Topic: Pure Xbox Game Club Double Bill - Banjo-Kazooie / Solar Ash (Apr)

Started playing last night and finished the training camp level. So far I'm not massively impressed; controls are not that great and the camera was pretty frustrating at times too. Not sure if it was just that first level, but the colour palette seems really dull too; everything just seemed really muddy to me, but possible it's just a product of its time.
The fact I only played the first level and then played something else instead of carrying on speaks volumes I think...

Played for a couple of more hours today exploring the hub world and there were lots of things to do here. I managed to get to rank 20 just by exploring the hub. Now that I'm done with that I'm going to focus on tackling the story levels next.

A couple of tips for those who are just starting out. First, don't focus too much on collecting the arrowheads that you find on the ground. Just collect enough to buy the dowsing rod (which I believe requires 50) and when using it you can find like 50-100 each time you find an arrowhead spot. This is the best way to farm for arrowheads in order to buy the cobweb duster for 800 later on. Second, you need to equip items like the dowsing rod as well as other items and PSI powers you find throughout the story and I didn't realise this. I don't think the game makes it clear that you have an inventory screen. Anyway, you access it by pressing the View button (i.e. the Select button to the left) and then you can equip stuff like the dowsing rod. You can also equip different PSI powers you obtain here.

@LtSarge cheers for the tips, I'll keep that in mind when I begin the game!!

I'm assuming no achievements have been added to it as it's an original Xbox game? I might start it up and play it side by side with Yakuza 3 so I can carry on getting my 50 Reward points a day

@ralphdibny Yeah it's an OG Xbox title so no achievements, which is too bad. But that might be for the best due to it being a collectathon since I honestly don't feel like revisiting levels to get those hard-to-reach collectibles.

I actually decided to play more of it now since I want to have at least two games going on at the same time. After finishing Tomb Raider, I'm primarily playing Walking Dead season 3 now. Add along with it a 3D platformer and I think it's a good rotation.

I'm still playing recore. Got into it last night and I'm on LVL 5 of the tower about to do the last fight? I was LVL 29 so i decided to try and hit LVL 30 for some chivos before i beat the game and went into the DLC area i believe with the tank races. Can i keep playing the game after beating the tower?

I should be playing Phsychonauts shortly.

@Krzzystuff If I recall correctly, the game does tell you after the credits that you can keep playing it. Maybe someone else can chime in and confirm this as well.

So I'm halfway through Psychonauts now and after playing it for so long, I'm starting to realise that the game starts out rather slow compared to how it gets later on. You have to walk around the hub world and learn abilities for the first couple of hours before the adventure truly begins. At that point you'll be constantly moving from level to level. I didn't think about it until now but yeah the game does have a slow start so keep that in mind while going into the game. It does get better the further in you get.

Last level of Psychonauts…. Forgot how utterly rock hard it is….

Well I just finished what was the worst level I've played in this game so far. The whole point of the level was to find disguises in order to access certain areas spread across the level and throughout most of the level it wasn't clear at all where you would find them. Another problem is that you had to use all the "optional" PSI powers you've unlocked in order to progress in this level. I thought that they were mostly for fun and not utilised in the story levels, but apparently they are and I didn't know that. It's hard to figure something out when the game doesn't even tell you what you can or can't do, especially with powers that you haven't even needed to use since you've acquired them.

The level was a neat idea but this is a perfect example of aged game design where the solutions are not clear and the game doesn't give you any hints whatsoever. This definitely stuck out compared to the previous levels, which have all been straight-forward so far.

@LtSarge I've heard about this level. Is it near the end of the game? With so much on my plate, I'm debating playing the fun parts and then finishing it up by watching a let's play if it's towards the end. Especially with no achievements.

Where I'm at currently though, I have to say I've been having a lot of fun with the unique levels and environments. Tim Schafer and team have a hell of an imagination!

@LeanerFasterStronger It's more like at the halfway point of the game. But here's the thing, now that you know the stuff that I didn't, e.g. that you're supposed to use the PSI powers you've received and also that you're supposed to hit the trunk of cars in order to find disguises, then it shouldn't be as bad for you. It's definitely an interesting level but it can get frustrating real fast if you don't know what you're doing. I think you should just keep going because it's still a fun game. In the worst case scenario you could just look up a guide. Although I would be lying if I said this was the only annoying level. The level after it was pretty annoying as well. It's about performing a play and in order to progress you need to combine different daytime/nighttime stages with different parts of the play, find new scripts and then know when to apply the new scripts into the play in order to finish it. I honestly just looked up a guide at this point because it completely ruined the pacing of that level, lol.

But yeah, the earlier levels were definitely much better than these ones I've done now. I absolutely love the variety though, the structure kinda reminds me of the Kingdom Hearts series where you go to different worlds and solve the particular story going on there.

Welp today could've ended up as a sour experience for me. I was going through a new level and as I was exploring inside a building, I decided to go up a pole, jump off and then I got stuck in the roof. I kept trying to get off and spamming every button but it didn't work. I was probably stuck for a good five minutes and ready to exit the level and lose all my progress for that level before I just put my controller down and Raz just decided to grab onto the pole again, lol.

Moral of the story, don't try to explore too much off the beaten path as the game is quite buggy. What I did was actually not necessary to progress. I almost got stuck in an earlier level as well but it wasn't as bad as this time. So I'm just going to try and stick to the main path as well as save as often as I can.

@LtSarge By any chance, did you happen to be talking about the Milkman level?

Because I just completed that level and I looked up a guide. I didn't have very much fun. I experienced a lot of what you were talking about. I thought the powers were for me to use at my own convenience but not quite.

This game is a collectathon, but you can DEFINITELY see the Tim Schafer blood running through it, as it has a lot of elements of his older adventure games while at Lucas Arts like using the correct items at the correct times etc etc.

Unfortunately, with that comes a lot of the frustrations that those old adventure games had as I find myself getting frustrated not understanding how to progress. I think part of it is my brain is expecting it to be a simple platformer, but it's not that, you can't just go into this game and shut your brain down!

@LeanerFasterStronger Yeah it was the Milkman level. The problem is that up until that point, you haven't needed to use any of your other powers and suddenly you need to use them on this level without the game telling you that. If only the game simply told you or at least had a tutorial earlier about the things you can do with your power-ups, then it would've been fine. Because you can't really expect the player to suddenly know what to do if you don't give them the proper instructions. I mean, after this level, I've been able to progress smoothly because I know now that you're supposed to use your other powers. I haven't been stuck once since then (in terms of the powers).

The next level has a segment that is rather frustrating as well, but the two levels after that one were much better and more fun.

So I just finished Psychonauts after about 13 hours or so and I have to say that overall this was an excellent game. It did become rather annoying in many ways towards the end where the game simply didn't tell you what you needed to do and this was especially annoying in the final boss level where you were constantly getting hit and losing lives. The thing is that games that annoy me like this tend to push me towards disliking them, but despite these things I still really liked the game. I loved the characters, the variety as well as creativity of the levels and the collecting aspect. It was so addicting leveling up your rank and I think Double Fine did an excellent job at providing a good progression system for a 3D platformer collectathon. This game has actually become one of my favourite 3D platformers of all time now. It's just so much fun!

I honestly think that Psychonauts should be the 3D platforming mascot of Xbox just like Nintendo has Mario and PlayStation has Ratchet & Clank. This series is just so unique and oozes with creativity as well as personality that if it could reach the right audience, it would blow up in popularity. The issue is that not many people know about this franchise and hopefully Psychonauts 2 will be able to rectify that when it comes out next month. Speaking of which, now that I'm done with the game, I'm super looking forward to playing the sequel. Like now I actually have an Xbox game that I'm truly looking forward to playing in the future and I think it's going to be great!

A final tip: if you want the final level to be as easy as possible, you need to level yourself to at least rank 90 where you will obtain health regeneration. This will help immensely in the final level where you'll be constantly getting hit. Finding all the brains to gain more health, increasing the amount of one-ups you can carry and having a maximum of three dream fluffs at all times are all going to make things easier for you. So definitely explore as much as you can because the game absolutely rewards you for it.

So all in all, this was an excellent month for Game Club. Really glad that this game turned out to be better than I thought!

@LtSarge well done on beating the game! Glad it's left a positive impression on you despite its apparent quirks. I have read that the final level is disproportionately difficult so it's good to know there is a way around that if you put in the time

@ralphdibny Thanks man! Yeah I thought it would be a good idea to prepare myself for the final level as it's supposed to be rather difficult and it paid off in the end. Typically with games like this I tend to just push on ahead and not try to collect absolutely everything. Granted there is one type of collectible that is widely available (think of it like Banjo-Kazooie's notes) and thankfully you don't really have to collect every single one in order to progress smoothly. It's fine to miss some here and there and I was totally fine with that. After all, the game doesn't have achievements so it doesn't even matter. But yeah, it was quite addicting to collect as many things as possible. Really enjoyed this aspect of the game.

Been playing this game today. I've done the basic braining and now I am just going around the second campsite area.

I had a look to see how many levels there were and I found out there is a point of no return for getting collectibles after you leave the campsite or something. Is it obvious when this is the case??

@ralphdibny That's actually right before the end of the game and the game will explicitly tell you that it's a point of no return. So that's not something you have to worry about right now.

@LtSarge ahh fair enough cheers, Ill just keep going around doing whatever for now then.

I love the music in this game so far. Kind of folksy country blues. Very reminiscent of the music in Full Throttle which also had a great soundtrack. I also now have the harmonica section from the end of Purple Pills by D12 stuck in my head for some reason 😅