the point where my wandering wasn't getting me anywhere anymore, so I exited the level for now... I don't know where that Rampo character is... maybe in the extended version of the level?
In my first run through of this level I got 9/25 pagies, 110/200 quills, and 2/5 ghosts.
- Hivory Towers 2 -
I unlocked a caged pagie by lighting some torches with letters on them in the order that spells out "Pagie".. lol such an obvious puzzle
Went through a doorway (the only way forward for now it seems like), and the villian's duck henchman came and made me do a quiz based on my knowledge of my playthrough up until now. This is kinda cool... he doesn't just ask you generic questions about the game world, but also asks stuff like who the first character you met was.. you can't just cheat and use a guide for this. You have to get 10 questions right and if you get 3 wrong you start over.
In this 2nd part of the hub world, I found an arcade room with Rextro and a bunch of arcade machines you can play. Some of them aren't working though. I tried all of them out.. I like the "Jobstacle course" game where you gotta collect feathers in an autoscroll obstacle course without dying too much. Dunno if you get anything for getting the high score in all of these minigames.. probably? I got the high score on all of them just in case. I really don't like how you have to play/complete the game once and then play it again before you're able to register a high score.
Also found the archives.. there's a big fish tank in the middle with some switch you can't do anything with yet, and there's a neat little navigational puzzle in an area behind the glass for a pagie. Got the wing glide ability, which lets you get across the large gap to where the 2nd grand tome is. Stopped here for now, before going to the snow world. (I know it's a snow world because the area all around this next book is all snowy)
My total for Hivory Towers at this point is 5/20 pagies and 10/10 quills.
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