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The Best Forgotten Cute 3D Platformer
An unlucky tale of picking the wrong publishing partners?
Okay look, I know that as a new Switch 2 owner, I should be Nintendo-ing it up right now. Their exclusive games dominate their respective genres, and when it comes to cuteness, it’s hard to do much better. I should be knee deep into Mario Kart World, beyond just finishing the core grand prix races. I should be super excited about Donkey Kong Bananza next week and playing through Super Mario Odyssey in anticipation.
I did at least start doing that second one. But then I got sidetracked by a little game called New Super Lucky’s Tale. It’s about a very-probably-magical cartoon fox who gets separated from his family in a harrowing opening…but then goes on a fun wacky eight hour adventure to fix an ancient tome and find his way back to them.
Lucky is far more appealing to me than Nintendo’s famous gorilla, even though the latter can now smash through detailed voxel environments. This cute little fox must have been appealing to the corporate world too, because once upon a time he got multiple exclusive publishing contracts. Unfortunately, they were for platforms that struggled to reach large audiences, let alone the kind of mainstream attention needed to make a mascot platformer work.
