With the yin must come the yang. Although this year saw some phenomenal platformers, it also had its share of duds as well. I already made a list of platforming titles of this year that I considered to be the best, so now here's the rest. These are the kind of games that ensured this genre's irrelevancy for so many years.
5. 'Yooka Laylee'
"Yooka Laylee" tries to evoke the charm of classic 3D platformers such as "Banjo Kazooie," but falls short in almost every way. The puzzles are cryptic and obtuse, large parts of the levels are arbitrarily locked off unless you choose to expand them, and the game has a bad habit of clinging to archaic design choices out of tradition rather than necessity.
For instance, the game has quiz sections that break the flow of the game simply because "Banjo" had quiz sections as well. The aspect of the game that grated me the most was the game's annoying sidekick named Laylee. She's supposed to be the Kazooie to Yooka's Banjo, but all she does is illustrate why game characters aren't written like this anymore.
She's rude and confrontational to everyone she meets and her attempts at breaking the fourth wall are embarrassing, making her utterly unlikable. If developer Playtonic is to do a sequel, they'd be well advised to take notes from "A Hat in Time" and see how a game like is done properly. Writing Laylee out of the series probably wouldn't hurt either.
4. 'Knack 2'
To its credit, "Knack 2" does attempt to address the problems of its predecessor: Knack controls much more smoothly than he did before, there's more variety to the level design and combat, and it looks and runs much better than the previous game. But that's still not enough to make this series more engaging.
Knack is still a flat character who barely contributes anything to the plot save for some lame one-liners, the levels are the same cliched grass and ice worlds that you see in every other platformer, and you're still doing the same basic combat and jumping throughout the whole game.
Sony Japan Studio made admirable attempts to liven this installment up, but sadly, it seems as if this franchise will never be able to shake its reputation as a mere internet meme.
3. 'Sonic Forces'
Although this year saw the release of the incredible "Sonic Mania," it was shortly followed up with another clunker. "Forces" was a considerable step down from its predecessor; featuring three different unpolished gameplay modes, a story with a wildly inconsistent tone, and a soundtrack that almost sounds like a parody of the music featured in the 3D games.
Old "favorites" such as Rogue the Bat and Charmy the Bee return after a deservedly long absence to deliver some awful dialogue during cutscenes and levels. It can't even get the physics of the original classic "Sonic" gameplay right. Its one saving grace is a slightly amusing character customization feature that lets you craft your own animal hero to rescue the blue blur himself. Aside from that, "Forces" is quite possibly the epitome of everything that's holding this franchise back. It's ironic how fan developers PagodaWest and Headcannon made a better "Sonic" game than Sonic Team has in years.
2. 'Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back.'
Yes, Bubsy is back. Why he chose to return in a year filled with far superior platformers or at all is anyone's guess.
1. 'Fur Fun'
Putting aside the controversy surrounding its developer, "Fur Fun" is an appalling game on its own merits. Like "Yooka Laylee," the game tries to capture the spirit of 90's 3D platformers but does an even worse job than the former. It claims to be rated "Pegi 3," but features a narrator who makes sexual innuendos and uses profanity.
The actual platforming in the game feels awkward because of wonky physics. One character in particular jumps like he's on the moon. His design also appears to be a rip off of the character Timon from "The Lion King." Conversely, the cat character looks like he belongs in a different game entirely. However, the harshest critique one can say about it is that it makes "Bubsy" look like "Super Mario Odyssey" in comparison.
