This was great, I liked that I finally saw a review that pointed out the flaws. Also, your concern on the ending being just a Dream is planned to corrected with the next big “update/DLC 1”. Originally there was to be a cafe scene where all the characters that were hanging on the ship are just sitting around having a chat. It ends with the Conductor saying, “Where ever she is, I hope she’s getting the rest she deserves.” Then cue her sleeping and the end. It was scrapped for time, but it will be out with the first free DLC. I also hope you’ll do a short follow up once the two free chapters are out. Great video, I had a lot of laughs and while I disagreed with a few of your points you did bring some things that could be fixed. Can’t wait to see your next video, fantastic stuff as always.
I'll definitely be picking up the DLC! Will probably do a small Beyond Words if I cover it, but really excited to see more stuff from this game and the dev team regardless of my suggestions.
May I ask where you got this info about that cutscene being added? I've read about this cutscene, & DLC1 has been out, but I replayed the game only recently, & there was nothing of the sorts in the ending when I played it, only the addition of The Arctic Cruise section in the credits alongside the names of the newer members of their dev team.
@@ZedZerdz_ Super late but -- The scene was cut from the original release, however they have never said it'd return in any DLC. I assume it was speculation on OP's part. Regardless, they have said that the ending does not mean the story was a "dream" or whatever. So theres that.
I ended up getting distracted for a while and missed the ebd of the credits. When I got back and saw her sleeping, I still didn't get the implication it was all a dream lol, not sure how he got that when theres literal time rewind shenanigans afoot
Hat in time was just like the hey arnold movie to me, I was kinda excited it was happening and I wanted to see it, but when it came out there was absolutely no fan-fare and I didn't learn it came out till like 2 weeks after. Thanks for making another video though B-mask, your vid's are always entertaining as fuf
I think your concept with creative syntax brings to mind a principle I thought of when it comes to collectathons and platformers (or indeed a lot of games) that is extremely important. Developer Interaction. The ability for a developer to interact with the player enough that they can understand objectives while keeping enough hidden to allow the player the ability to exercise their own abilities to solve problems is something that requires a large amount of practice to master. This is prevalent in just about everything the developer does with the game, from tutorials to bossfights to collectibles to hints, and this is where I think a lot of the problems might end up stemming from. See collectathons at their core can be broken into two key components: currencies and objectives. If we're addressing this in Super Mario terms let's think Coins and Stars. Coins act as one of the tools for allowing the developer to guide the player as both a smaller reward and as a tool for giving them help without 'cheating' the rules of the game. Placing coins ends up acting like a breadcrumb trail allowing a player to explore the level while still fulfilling an objective, which in turn is where the objectives come in. They act as the reward for accomplishing feats and interacting with the world around them. In a well made game, let's take Banjo Kazooie for this example, both the 'Coins' and 'Stars' act as a reward for the player exploring the world and interacting with things within that world. Coins allow you to access various new tools that help ensure your success and objectives allow you to expand where you can explore. The end result should feel like a player is being rewarding for using their brain and not just filling out a scavenger hunt list but actually achieving feats. It's funny, but your thoughts on this game actually remind me of another title I fell in love with years ago on my PS2. Vexx. While an absolutely beautiful world, there were quite a few goals that ended up being obscured both by how you were informed about it and what you were actually supposed to do. There was definite creativity there but sometimes you need to ensure that you have enough detail to match that creativity.
a lot of "creative syntax" that this game is missing was actually present early on in development, with some examples: •the masked dwellers were npcs you could talk to, and it was instead unmasked dwellers that would try to inhabit whatever inanimate object was close, but would be unable to control their energy and destroy it; •brewing hat's potions were originally a badge ability obtained from scientist owls, and the idea was that you were throwing vials of reactive chemical formulae that would explode on impact - at this point in development the chapter was called Murder on the Science Express, and later changedTrainwreck of Science, and the murder plot would have just been an actual murder by the conductor (iirc? don't remember where i heard this but it makes his design more appropriate i guess), and/or the train would end up crashing into the moon, hence the moon levels •the dweller mask's initial concept was that you could see into the past to interact with objects that are no longer there in the present, serving as an in-universe justification for its ability to make platforms solid (there would also be lore stuff, like seeing sunken mafia ships still sailing while the mask is on) this game was WAYYYY different during early development, like i think actually half of all character designs made for the game are scrapped (most of the frozen victims in vanessa's manor use the mods of scrapped characters) the weirdest thing to think about is that like. at one point the game was actually about time??? and now it just sort of isn't? there are so many cut ideas that some of them weren't even cut in time for release, like the mafia boss saying "i haven't seen time pieces in over a hundred years" in the initial release, but in every subsequent update he just complains about you showing up you can read about a ton of these on tcrf.net, i would really recommend looking into it if you want to know some of the thought progression that led the game to becoming weird with its narrative and character design choices
the most consistent impression this gives me is that every idea was originally thought out fully, but the devs frequently decided something wasn't up to snuff, and then never got around to writing new justifications for the mechanics or characters those elements had been supporting. case in point: we don't know who hat kid is. she used to be servant to a character named tim, CEO of time, who had a nervous breakdown shortly after signing on to his job, and scattering the time pieces throughout the world. this plotline and the character of tim were both scrapped by the time the alpha released, and hat kid never got anything else other than "uhh she needs time pieces to get home???"
Wow that's really interesting! I didn't know that! I just played A Hat In Time for the second time(no pun intended) and it still holds up as one my favorite games ever! And while playing through the game I started to remember this video and I can see where B-Mask was coming from, the creative syntax thing didn't get in the way of my enjoyment but I could definely see some improvements in that aspect. There's a fairly recent video from Tim Cain's youtube channel(designer of the first 2 Fallouts and other rpg games) about making mechanics first and making mechanics after a setting is set and it is interesting to think about that with A Hat In Time in the equation. Again, it was not something that makes the game WORSE from me, but it is something interesting to think about. Personally I think "time" in title is referring to how the game calls back to old platforming gamings and how YOU is going through that experience.
I just beat the game. It was a fun play-through but the story made NO sense to me. If there was any grounded, coherent story to this game then it either wasn't presented to me very well or I just wasn't paying enough attention. I never really got the sense that Mustache girl was the ultimate villain I was up against until the VERY end of the game and beating her was super easy and I was like REALLY? As fun as the worlds and platforming were I never got a sense of accomplishment out of the story. But where they failed story-wise, they succeeded in making everything else in it fun so it has that going for it!
Yeah mustache girl being the villain, while it did somewhat fit, it was out of the blue and I wish snatcher was the final boss. The music and gameplay is better in Your Contract Has Expired than The Finale in my opinion. Then again, it'd be a bit too late to introduce Snatcher as the main antagonist, and jumping between worlds did have 0 story sense with introducing characters. In the same way though, maybe the developers wanted us to feel like that. Like we're Hat Kid herself and witnessing how odd her story becomes while on her quest to find the time pieces.
While I love this game, my biggest issue is that even on the best hardware in a lot of the levels, felt like the game was struggling to run. Like there wouldn't be technical framerate dips but everything would feel a bit slower and less smooth. And on a platformer that hurts the experience a bit. Hard to explain a feeling though. Best I can is you can be traveling at 80mph on clear roads and then suddenly be though snow covered road. And while the car may not go under 80mph you can feel it work harder to push through the snow.
On my ryzen 2600 and rx 580 I got stuttering frames during the dead bird studios level and in the nyakuza metro hub on standard graphic settings unmodded. For the most part the game is smooth for me but at a few parts it just has lag.
*SPOILERS* If you do all the time rifts you unlock a secret one that after getting all the photos its revealed that mustache girls home was taken over by the mafia and she's been homeless since.
Likewise, the mafia themselves weren't native to the island, but were originally fishmongers from another place. They came to the island and took over everything when their leader longed for a better life elsewhere, which is why they've commandeered and kind of messed up everything by the time you arrive. Having played it, I don't think A Hat in Time is bereft of creative syntax in the way B-mask presented here, but it is a bit more disjointed than a Sly or a Psychonauts due a shift in priorities through development away from overarching worldbuilding and towards the levels and episodes themselves each having their own story you play a part in, and some of that setup is stuff you have to dig for in the rifts and through exploring rather than anything presented to the player as part of the main quest.
Gives is an EarthBound feel in that way, now that I think about it. That game is also pretty disjointed with the episodic adventure taking priority over the grand storyline, but it also hangs together on the strength of its writing and humor, while also blending a lot of references in.
I thought one of the strangest references was that the first stage of the final boss in Hat in Time is like the last stage of the final boss from Kirby Escape to Dreamland. Legit has essentially all the same moves except in 3D.
That was actually a very well exposed explanation about your problems with this game. I miss this, people talking why they don't like something (or parts of it) withou calling it a piece of Shit or liking something without ignoring they flaws. I actually love this game, but i just want a cute adventure game with some jokes, charm and a little retro vibre, so it's good enough for me, but this analysis was pretty good. Nice video man.
I didn't tought much of the game until the DLC came out, those Death Wish challanges are one of the hardest things I ever completed in a videogame, I completelly insane and amazinh plataforming challanges, something I never saw on a 3D Plataformer do it this hard, these challanges where even made with speedrunners in mind, and if there's any you feel is too hard for you, you can aways turn "Peace and Tranquility" mode to make it easier and still complete it all, I only used on the final challange but still, It was such a blast doing these challanges that turned this game special to me
I know that not everyone is going to like these challanges, but I'm a person that completed 100% Super Meat Boy, Celeste, The end is Nigh, Runner3, Cuphead (all S ranks) and the N. Sane Trilogy with all platinum relics and stuff, I love challanging plataforming games and we almost don't see that in open 3D plataformers
* Addendum: I wrote this in a bit of passion, and while I do stand by it, I think B-Mask has done a better job getting at what I saw A Hat in Time could have been like with his Spyro 2 and Sly Cooper Retrospective videos. The point of comparison to Psychonauts at the end was on how the game had little-to-no world building and its typical vision. It had many of the stages set for world building- the final level and ending demonstrated it- but A Hat in Time failed to capitalize on it. To be fair, Gears for Breakfast only wanted to make a 3D platformer, taking after its inspirations, which it did. I just think it failed to go beyond being inspired by them. ** I thought that a lot of people were giving it praise with little critical thought as we had not seen a full fledged game like this in such a long time. I'm not sure if it would standout if it came out during the first half of the sixth generation as its foundation is average. *** The best way to summarize my thoughts on a Hat in Time, pre DLC, is that I can see the developers pushing themselves but not the game. They had to overcome the hurdles of simply making a video game. Anyone who wants to know how hectic development really can be should look at the Double Fine Adventure documentary to see how stressful it usually is. Also, members of the team do not share the same cultures. Those are just two of however many hurdles they needed to overcome. In contrast, the game is your typical 3D platformer. That's fine. Just not enough to engage many when there's a tsunami of video games released every month, which I suspect is a part of the reason why people did not know about it for at least a week after it came out. ========================================================================================== "I like it. I really like it, but I wish I loved it," you took the words right out of my mouth. I did not even think about the character design and acting issues you brought up, probably because of your love and focus on animation/film. However, to me this is not A Hat in Time's biggest problem. What holds down A Hat in Time for me is its heavy reliance on its inspirations. I have played all the games the developers directly lifted from. There are some moments that are cute or fun callbacks, the contact lens owl in Murder on the Owl Express. Other times the characters, levels, or moments within levels ruin the sense of discovery and adventure I get from the greatest 3D platformers and the games adjacent to them. It is hard for me to get interested in A Hat in Time when every world has me saying "hey, I see where they got that." I NEVER had this problem with Sunshine, Psychonauts, Wind Waker, Banjo Kazooie, Spyro, or Thousand Year Door. They obviously took from their contemporaries, Nintendo looked at what they could tweak from their last game, but they did not rely on past experiences the way A Hat in Time does. Paper Mario 64 had a murder mystery segment. Thousand Year Door had a mystery segment on a train. Despite both having a mystery story for a single chapter, Thousand Year Door did not have a murder mystery. It took a different spin on the concept by having the mystery setting be most of the chapter and on a train instead of an opening in the snow village. A Hat in Time takes these two chapters, throws a little bit of Glitz Pit for the studio, and keeps its platforming as the center focus instead of the actual mystery. The focus on platforming is good, but the world draws obvious visual and narrative parallels that I cannot ignore. A small list of clear parallels: traveling between mountains in Alpine Skyline feels like a mix of Mario Galaxy's warp stars (collecting objects to distract players from the unskipable, interactive cut-scene) and Bioshock Infinite's skyhook; Hat Kid's diary is from Paper Mario 64; the hands that come to grab you in Subcon Forest are the curse hands from Psychonauts; the memories at the end of the pink time rifts are the memory vaults from Psychonauts; the G-Men from Psychonauts are crows now but they miss the purpose and could easily be replaced with something else and have no effect on the stage as a whole; time rifts are the secret levels from Sunshine, they even rip geometry from that game with the spinning rectangles; the Snatcher looked and acted too closely to the cursed chest from Thousand Year Door; the ending is from Nintendo RPGs, as much Earthbound as Paper Mario; the final boss level even felt like an out-of-place Bowser level from the galaxy titles. Queen Venessa's manor was promising but did not serve more than a reminder to me why I would rather play Luigi's Mansion for eerie, cartoon horor. The stage is fun the first time but gets worse the more you play it. I replayed the game to get a better look at the whole design and this is the only stage that has gotten progressively worse with each replay. The layout is brain-dead simple. The queen is easy to avoid and does not follow you in certain sections. Again, they seem to lift from another game, this time SOMA, by having the queen make this effect that warps the visuals when she's nearby. To add dramatic effect the game plays high pitched music. All of this is done instead of actually making her scary and a threat to the player. A Hat in Time does do things well but it never does stand out as its own thing. King K said "A Hat in Time is a great homage rather than a great innovator." That is probably the best way to describe A Hat in Time. It takes the best from many 3D platformers, with admiration and a mission to do the legacy of those games justice. It does not, however, stand up with the greats. It is very much younger sybling syndrome. It wants to be its bigger siblings instead of being itself. Too much of its identity can be traced back to arguably better games. Psychonauts does not control as well as A Hat in Time but I enjoyed it more through a recent playthrough. Psychonauts is more charming and confident in what it is. A Hat in Time says "look at me, ain't I cute," as the mafia of cooks just walk around the level doing nothing of note. Meanwhile, Psychonauts has the worlds as characters. Everything is tailored around the character's identity and history. The main enemy you will see is meant to keep you out of the world so to keep the mind healthy. Gameplay and narrative meet. A Hat in Time throws a couple of birds around in Mafia Town. Everything above might make it seem like I hate this game but I don't. From a pure platforming perspective, I love this game. The isolated missions of Alpine Skyline are platforming at its finest. It just fails to deliver on that core drive of the 3D platformer, discovery of a new world and characters. That does not happen here. No one I meet is someone I have not seen before, under better conditions too. Considering that this was made by a team that had no experience making a commercial game, Gears for Breakfast did an amazing job. That does not mean that I will overlook where they went wrong or could do better. I agree with you B-Mask in that I don't want to see them get complacent. Whenever they release the dlc or A Hat in Time 2, which feels certain given the ending, I hope they can blow me out of the water with how unique it will hopefully be. I just don't want to feel like I've been here before because what is the point then.
Thanks very much for the perspective! I figured this kind of stuff would be distracting for at least some of the audience, and it's interesting to hear and see from the likes you have that that's the case for some. Worth taking into account.
Thanks for understanding. Love your work and have been watching since your days at CCS. I rarely comment on videos because I usually don't feel the need to. This one I felt like pointing out since I personally had not seen anyone pointing this thing out. Sorry for the novella response, it's just how I felt.
I think your problem with A Hat in Time was that it focuses on just being derivative rather than flipping common mechanics set by its inspirations. Now that's easier said than done. But looking at Crash Bandicoot, it's clear the core gameplay of the Crash games is a remix of the typical 2D Super Mario Bros design. You have to hit boxes to get items in both games, but in Crash, you can attack boxes from all angles, whereas in Mario, you can only attack them from beneath. Same goes with enemies. Crash also makes smashing boxes the equivalent of collecting gems or jiggies, breaking another collectathon convention before it was even set. I'm currently playing De Blob on the Wii, and while simplistic, it struck me as being a very clever twist on the collectathon platformer formula. Instead of 100%ing stages by collecting items, you paint the environment to complete the stage. Extra bonus if you do the missions that require you to paint specific buildings a certain colour or ask the player to rake up enough paint points to activate a colour specific machine. It feels sufficiently different in concept from the likes of Banjo or Spyro while remaining recognizable as a collectathon platformer. I recall watching an analysis video on Snake Pass that talked about how it forged its own interpretation of the 3D platform genre by forgoing the use of a jump button. Long story short, sometimes taking away functions can present a unique set of challenges to the player. Snake Pass may be the same genre as AHiT, but it shares little in common from the fact that you can neither jump, nor walk, and must learn to navigate your environment with the unique control scheme. A Hat in Time attempts to make the hat-ability thing it's main gimmick, but never really goes far enough with it to significantly alter the gameplay within the context of the genre.
I respect what you're saying but think a lot of it is a stretch. To say that games can never borrow ideas is ridiculous and some of these connections are too vague to be actual comparisons. For example, you said that the warp star from mario galaxy inspired the flag lines in alpine skyline. Having something that is able to transport a player to a completely different area isn't a really unique idea and almost every platformer I can think of has it. Kirby has cannons, in mario galaxy they have both the warp stars, pipes, cannons, water cannons etc., de blob 2 had launchpads. It's just a game design method for changing the area the player is in. Another one, you say that the time rifts are like the bonus stages in mario sunshine. I do agree the rotating rectangles are a really clear comparison, but the fundamental idea of having out of the way challenge stages is not a new thing once again. Kirby does it, the 2d mario series does it, the idea was reused in super Mario galaxy, rayman origins does it too. Having sections that focus solely on challenges is a fun, optional choice game designers can put in the game to give the player more freedom and to make exploring more satisfying. I could argue that the skeleton hands in super paper mario are like the curse hands in psychonauts. But that's not really a critique and its not even significant enough to point out. I don't understand why you think you have to draw comparisons of different mechanics immediately and how that ruins the game. In some instances like the crows I understand it's much more apparent and may be annoying, but for more than half of your comparisons, they're stretches. And even if they're similar aspects, there is nothing wrong with that. The aspect where the rifts reminded me of mario sunshine made me think "oh neat" and then I went to enjoy the atmosphere of the stage and the platforming challenge. It never bothered me the slightest. Vanessa's manor has a luigis mansion aesthetic where I went "oh neat" and continued to play through and figure out the mystery of it. The comparisons and borrowed elements did not detract from the gameplay. It would be like me complaining how mario games always have a desert level, whether it be 2d or 3d. I know you may have higher standards, but really borrowing elements inherently is not a bad thing. Look at it this way, a writer can only end their story so many ways. Specifically in a thriller or action story, the main character dies, the villain dies, side characters die everyone dies, no one dies etc. It is up to the author to make it interesting and nuanced compared to other stories that may have similar endings. The same thing goes for the concept of cliche, you can use cliches. It's however up to you to make it interesting and put your own twist on it and this applies to multiple things; art, stories, even video games. Cliches are not inherently a bad thing. Ask any artist and they will tell you no one is original and professional artists use references all the time. Also I would like to point out that the story pages gave the game a lot of the story it needed. I really agree with this point though and feel like it should have been more connected with the actual gameplay. Mustache girl was there for a second and disappears for the rest of the game. Just a side note, my theory is that it's due to them rushing a due date. Their original concepts had a lot of backstory, even for the enemies themselves. The sleepy raccoon had it's own dedicated stage at one time. It looks like they didn't have enough resources though unfortunately and a lot of it was reworked. It was reworked really well not gonna lie, but still disappointing and some parts feel like they're missing something. Tldr: A platformer does not need to be groundbreaking to be a masterpiece. Elements being borrowed is not a bad thing and is so so common in everything. If we nitpicked every comparison, we would not be able to enjoy anything. Along with this, a lot of these comparisons fall flat or are not significant enough to warrant criticism, with the exception of the crow design. That said, I see a lot of strong points in your critique but it becomes muddled when you try to jam in comparisons and say that they count to your critique of the game when they basically accomplish nothing.
This felt very nitpicky to me and your creative syntax point wasn't really clear enough for me. Overall, still a pretty ok video and I do appreciate your comedy style. I guess our opinions really differ a lot for this one.
It seems like most of the crowd funded games that end up being actual successes are the ones with much smaller budgets and hype. Whereas something like Hyper Light Drifter ends up being something special, games like Mighty No. 9, Broken Age, and Yooka-Laylee l, in spite of having the experienced developers and veteran game devs, end up being disappointments. Could it be that bigger =/= better?
Not necessarely, look at Divinity Original Sin for example, with its close to 1 million dollar budget and raving reviews. I think it's a combination of bigger budget and old game designers/staff trying to bring what they thought that old games did right only to realize those same ideas were quite out-dated or just simply didn't understand what made them so good.
I think its more the fact that said devs try to cater TOO much to their respective fanbases in making something like the games they love without realizing what made it so loved in the first place and instead of improving on past ideas they get complacent by just doing it the exact same way with no good innovations in place.
Divinity and Pillars of Eternity were high budget kickstarter games made by historically great devs that turned out to be critically and commercially successful. It's just the fact that some of the people running these games (Kenji Inafune) are hacks.
You are really fucking good at making videos. Like these are some of the best video game related videos I've seen in years. Keep up the terrific work, excited to see where you go.
I may be a simple person but for me the story just has to have me entertained for me to enjoy it, and A Hat In Time did that for me, while I can agree the ending is kinda bad and leaves more to be desired I wouldn’t say the game didn’t catch my attention. Even with all these “issues” you stated with the game i’ll still personally give this game a 10/10 and it’s up there with some of my favorite games of all time.
I think a large part of this game's inconsistencies with theming and general character purposes is because this game has possibly hours worth of unused content. Level assets, characters and plot points have been mashed and redistributed so much that it can be a bit of a mess. Looking at the unused content makes lots of details make a little more sense in context.
Thanks for the recommendation! Between you and Mark Brown (who only made a small mention of the game in one of his videos), you two are the only reason I even know this game exists. It kinda concerns me that games like these can go under people's radars so easily. I'll definitely give it a go though! Somewhat off topic, but have you ever complied together a list of recommended platformer games? I've admittedly fallen out of the genre since the PS2 days, outside of maybe anything Nintendo releases. And while Tropical Freeze and 3D World were very good games (I don't have a Switch yet for Odyssey), I've played dozens of Nintendo platformers. When you've been with Nintendo for so long, sometimes their games just don't scratch your itch like you want them to, ya know? I'd love some good recommendations on the PC/PlayStation side of things.
I feel like the chapters were all made in play order. Chapter 1 is so unpolished, it feels like they got better as they went. Now that doesn't excuse the fact that they should have gone back and redid mafia town after finishing everything else, but the dlc was so good it gives me a lot of hope for the sequel
im mad because i actually really love a hat in time but there are certain inconsistencies which make me mad because i cant love it even more. just a lot of small, little changes would really help polishing it up. with the recent DLCs it’s obvious GFB has the capability to make really charming and polished animations which express a lot of character so i wish theyd go back and just add a little more. i think mustache girl is intentionally supposed to be a kid who thinks shes so mature but actually melodramatic and immature but i wish it was shown a lot better than making it appear as if she is supposed to actually be legitimately dramatic
Nice video, B! You should make one on Yooka-Layle - I don't hate it as much as most people but it really has a lot of issues (what hit me was how the levels are so insanely overly-large that they waste your time.)
(sorry I had to make a long ass comment to get to the point) A Hat in Time is my favorite indie game of all time and one of my favorite games ever. I also agree with almost all of what you said in the video. The few things I don't agree with are small details like you complaining about the Conductor not looking like a bird, as it was made like this on purpose, but I can't blame you or anyone for not getting it since the character's dubious status as a bird is mainly stated in supplementary stuff like the game's manual or his Steam card. Other than that trivial stuff, I pretty much agree with what you said; even the first time I played the game I had the feeling there was something not right about its creative direction. When I reached the end of the game, Chapter 5, this feeling further cemented, as the whole chapter felt, for lack of better words, anti-climatic; a very long, lineal level instead of a full-fledged stage was already disappointing enough, but at least I was hoping they were going to do something about MuGirl, since the way they portrayed the character in promotional stuff and the like gave the impresion she was going to be an influential force throughout the whole game but in the end didn't do much after chapter 1, so at least I was hoping that here she was going to be a more interesting character, something other than just the game's Big Bad sitting at the end of the level which you must defeat to finish the game... Then I started looking up stuff about the game's development, cut content, etc. (because I've always been a huge fan of that and this game has a lot to offer in that regard), and I realized how troubled the game's develpment was; not only they were trying to figure out how to even make a game (of the magnitude of a 3D platformer, no less), but they weren't quite sure what direction to take the game, what identity to give it. Both the main plot and that of each individual chapter changed multiple times (the timepieces are a remnant of both a very early plot and a scrapped mechanic involving time travel... that never really got anywhere), and even the gameplay took multiple different forms as well (very early on, it was going to have RPG and hack 'n slash element, then they wanted to have more Zelda-like elements instead). When you think about both the difficulties of the dev team and their troubles deciding the creative direction they wanted to take, the final results are actually quite impressive, as flawed as they are. I had this mentality that I shouldn't be terribly critical about the game in these aspect considering these things, but then I heard some of the comments from the dev team about the game's creative direction; it seems like they thought the most important thing in a 3D platformer was interesting and engaging gameplay over everything else, why they didn't bother much with a more coherent world-building and, as you call it, creative syntax. It's not like they didn't care at all, but it seems they like since the game was aimed at being a love letter to some old Nintendo games, they also followed their design philosophy that fun gameplay always comes first, and story and characters are more of an after-thought. It's a shame, because they scrapped a lot of interesting ideas and characters that effectively showed a stronger creative syntax, though people joining and leaving the dev team also shaken things up; think that these guys had to work with ideas they didn't even come up with themselves, and thus likely didn't understand the real purpose of as well as the people that came up with them in the first place but were no longer in the team. For example, the final game's Snatcher is a sort of amalgam between the old version of himself (who was different from his final version in almost every way) and a scrapped character called the Moon Jumper. Both ideas come from someone called Shane Frost, who pretty much conceptualized the Subcon Forest in its enterity during the early stages of development before leaving the team. So, most of the troubles you discuss in the video, I feel, are a mix between the early stages of development being a hot mess, and the dev team during the later stages not being too interested in having a more cohesive creative direction. I can definitely excuse the former, but not much the later. It feels like they didn't care about sticking with old ideas that no longer made much sense or served a solid enough purpose later in development because they thought it wasn't the most important part of the game anyway. I hope for their next game they revise their design philosofies because, yeah, they have talent for sure, but they also have a lot to learn if they want to realize their full potential.
Not sure I agree with you. Though I will admit that the story left me cold, some of the interactions are odd, and the humor's a bit mean, but it's not like it ruins the game. Oh... I agree with you completely. Anyway, what you're calling "creative syntax" I think is (or at least entails) a concept called "affordances". It's a user interface term (used in everything from software to games to architecture and beyond) about making things readable at a glance. If a person looks at an object, they should know what it does, how to interact with it, etc. If it looks like a door, it should act like a door, and if it is a door it should look like one. There's of course a cultural component to this, and education can even rewrite it (yay tutorials), but that's basically it. Of course, your idea also incorporates elements of thematic consistency (not a technical term) and good writing (motivations should make sense, etc.), but affordances definitely look to be a part of it, too. Anyway again, hope you do a Looka-Laylee sometime. You could probably do an excellent job picking it apart.
This game has been on my list for a while, and it still is of course. I appreciate this honest critique, and I still look forward to giving this game a go for myself. Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you friends. :)
Somehow you were able to explain why, despite having much better controls and gameplay, I still find Psychonauts more enjoyable than A Hat in Time, Subscribed
i hate games like Banjo Kazooie because i end up feeling like at the end of each level i've explored everything 80 times and am now forced to do it again cause whoops im missing a single thing that i might need later. games like spyro did this to me too where it felt like i was just running across levels doing random things because that's what the game wanted. the first time i heard about a hat in time i thought "oh it's a collectathon... ok pass" a friend got me to play it and i have no regrets. this is one of the best platformers ever. i 100% agree with all of the negative points you brought up but there's still something to this game that just feels good
Thats my exact point, after having played Sly, Ratchet, Jak, Mario, Crash, Banjo, Spyro, Metroid and other brutal platformers and collectaton style, this game feels too amateurish. The main charm of this games is the gradual complexity of something simple, easy to cath, but that has a lot of deep inside gameplay, not throw a lot of elements into the game and presentation.
My problem with the game was the mission structure, instead of finding your objective by exploring the level, you choose the objective on the menu, it doesn’t feel natural, and the objective is often not clear enough, there’s only 40 Timepieces to collect, the open world levels are wasted with confusion and a lack of a map and there’s no menu displaying the level’s secrets you’ve attained
3 years late but I think a lot of the complaints in video come from lack of context like the mafia instead of being based on italian mafia it being based on Russian mafia i.e. no women around because in the Russian mafia you often aren’t aloud to have a wife or family, mustache girl being based off a classic shinobi, the hats being reminiscent of mario galaxy power ups and each one you get the yarn from a relevant level, I think it’s true problem lies in making setups they don’t follow through on like the snatch boss fight the end I thought was just a lead up to a second phase the dj groovs levels lack a cohesive structure while the the train one follow a spaghetti western theme.
A hat in time is personally my 2nd favorite game of all time, 2nd only to Mario Galaxy but that's besides the point. The controls are amazing, and so is the level design, it can be a little rough around the edges when it comes to bugs and that sort of stuff but imo that adds to it's charm. It is pretty short but the base game isn't even close to my favorite part about it anyway. The seal the deal dlc is basically perfection. We have a new chapter adding more content to the story, and then we have death wish. I have not had an experience as fun, difficult, and Rewarding like death wish. The death wishes are extremely brutal especially the bonus objectives but you can really see yourself improve when playing it. I went from not being able to beat the first death wish, to 100% the death wish mode and even being able to do an any% Speedrun of that mode. Oh yeah and the nyakuza metro dlc is also there too but it's just not the same as death wish.
Hey B-mask, I see at 8:14 you are using Final Cut Pro to edit. How is it? Do you still use it? Are there any recommendations you have for "acquiring" the software? Inquiring minds need to know dammit!!
Thanks for the interest! Final Cut pro got the job done, but I dumped it after sly 3 for Premiere, which allows me to do a lot more- and that's through the paid adobe package.
@@BMask when you say more do you mean like key framing and audio design? I currently use wondershare filmora9 but it’s starting to become limited for more specific editing tools (spoiler alert, it’s key framing and audio design). Side note: Would you ever be interested in doing a “behind the scenes editing workshop” for a beyond pictures episode? Maybe throw it up on the b-works channel or something? I think I speak for a lot of us when I say we would love to see your process :)
The game is one of the few 3D platformers I enjoy. The game has its flaws like what you mentioned with the dweller mask in chapter 4. I also apriciate the sense of development and how you know they got there footing in. Ya the game Isint without flaws but it also is what I consider a masterpiece
Really spot-on. I think I did love the game rather than merely liked still quite a few of the points you bring up are things that also bothered me a tad. The character design in particular is the thing that disappointed me most, there's not a single character in there that I find truly eye-catching or memorable, which is one thing in cartoon-ish platformer that I want to like.
Before that they need to figure out how to transfer the free dlc and updates to it. They still havent added any of the patches to it, and despite the switch version coming with seal the deal, a free dlc that was initially computer only, the ps4 version still has yet to recieve this.
I think the one real flaw of the game is how Oustache Girl, despite being the main antagonist of the game, apepars so little. I feel lke having her appear in every level somehow would've been a cool idea rather than just have her appear in the first and last levels of the game. Also giving the fourth level an actual boss fight would've been cool too.
One of the thing that isn't considered enough here, the game's story is based on an imaginative little girl, everything is exaggerated because that's how a kid would explain things. You are playing as a 5-7 year old girl and see things the way she does.
If possible, play the games in release order. There's a lot of mechanical improvements throughout the series and tons of story to take in. It's well worth it seeing it go from a tiny, flawed and experimental game on the PS2 to one of the most excellent action franchises around.
10:06 It seems to me that it's not so much the purpose of abilities being badly communicated that is the problem, but a lack of basic problem solving skills from the player. You only get 6 hats over the course of the game, 1 of which just shows the objective. Even assuming you never use the sprint or objective hats (and don't get the optional time stop one) is it so much to ask that you try the only 3 things in the game known to give different abilities/moves? This is without mentioning the text box that appears with each new hat tellng you what it does and reminding you how to use it. This level of sheer ignorance is not a design flaw, IT IS STUPIDITY ON YOUR OWN PART.
So the problem with this critique is that it only adresses the situation *after* you attain the hats. At that point yes, it's easy to look up what you need to do, even if you don't feel that they maybe correspond coherently. But figuring out that you need a hat in the first place wasn't, from what I recall, something I could readily find. I knew I was missing something in world 4 but for the life of me couldn't figure out what it was- and I had to look it up. Nowhere in the level did I find information saying I needed a fox hat from the forest level to make ghost platforms appear, especially when I'd already been doing that through the use of staged bells. I didn't forsee how I was supposed to work that out on my own in that moment, and that's a bit clunky, and I think a fair crit. I mean maybe ghost foxes seeing secret platforms is just basic problem solving logic, I definitely missed that class EDIT:Lmao I haven't seen this video in ages and realised I actually say this right after the timestamp
Now that you said that, im sad. Im a huge fan of the game, but hat kid as a space traveller who had your world blowed up by creatures from another world should be canon
I disagree with you on some of your points, like her being awful. How is it awful to sweep people off your ship who tried to kill you and stole your stuff?? Plus they're all nine kinds of insane, and Hat Girl is just so done. I love it. 😂 You're not wrong regarding Mustache Girl, though. She was just a bad villain and an awful final boss. Still an awesome game, though. Also OMG SHAMMY CAMEO WTFFFF AAAAAA
So… You’re telling me that The Conductor somehow stealing a train and wearing a conductor outfit *because he’s crazy invested in his production* is somehow LESS COMPLEX than: He’s called *The Conductor* because he LIKES TRAINS. Get outta here with that roundabout thinking. His character was already simple, dude.
Why is he a conductor when he claims he's a director- in a level about competing directors making movies. Why is he not just a director getting invested in his various projects. Why not just have a train level in the desert that he happens to live in instead? Why not just settle on ONE. Simple. idea. Time and time again, hat in time fans will give me a million different answers on any given question. There's no centralised intelligence behind any of the decisions and, guess what, it shows.
But the point of the game is exploration. Better off not establishing this kinds of stuff will motivate you to try out and mess around. It's all in the mind.
I don't like it. I thought Subcon Forest was empty and hard to navigate, then tried Alpine Skyline and found all the same problems so I gave up and played Spyro instead.
Why did we not get another friend meter than mustache girl but still wondering if this game is for kids I mean you kill someone and put their remains in a jar and hat girl is MESSED UP the your still empty after you get your soul back and the voices wouldn’t stop from the murder mystery she needs a therapist but still love the game
I think the biggest issue with Hat Kid is that she's pretty blatantly a Doctor Who reference. LIke, if you think of her as literally the same kind of alien the Doctor is, the game makes more sense. It's a playable season of Doctor Who.
Adam Owens Is she? I love Doctor who but that doesn’t mean every time themed alien is a reference to him. Again, not entirely certain as to whether or not she’s an actually reference to DW.
I've been playing this recently and I totally agree. Mafia Town especially felt All over the place, and all of its goals felt arbitrary. It needs better design. A better user experience. That's what keeps me from loving it as well. A Hat in Time feels like it almost wants to do too much. Although It is really great homage to GameCube and Ps2 era stuff which is my jam!
Just got this game and have gotten as far as the Big Parade level. Have to say, I agree with a lot of what you say. Much of it is confusing and you definitely feel like you're a page behind the game. Unlike you I really liked the first level as a starting point. It feels like a great start to the game, wearing its inspirations on its sleeve with pride, and proving a bouncy fun kickoff. As a player you're looking at the environment thinking ooh what does that do? When will I get to use that bit? After that though, I feel like they abandoned the idea of making a quality platform game for something entirely different and I don't know what it is. It's level 2 and it's a stealth level? Noooo! The next bit is a strange Hollywood thing and there's penguins taking my photo...er ok. There's a strange murder mystery level that comes out of nowhere. And now I'm at this big parade level and I feel like they've completely jettisoned the idea of a platform game altogether. Yooka Laylee has its faults, it sure does, but it sticks to the platform ideal. If only there'd been more variety of levels instead of these huge vast empty things that are just not much fun. I'll stick with this I suppose and hopefully beat this awful parade level, but I can already feel the joy being drained away.
bro I'm playing and mafia town is God awful it's so boring and I hate the character models I hope what you said about it getting better later is true because I was really hyped for this game
A Hat in Time is a game that wouldbenefit soo much from a sequel. I could see a lot of these issues be remidied by a good sequel. I hope it happens.
Jay D. Absolutely the same with Yoka Laylee
Definitely not a perfect game, but it waa cute and funny and had good gameplay. Would definitely recommend to any platformer fan.
Consider the Following
No one is perfect
This was great, I liked that I finally saw a review that pointed out the flaws. Also, your concern on the ending being just a Dream is planned to corrected with the next big “update/DLC 1”. Originally there was to be a cafe scene where all the characters that were hanging on the ship are just sitting around having a chat. It ends with the Conductor saying, “Where ever she is, I hope she’s getting the rest she deserves.” Then cue her sleeping and the end.
It was scrapped for time, but it will be out with the first free DLC. I also hope you’ll do a short follow up once the two free chapters are out. Great video, I had a lot of laughs and while I disagreed with a few of your points you did bring some things that could be fixed. Can’t wait to see your next video, fantastic stuff as always.
I'll definitely be picking up the DLC! Will probably do a small Beyond Words if I cover it, but really excited to see more stuff from this game and the dev team regardless of my suggestions.
May I ask where you got this info about that cutscene being added? I've read about this cutscene, & DLC1 has been out, but I replayed the game only recently, & there was nothing of the sorts in the ending when I played it, only the addition of The Arctic Cruise section in the credits alongside the names of the newer members of their dev team.
@@ZedZerdz_ Super late but -- The scene was cut from the original release, however they have never said it'd return in any DLC. I assume it was speculation on OP's part. Regardless, they have said that the ending does not mean the story was a "dream" or whatever. So theres that.
I ended up getting distracted for a while and missed the ebd of the credits. When I got back and saw her sleeping, I still didn't get the implication it was all a dream lol, not sure how he got that when theres literal time rewind shenanigans afoot
A certain feathery, big eyed buddy sent me here.
Consider my presence...
*PERMANENT!*
Yeah, i also got shoowed away by the big eyed birdy =O
you also got kidnapped by the Claws of the Owlboy?
Hat in time was just like the hey arnold movie to me, I was kinda excited it was happening and I wanted to see it, but when it came out there was absolutely no fan-fare and I didn't learn it came out till like 2 weeks after.
Thanks for making another video though B-mask, your vid's are always entertaining as fuf
In Hey Anrold's case rather surprising considering how much Nickelodeon marketed it.
Fuck YEAH Hey Arnold!
0why Remember when Scooby Doo The Mystery Begins was a really big deal?
I think your concept with creative syntax brings to mind a principle I thought of when it comes to collectathons and platformers (or indeed a lot of games) that is extremely important.
Developer Interaction.
The ability for a developer to interact with the player enough that they can understand objectives while keeping enough hidden to allow the player the ability to exercise their own abilities to solve problems is something that requires a large amount of practice to master.
This is prevalent in just about everything the developer does with the game, from tutorials to bossfights to collectibles to hints, and this is where I think a lot of the problems might end up stemming from.
See collectathons at their core can be broken into two key components: currencies and objectives. If we're addressing this in Super Mario terms let's think Coins and Stars.
Coins act as one of the tools for allowing the developer to guide the player as both a smaller reward and as a tool for giving them help without 'cheating' the rules of the game. Placing coins ends up acting like a breadcrumb trail allowing a player to explore the level while still fulfilling an objective, which in turn is where the objectives come in. They act as the reward for accomplishing feats and interacting with the world around them.
In a well made game, let's take Banjo Kazooie for this example, both the 'Coins' and 'Stars' act as a reward for the player exploring the world and interacting with things within that world. Coins allow you to access various new tools that help ensure your success and objectives allow you to expand where you can explore. The end result should feel like a player is being rewarding for using their brain and not just filling out a scavenger hunt list but actually achieving feats.
It's funny, but your thoughts on this game actually remind me of another title I fell in love with years ago on my PS2. Vexx. While an absolutely beautiful world, there were quite a few goals that ended up being obscured both by how you were informed about it and what you were actually supposed to do. There was definite creativity there but sometimes you need to ensure that you have enough detail to match that creativity.
Vexx! Now, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.
(Also, you made some very good points about game design. Kudos.)
a lot of "creative syntax" that this game is missing was actually present early on in development, with some examples:
•the masked dwellers were npcs you could talk to, and it was instead unmasked dwellers that would try to inhabit whatever inanimate object was close, but would be unable to control their energy and destroy it; •brewing hat's potions were originally a badge ability obtained from scientist owls, and the idea was that you were throwing vials of reactive chemical formulae that would explode on impact - at this point in development the chapter was called Murder on the Science Express, and later changedTrainwreck of Science, and the murder plot would have just been an actual murder by the conductor (iirc? don't remember where i heard this but it makes his design more appropriate i guess), and/or the train would end up crashing into the moon, hence the moon levels
•the dweller mask's initial concept was that you could see into the past to interact with objects that are no longer there in the present, serving as an in-universe justification for its ability to make platforms solid (there would also be lore stuff, like seeing sunken mafia ships still sailing while the mask is on)
this game was WAYYYY different during early development, like i think actually half of all character designs made for the game are scrapped (most of the frozen victims in vanessa's manor use the mods of scrapped characters)
the weirdest thing to think about is that like. at one point the game was actually about time??? and now it just sort of isn't?
there are so many cut ideas that some of them weren't even cut in time for release, like the mafia boss saying "i haven't seen time pieces in over a hundred years" in the initial release, but in every subsequent update he just complains about you showing up
you can read about a ton of these on tcrf.net, i would really recommend looking into it if you want to know some of the thought progression that led the game to becoming weird with its narrative and character design choices
the most consistent impression this gives me is that every idea was originally thought out fully, but the devs frequently decided something wasn't up to snuff, and then never got around to writing new justifications for the mechanics or characters those elements had been supporting. case in point: we don't know who hat kid is. she used to be servant to a character named tim, CEO of time, who had a nervous breakdown shortly after signing on to his job, and scattering the time pieces throughout the world. this plotline and the character of tim were both scrapped by the time the alpha released, and hat kid never got anything else other than "uhh she needs time pieces to get home???"
Wow that's really interesting! I didn't know that!
I just played A Hat In Time for the second time(no pun intended) and it still holds up as one my favorite games ever! And while playing through the game I started to remember this video and I can see where B-Mask was coming from, the creative syntax thing didn't get in the way of my enjoyment but I could definely see some improvements in that aspect. There's a fairly recent video from Tim Cain's youtube channel(designer of the first 2 Fallouts and other rpg games) about making mechanics first and making mechanics after a setting is set and it is interesting to think about that with A Hat In Time in the equation.
Again, it was not something that makes the game WORSE from me, but it is something interesting to think about. Personally I think "time" in title is referring to how the game calls back to old platforming gamings and how YOU is going through that experience.
I just beat the game. It was a fun play-through but the story made NO sense to me. If there was any grounded, coherent story to this game then it either wasn't presented to me very well or I just wasn't paying enough attention. I never really got the sense that Mustache girl was the ultimate villain I was up against until the VERY end of the game and beating her was super easy and I was like REALLY? As fun as the worlds and platforming were I never got a sense of accomplishment out of the story. But where they failed story-wise, they succeeded in making everything else in it fun so it has that going for it!
Yeah mustache girl being the villain, while it did somewhat fit, it was out of the blue and I wish snatcher was the final boss. The music and gameplay is better in Your Contract Has Expired than The Finale in my opinion. Then again, it'd be a bit too late to introduce Snatcher as the main antagonist, and jumping between worlds did have 0 story sense with introducing characters. In the same way though, maybe the developers wanted us to feel like that. Like we're Hat Kid herself and witnessing how odd her story becomes while on her quest to find the time pieces.
While I love this game, my biggest issue is that even on the best hardware in a lot of the levels, felt like the game was struggling to run.
Like there wouldn't be technical framerate dips but everything would feel a bit slower and less smooth. And on a platformer that hurts the experience a bit.
Hard to explain a feeling though. Best I can is you can be traveling at 80mph on clear roads and then suddenly be though snow covered road. And while the car may not go under 80mph you can feel it work harder to push through the snow.
On my ryzen 2600 and rx 580 I got stuttering frames during the dead bird studios level and in the nyakuza metro hub on standard graphic settings unmodded. For the most part the game is smooth for me but at a few parts it just has lag.
*SPOILERS*
If you do all the time rifts you unlock a secret one that after getting all the photos its revealed that mustache girls home was taken over by the mafia and she's been homeless since.
Likewise, the mafia themselves weren't native to the island, but were originally fishmongers from another place. They came to the island and took over everything when their leader longed for a better life elsewhere, which is why they've commandeered and kind of messed up everything by the time you arrive.
Having played it, I don't think A Hat in Time is bereft of creative syntax in the way B-mask presented here, but it is a bit more disjointed than a Sly or a Psychonauts due a shift in priorities through development away from overarching worldbuilding and towards the levels and episodes themselves each having their own story you play a part in, and some of that setup is stuff you have to dig for in the rifts and through exploring rather than anything presented to the player as part of the main quest.
Gives is an EarthBound feel in that way, now that I think about it. That game is also pretty disjointed with the episodic adventure taking priority over the grand storyline, but it also hangs together on the strength of its writing and humor, while also blending a lot of references in.
I thought one of the strangest references was that the first stage of the final boss in Hat in Time is like the last stage of the final boss from Kirby Escape to Dreamland. Legit has essentially all the same moves except in 3D.
That was actually a very well exposed explanation about your problems with this game.
I miss this, people talking why they don't like something (or parts of it) withou calling it a piece of Shit or liking something without ignoring they flaws.
I actually love this game, but i just want a cute adventure game with some jokes, charm and a little retro vibre, so it's good enough for me, but this analysis was pretty good.
Nice video man.
I didn't tought much of the game until the DLC came out, those Death Wish challanges are one of the hardest things I ever completed in a videogame, I completelly insane and amazinh plataforming challanges, something I never saw on a 3D Plataformer do it this hard, these challanges where even made with speedrunners in mind, and if there's any you feel is too hard for you, you can aways turn "Peace and Tranquility" mode to make it easier and still complete it all, I only used on the final challange but still, It was such a blast doing these challanges that turned this game special to me
I know that not everyone is going to like these challanges, but I'm a person that completed 100% Super Meat Boy, Celeste, The end is Nigh, Runner3, Cuphead (all S ranks) and the N. Sane Trilogy with all platinum relics and stuff, I love challanging plataforming games and we almost don't see that in open 3D plataformers
Shammy sent me here.
One nice thing about the DLC is there are signs that the devs are steadily improving.
100 percent agreed. Very talented people.
* Addendum: I wrote this in a bit of passion, and while I do stand by it, I think B-Mask has done a better job getting at what I saw A Hat in Time could have been like with his Spyro 2 and Sly Cooper Retrospective videos. The point of comparison to Psychonauts at the end was on how the game had little-to-no world building and its typical vision. It had many of the stages set for world building- the final level and ending demonstrated it- but A Hat in Time failed to capitalize on it. To be fair, Gears for Breakfast only wanted to make a 3D platformer, taking after its inspirations, which it did. I just think it failed to go beyond being inspired by them.
** I thought that a lot of people were giving it praise with little critical thought as we had not seen a full fledged game like this in such a long time. I'm not sure if it would standout if it came out during the first half of the sixth generation as its foundation is average.
*** The best way to summarize my thoughts on a Hat in Time, pre DLC, is that I can see the developers pushing themselves but not the game. They had to overcome the hurdles of simply making a video game. Anyone who wants to know how hectic development really can be should look at the Double Fine Adventure documentary to see how stressful it usually is. Also, members of the team do not share the same cultures. Those are just two of however many hurdles they needed to overcome. In contrast, the game is your typical 3D platformer. That's fine. Just not enough to engage many when there's a tsunami of video games released every month, which I suspect is a part of the reason why people did not know about it for at least a week after it came out.
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"I like it. I really like it, but I wish I loved it," you took the words right out of my mouth. I did not even think about the character design and acting issues you brought up, probably because of your love and focus on animation/film. However, to me this is not A Hat in Time's biggest problem. What holds down A Hat in Time for me is its heavy reliance on its inspirations. I have played all the games the developers directly lifted from. There are some moments that are cute or fun callbacks, the contact lens owl in Murder on the Owl Express. Other times the characters, levels, or moments within levels ruin the sense of discovery and adventure I get from the greatest 3D platformers and the games adjacent to them. It is hard for me to get interested in A Hat in Time when every world has me saying "hey, I see where they got that." I NEVER had this problem with Sunshine, Psychonauts, Wind Waker, Banjo Kazooie, Spyro, or Thousand Year Door. They obviously took from their contemporaries, Nintendo looked at what they could tweak from their last game, but they did not rely on past experiences the way A Hat in Time does.
Paper Mario 64 had a murder mystery segment. Thousand Year Door had a mystery segment on a train. Despite both having a mystery story for a single chapter, Thousand Year Door did not have a murder mystery. It took a different spin on the concept by having the mystery setting be most of the chapter and on a train instead of an opening in the snow village. A Hat in Time takes these two chapters, throws a little bit of Glitz Pit for the studio, and keeps its platforming as the center focus instead of the actual mystery. The focus on platforming is good, but the world draws obvious visual and narrative parallels that I cannot ignore.
A small list of clear parallels: traveling between mountains in Alpine Skyline feels like a mix of Mario Galaxy's warp stars (collecting objects to distract players from the unskipable, interactive cut-scene) and Bioshock Infinite's skyhook; Hat Kid's diary is from Paper Mario 64; the hands that come to grab you in Subcon Forest are the curse hands from Psychonauts; the memories at the end of the pink time rifts are the memory vaults from Psychonauts; the G-Men from Psychonauts are crows now but they miss the purpose and could easily be replaced with something else and have no effect on the stage as a whole; time rifts are the secret levels from Sunshine, they even rip geometry from that game with the spinning rectangles; the Snatcher looked and acted too closely to the cursed chest from Thousand Year Door; the ending is from Nintendo RPGs, as much Earthbound as Paper Mario; the final boss level even felt like an out-of-place Bowser level from the galaxy titles.
Queen Venessa's manor was promising but did not serve more than a reminder to me why I would rather play Luigi's Mansion for eerie, cartoon horor. The stage is fun the first time but gets worse the more you play it. I replayed the game to get a better look at the whole design and this is the only stage that has gotten progressively worse with each replay. The layout is brain-dead simple. The queen is easy to avoid and does not follow you in certain sections. Again, they seem to lift from another game, this time SOMA, by having the queen make this effect that warps the visuals when she's nearby. To add dramatic effect the game plays high pitched music. All of this is done instead of actually making her scary and a threat to the player.
A Hat in Time does do things well but it never does stand out as its own thing. King K said "A Hat in Time is a great homage rather than a great innovator." That is probably the best way to describe A Hat in Time. It takes the best from many 3D platformers, with admiration and a mission to do the legacy of those games justice. It does not, however, stand up with the greats. It is very much younger sybling syndrome. It wants to be its bigger siblings instead of being itself. Too much of its identity can be traced back to arguably better games.
Psychonauts does not control as well as A Hat in Time but I enjoyed it more through a recent playthrough. Psychonauts is more charming and confident in what it is. A Hat in Time says "look at me, ain't I cute," as the mafia of cooks just walk around the level doing nothing of note. Meanwhile, Psychonauts has the worlds as characters. Everything is tailored around the character's identity and history. The main enemy you will see is meant to keep you out of the world so to keep the mind healthy. Gameplay and narrative meet. A Hat in Time throws a couple of birds around in Mafia Town.
Everything above might make it seem like I hate this game but I don't. From a pure platforming perspective, I love this game. The isolated missions of Alpine Skyline are platforming at its finest. It just fails to deliver on that core drive of the 3D platformer, discovery of a new world and characters. That does not happen here. No one I meet is someone I have not seen before, under better conditions too. Considering that this was made by a team that had no experience making a commercial game, Gears for Breakfast did an amazing job. That does not mean that I will overlook where they went wrong or could do better. I agree with you B-Mask in that I don't want to see them get complacent. Whenever they release the dlc or A Hat in Time 2, which feels certain given the ending, I hope they can blow me out of the water with how unique it will hopefully be. I just don't want to feel like I've been here before because what is the point then.
Thanks very much for the perspective! I figured this kind of stuff would be distracting for at least some of the audience, and it's interesting to hear and see from the likes you have that that's the case for some. Worth taking into account.
Thanks for understanding. Love your work and have been watching since your days at CCS. I rarely comment on videos because I usually don't feel the need to. This one I felt like pointing out since I personally had not seen anyone pointing this thing out. Sorry for the novella response, it's just how I felt.
I think your problem with A Hat in Time was that it focuses on just being derivative rather than flipping common mechanics set by its inspirations.
Now that's easier said than done. But looking at Crash Bandicoot, it's clear the core gameplay of the Crash games is a remix of the typical 2D Super Mario Bros design. You have to hit boxes to get items in both games, but in Crash, you can attack boxes from all angles, whereas in Mario, you can only attack them from beneath. Same goes with enemies. Crash also makes smashing boxes the equivalent of collecting gems or jiggies, breaking another collectathon convention before it was even set.
I'm currently playing De Blob on the Wii, and while simplistic, it struck me as being a very clever twist on the collectathon platformer formula. Instead of 100%ing stages by collecting items, you paint the environment to complete the stage. Extra bonus if you do the missions that require you to paint specific buildings a certain colour or ask the player to rake up enough paint points to activate a colour specific machine. It feels sufficiently different in concept from the likes of Banjo or Spyro while remaining recognizable as a collectathon platformer.
I recall watching an analysis video on Snake Pass that talked about how it forged its own interpretation of the 3D platform genre by forgoing the use of a jump button. Long story short, sometimes taking away functions can present a unique set of challenges to the player. Snake Pass may be the same genre as AHiT, but it shares little in common from the fact that you can neither jump, nor walk, and must learn to navigate your environment with the unique control scheme.
A Hat in Time attempts to make the hat-ability thing it's main gimmick, but never really goes far enough with it to significantly alter the gameplay within the context of the genre.
I respect what you're saying but think a lot of it is a stretch.
To say that games can never borrow ideas is ridiculous and some of these connections are too vague to be actual comparisons. For example, you said that the warp star from mario galaxy inspired the flag lines in alpine skyline. Having something that is able to transport a player to a completely different area isn't a really unique idea and almost every platformer I can think of has it. Kirby has cannons, in mario galaxy they have both the warp stars, pipes, cannons, water cannons etc., de blob 2 had launchpads. It's just a game design method for changing the area the player is in.
Another one, you say that the time rifts are like the bonus stages in mario sunshine. I do agree the rotating rectangles are a really clear comparison, but the fundamental idea of having out of the way challenge stages is not a new thing once again. Kirby does it, the 2d mario series does it, the idea was reused in super Mario galaxy, rayman origins does it too. Having sections that focus solely on challenges is a fun, optional choice game designers can put in the game to give the player more freedom and to make exploring more satisfying.
I could argue that the skeleton hands in super paper mario are like the curse hands in psychonauts. But that's not really a critique and its not even significant enough to point out.
I don't understand why you think you have to draw comparisons of different mechanics immediately and how that ruins the game. In some instances like the crows I understand it's much more apparent and may be annoying, but for more than half of your comparisons, they're stretches. And even if they're similar aspects, there is nothing wrong with that. The aspect where the rifts reminded me of mario sunshine made me think "oh neat" and then I went to enjoy the atmosphere of the stage and the platforming challenge. It never bothered me the slightest. Vanessa's manor has a luigis mansion aesthetic where I went "oh neat" and continued to play through and figure out the mystery of it. The comparisons and borrowed elements did not detract from the gameplay. It would be like me complaining how mario games always have a desert level, whether it be 2d or 3d. I know you may have higher standards, but really borrowing elements inherently is not a bad thing.
Look at it this way, a writer can only end their story so many ways. Specifically in a thriller or action story, the main character dies, the villain dies, side characters die everyone dies, no one dies etc. It is up to the author to make it interesting and nuanced compared to other stories that may have similar endings. The same thing goes for the concept of cliche, you can use cliches. It's however up to you to make it interesting and put your own twist on it and this applies to multiple things; art, stories, even video games. Cliches are not inherently a bad thing. Ask any artist and they will tell you no one is original and professional artists use references all the time.
Also I would like to point out that the story pages gave the game a lot of the story it needed. I really agree with this point though and feel like it should have been more connected with the actual gameplay. Mustache girl was there for a second and disappears for the rest of the game. Just a side note, my theory is that it's due to them rushing a due date. Their original concepts had a lot of backstory, even for the enemies themselves. The sleepy raccoon had it's own dedicated stage at one time. It looks like they didn't have enough resources though unfortunately and a lot of it was reworked. It was reworked really well not gonna lie, but still disappointing and some parts feel like they're missing something.
Tldr: A platformer does not need to be groundbreaking to be a masterpiece. Elements being borrowed is not a bad thing and is so so common in everything. If we nitpicked every comparison, we would not be able to enjoy anything. Along with this, a lot of these comparisons fall flat or are not significant enough to warrant criticism, with the exception of the crow design. That said, I see a lot of strong points in your critique but it becomes muddled when you try to jam in comparisons and say that they count to your critique of the game when they basically accomplish nothing.
This felt very nitpicky to me and your creative syntax point wasn't really clear enough for me. Overall, still a pretty ok video and I do appreciate your comedy style. I guess our opinions really differ a lot for this one.
It seems like most of the crowd funded games that end up being actual successes are the ones with much smaller budgets and hype. Whereas something like Hyper Light Drifter ends up being something special, games like Mighty No. 9, Broken Age, and Yooka-Laylee l, in spite of having the experienced developers and veteran game devs, end up being disappointments. Could it be that bigger =/= better?
Not necessarely, look at Divinity Original Sin for example, with its close to 1 million dollar budget and raving reviews.
I think it's a combination of bigger budget and old game designers/staff trying to bring what they thought that old games did right only to realize those same ideas were quite out-dated or just simply didn't understand what made them so good.
I think its more the fact that said devs try to cater TOO much to their respective fanbases in making something like the games they love without realizing what made it so loved in the first place and instead of improving on past ideas they get complacent by just doing it the exact same way with no good innovations in place.
Divinity and Pillars of Eternity were high budget kickstarter games made by historically great devs that turned out to be critically and commercially successful. It's just the fact that some of the people running these games (Kenji Inafune) are hacks.
also look at the battletech game that came out, i backed that and its an amazing game
Shenyongo The Dragon Slayer
For me Yooka Laylee wasn't a disappointment at all.
You are really fucking good at making videos. Like these are some of the best video game related videos I've seen in years. Keep up the terrific work, excited to see where you go.
I may be a simple person but for me the story just has to have me entertained for me to enjoy it, and A Hat In Time did that for me, while I can agree the ending is kinda bad and leaves more to be desired I wouldn’t say the game didn’t catch my attention. Even with all these “issues” you stated with the game i’ll still personally give this game a 10/10 and it’s up there with some of my favorite games of all time.
I think a large part of this game's inconsistencies with theming and general character purposes is because this game has possibly hours worth of unused content. Level assets, characters and plot points have been mashed and redistributed so much that it can be a bit of a mess. Looking at the unused content makes lots of details make a little more sense in context.
Thanks for the recommendation! Between you and Mark Brown (who only made a small mention of the game in one of his videos), you two are the only reason I even know this game exists. It kinda concerns me that games like these can go under people's radars so easily. I'll definitely give it a go though!
Somewhat off topic, but have you ever complied together a list of recommended platformer games? I've admittedly fallen out of the genre since the PS2 days, outside of maybe anything Nintendo releases. And while Tropical Freeze and 3D World were very good games (I don't have a Switch yet for Odyssey), I've played dozens of Nintendo platformers. When you've been with Nintendo for so long, sometimes their games just don't scratch your itch like you want them to, ya know? I'd love some good recommendations on the PC/PlayStation side of things.
B Mask, I'm coming up with my idea of what A Hat in Time's narrative actually was, and this critique helped me figure it out. Thank you for your take.
I feel like the chapters were all made in play order. Chapter 1 is so unpolished, it feels like they got better as they went. Now that doesn't excuse the fact that they should have gone back and redid mafia town after finishing everything else, but the dlc was so good it gives me a lot of hope for the sequel
15:06 Gotta appreciate B-Mask casually reminding us Medabots exaisted
“And with every turkey, there’s a Brussel sprout”
*yea but what if u like brussel sprouts.*
PhotonShade
H E Y
Can I just say sir, bonus points for you by making an Initial D references using modified Speed Racer footage. I laughed WAY too hard.
I love this show man :) especially your commentary on the sly series
"Well shit"
Yeah I said the same thing
5:27 “He has you take on some dirty deeds”
Do you have to do them for dirt cheap?
im mad because i actually really love a hat in time but there are certain inconsistencies which make me mad because i cant love it even more. just a lot of small, little changes would really help polishing it up. with the recent DLCs it’s obvious GFB has the capability to make really charming and polished animations which express a lot of character so i wish theyd go back and just add a little more. i think mustache girl is intentionally supposed to be a kid who thinks shes so mature but actually melodramatic and immature but i wish it was shown a lot better than making it appear as if she is supposed to actually be legitimately dramatic
Nice video, B! You should make one on Yooka-Layle - I don't hate it as much as most people but it really has a lot of issues (what hit me was how the levels are so insanely overly-large that they waste your time.)
(sorry I had to make a long ass comment to get to the point)
A Hat in Time is my favorite indie game of all time and one of my favorite games ever. I also agree with almost all of what you said in the video. The few things I don't agree with are small details like you complaining about the Conductor not looking like a bird, as it was made like this on purpose, but I can't blame you or anyone for not getting it since the character's dubious status as a bird is mainly stated in supplementary stuff like the game's manual or his Steam card.
Other than that trivial stuff, I pretty much agree with what you said; even the first time I played the game I had the feeling there was something not right about its creative direction. When I reached the end of the game, Chapter 5, this feeling further cemented, as the whole chapter felt, for lack of better words, anti-climatic; a very long, lineal level instead of a full-fledged stage was already disappointing enough, but at least I was hoping they were going to do something about MuGirl, since the way they portrayed the character in promotional stuff and the like gave the impresion she was going to be an influential force throughout the whole game but in the end didn't do much after chapter 1, so at least I was hoping that here she was going to be a more interesting character, something other than just the game's Big Bad sitting at the end of the level which you must defeat to finish the game...
Then I started looking up stuff about the game's development, cut content, etc. (because I've always been a huge fan of that and this game has a lot to offer in that regard), and I realized how troubled the game's develpment was; not only they were trying to figure out how to even make a game (of the magnitude of a 3D platformer, no less), but they weren't quite sure what direction to take the game, what identity to give it. Both the main plot and that of each individual chapter changed multiple times (the timepieces are a remnant of both a very early plot and a scrapped mechanic involving time travel... that never really got anywhere), and even the gameplay took multiple different forms as well (very early on, it was going to have RPG and hack 'n slash element, then they wanted to have more Zelda-like elements instead). When you think about both the difficulties of the dev team and their troubles deciding the creative direction they wanted to take, the final results are actually quite impressive, as flawed as they are.
I had this mentality that I shouldn't be terribly critical about the game in these aspect considering these things, but then I heard some of the comments from the dev team about the game's creative direction; it seems like they thought the most important thing in a 3D platformer was interesting and engaging gameplay over everything else, why they didn't bother much with a more coherent world-building and, as you call it, creative syntax. It's not like they didn't care at all, but it seems they like since the game was aimed at being a love letter to some old Nintendo games, they also followed their design philosophy that fun gameplay always comes first, and story and characters are more of an after-thought. It's a shame, because they scrapped a lot of interesting ideas and characters that effectively showed a stronger creative syntax, though people joining and leaving the dev team also shaken things up; think that these guys had to work with ideas they didn't even come up with themselves, and thus likely didn't understand the real purpose of as well as the people that came up with them in the first place but were no longer in the team. For example, the final game's Snatcher is a sort of amalgam between the old version of himself (who was different from his final version in almost every way) and a scrapped character called the Moon Jumper. Both ideas come from someone called Shane Frost, who pretty much conceptualized the Subcon Forest in its enterity during the early stages of development before leaving the team.
So, most of the troubles you discuss in the video, I feel, are a mix between the early stages of development being a hot mess, and the dev team during the later stages not being too interested in having a more cohesive creative direction. I can definitely excuse the former, but not much the later. It feels like they didn't care about sticking with old ideas that no longer made much sense or served a solid enough purpose later in development because they thought it wasn't the most important part of the game anyway. I hope for their next game they revise their design philosofies because, yeah, they have talent for sure, but they also have a lot to learn if they want to realize their full potential.
Not sure I agree with you. Though I will admit that the story left me cold, some of the interactions are odd, and the humor's a bit mean, but it's not like it ruins the game. Oh... I agree with you completely.
Anyway, what you're calling "creative syntax" I think is (or at least entails) a concept called "affordances". It's a user interface term (used in everything from software to games to architecture and beyond) about making things readable at a glance. If a person looks at an object, they should know what it does, how to interact with it, etc. If it looks like a door, it should act like a door, and if it is a door it should look like one. There's of course a cultural component to this, and education can even rewrite it (yay tutorials), but that's basically it. Of course, your idea also incorporates elements of thematic consistency (not a technical term) and good writing (motivations should make sense, etc.), but affordances definitely look to be a part of it, too.
Anyway again, hope you do a Looka-Laylee sometime. You could probably do an excellent job picking it apart.
i got to know hat in time cause of a meme
This game has been on my list for a while, and it still is of course. I appreciate this honest critique, and I still look forward to giving this game a go for myself.
Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you friends. :)
PLEASE review Gregory Horror Show. People need to know about that game.
5:33 Please, please, PLEASE review Gregory Horror Show! More people need to know about that franchise! 😆
Gregory horror show oh man I hope B mask covers that, I love that game
Nice solid review there. Super engaging. Might be time for me to pick up the hat.
Stephen Karl Stephenson
It still hurts, man
I miss him too.
Somehow you were able to explain why, despite having much better controls and gameplay, I still find Psychonauts more enjoyable than A Hat in Time, Subscribed
Damn i almost forgot this game exits time flies huh
i hate games like Banjo Kazooie because i end up feeling like at the end of each level i've explored everything 80 times and am now forced to do it again cause whoops im missing a single thing that i might need later. games like spyro did this to me too where it felt like i was just running across levels doing random things because that's what the game wanted. the first time i heard about a hat in time i thought "oh it's a collectathon... ok pass"
a friend got me to play it and i have no regrets. this is one of the best platformers ever. i 100% agree with all of the negative points you brought up but there's still something to this game that just feels good
I kinda realise that this story sounds like tommy wiseau wrote it.
Sly Cooper! My favorite game when I was a kid. Game reviewers don’t seem to discuss it much
Thats my exact point, after having played Sly, Ratchet, Jak, Mario, Crash, Banjo, Spyro, Metroid and other brutal platformers and collectaton style, this game feels too amateurish.
The main charm of this games is the gradual complexity of something simple, easy to cath, but that has a lot of deep inside gameplay, not throw a lot of elements into the game and presentation.
My problem with the game was the mission structure, instead of finding your objective by exploring the level, you choose the objective on the menu, it doesn’t feel natural, and the objective is often not clear enough, there’s only 40 Timepieces to collect, the open world levels are wasted with confusion and a lack of a map and there’s no menu displaying the level’s secrets you’ve attained
3 years late but I think a lot of the complaints in video come from lack of context like the mafia instead of being based on italian mafia it being based on Russian mafia i.e. no women around because in the Russian mafia you often aren’t aloud to have a wife or family, mustache girl being based off a classic shinobi, the hats being reminiscent of mario galaxy power ups and each one you get the yarn from a relevant level, I think it’s true problem lies in making setups they don’t follow through on like the snatch boss fight the end I thought was just a lead up to a second phase the dj groovs levels lack a cohesive structure while the the train one follow a spaghetti western theme.
Came here from Shammy, great channel dud!
A hat in time is personally my 2nd favorite game of all time, 2nd only to Mario Galaxy but that's besides the point. The controls are amazing, and so is the level design, it can be a little rough around the edges when it comes to bugs and that sort of stuff but imo that adds to it's charm. It is pretty short but the base game isn't even close to my favorite part about it anyway. The seal the deal dlc is basically perfection. We have a new chapter adding more content to the story, and then we have death wish. I have not had an experience as fun, difficult, and Rewarding like death wish. The death wishes are extremely brutal especially the bonus objectives but you can really see yourself improve when playing it. I went from not being able to beat the first death wish, to 100% the death wish mode and even being able to do an any% Speedrun of that mode. Oh yeah and the nyakuza metro dlc is also there too but it's just not the same as death wish.
Hey B-mask, I see at 8:14 you are using Final Cut Pro to edit. How is it? Do you still use it? Are there any recommendations you have for "acquiring" the software? Inquiring minds need to know dammit!!
Thanks for the interest! Final Cut pro got the job done, but I dumped it after sly 3 for Premiere, which allows me to do a lot more- and that's through the paid adobe package.
@@BMask when you say more do you mean like key framing and audio design? I currently use wondershare filmora9 but it’s starting to become limited for more specific editing tools (spoiler alert, it’s key framing and audio design).
Side note: Would you ever be interested in doing a “behind the scenes editing workshop” for a beyond pictures episode? Maybe throw it up on the b-works channel or something? I think I speak for a lot of us when I say we would love to see your process :)
@@BMask Also thanks for the really quick response even on an old vid! T'was a welcome surprise
The game is one of the few 3D platformers I enjoy. The game has its flaws like what you mentioned with the dweller mask in chapter 4. I also apriciate the sense of development and how you know they got there footing in. Ya the game Isint without flaws but it also is what I consider a masterpiece
Really spot-on. I think I did love the game rather than merely liked still quite a few of the points you bring up are things that also bothered me a tad. The character design in particular is the thing that disappointed me most, there's not a single character in there that I find truly eye-catching or memorable, which is one thing in cartoon-ish platformer that I want to like.
I'm just waiting for the ps4 physical release. Taking forever though.
Before that they need to figure out how to transfer the free dlc and updates to it. They still havent added any of the patches to it, and despite the switch version coming with seal the deal, a free dlc that was initially computer only, the ps4 version still has yet to recieve this.
I think the one real flaw of the game is how Oustache Girl, despite being the main antagonist of the game, apepars so little. I feel lke having her appear in every level somehow would've been a cool idea rather than just have her appear in the first and last levels of the game. Also giving the fourth level an actual boss fight would've been cool too.
I thought I had just missed a hat for the boxes and gave up trying to break them! I had no idea about the brewing hat feelsbad ):
One of the thing that isn't considered enough here, the game's story is based on an imaginative little girl, everything is exaggerated because that's how a kid would explain things. You are playing as a 5-7 year old girl and see things the way she does.
6:24 "The rums you enter-"
GamingBrit is part of the Mafia? That's news to me.
Yakuza bruv
What are your thoughts on the Yakuza series, if any at all?
Looks super neat and I really wanna play it at some point
If possible, play the games in release order. There's a lot of mechanical improvements throughout the series and tons of story to take in. It's well worth it seeing it go from a tiny, flawed and experimental game on the PS2 to one of the most excellent action franchises around.
I hope GamingBrit gets referenced in every gaming-related video to follow, haha.
I fucking love your channel m8
Shammy is in the game? Nice.
Shammy sent me here
The only reason the movie directors are insane in speaking is because they are acting, which is part of their character.
Hat in Time blows Yookah-Laylee out of the water in so many ways
17:27
>Shadman
10:06 It seems to me that it's not so much the purpose of abilities being badly communicated that is the problem, but a lack of basic problem solving skills from the player. You only get 6 hats over the course of the game, 1 of which just shows the objective. Even assuming you never use the sprint or objective hats (and don't get the optional time stop one) is it so much to ask that you try the only 3 things in the game known to give different abilities/moves? This is without mentioning the text box that appears with each new hat tellng you what it does and reminding you how to use it. This level of sheer ignorance is not a design flaw, IT IS STUPIDITY ON YOUR OWN PART.
So the problem with this critique is that it only adresses the situation *after* you attain the hats. At that point yes, it's easy to look up what you need to do, even if you don't feel that they maybe correspond coherently. But figuring out that you need a hat in the first place wasn't, from what I recall, something I could readily find.
I knew I was missing something in world 4 but for the life of me couldn't figure out what it was- and I had to look it up. Nowhere in the level did I find information saying I needed a fox hat from the forest level to make ghost platforms appear, especially when I'd already been doing that through the use of staged bells. I didn't forsee how I was supposed to work that out on my own in that moment, and that's a bit clunky, and I think a fair crit.
I mean maybe ghost foxes seeing secret platforms is just basic problem solving logic, I definitely missed that class
EDIT:Lmao I haven't seen this video in ages and realised I actually say this right after the timestamp
Now that you said that, im sad. Im a huge fan of the game, but hat kid as a space traveller who had your world blowed up by creatures from another world should be canon
Finally an honest critique.
I disagree with you on some of your points, like her being awful. How is it awful to sweep people off your ship who tried to kill you and stole your stuff?? Plus they're all nine kinds of insane, and Hat Girl is just so done. I love it. 😂
You're not wrong regarding Mustache Girl, though. She was just a bad villain and an awful final boss. Still an awesome game, though. Also OMG SHAMMY CAMEO WTFFFF AAAAAA
9:20
NOT QUICK MAFFS
I know this is a dumb thing to ask;
but what is the game at 5:40 I swear I know it, but it's elluding me somehow.
Was that the aquabats I saw?
56 Time Pieces, if you include all the DLC.
So PS4 version over PC ? I'll add it to my wishlist.
Woof, final cut x
17:27 I'm dead
Shadman
the plum is a cherry bomb
Great video
Mudder heccer this mie favorite gam
Will you make a yooka laylee video?
4:35 Good to see you again, Shammy lol
So…
You’re telling me that The Conductor somehow stealing a train and wearing a conductor outfit *because he’s crazy invested in his production* is somehow LESS COMPLEX than:
He’s called *The Conductor* because he LIKES TRAINS.
Get outta here with that roundabout thinking.
His character was already simple, dude.
Why is he a conductor when he claims he's a director- in a level about competing directors making movies. Why is he not just a director getting invested in his various projects. Why not just have a train level in the desert that he happens to live in instead? Why not just settle on ONE. Simple. idea.
Time and time again, hat in time fans will give me a million different answers on any given question. There's no centralised intelligence behind any of the decisions and, guess what, it shows.
hey man do you have a patreon????
16:33 was that a Xi Jinping reference?
But the point of the game is exploration. Better off not establishing this kinds of stuff will motivate you to try out and mess around. It's all in the mind.
Who is the celebraty cameo?
It was jon tron. Hes not a controversial celebrity. He had a controversy about politics that lasted like a week
I don't like it. I thought Subcon Forest was empty and hard to navigate, then tried Alpine Skyline and found all the same problems so I gave up and played Spyro instead.
YU ROI NOL
Why did we not get another friend meter than mustache girl but still wondering if this game is for kids I mean you kill someone and put their remains in a jar and hat girl is MESSED UP the your still empty after you get your soul back and the voices wouldn’t stop from the murder mystery she needs a therapist but still love the game
I think the biggest issue with Hat Kid is that she's pretty blatantly a Doctor Who reference. LIke, if you think of her as literally the same kind of alien the Doctor is, the game makes more sense. It's a playable season of Doctor Who.
Adam Owens
Is she? I love Doctor who but that doesn’t mean every time themed alien is a reference to him. Again, not entirely certain as to whether or not she’s an actually reference to DW.
I've been playing this recently and I totally agree. Mafia Town especially felt All over the place, and all of its goals felt arbitrary. It needs better design. A better user experience. That's what keeps me from loving it as well. A Hat in Time feels like it almost wants to do too much. Although It is really great homage to GameCube and Ps2 era stuff which is my jam!
I dont understand your 2+2 not always being 4 thing. Thats simple math. Please explain yourself. I do not understand.
But is it based?
Whys john tron controversial
Hes a awesome lad
HAT IN TIME. MORE LIKE. IT'S ABOUT TIME
please... stop
Just got this game and have gotten as far as the Big Parade level. Have to say, I agree with a lot of what you say. Much of it is confusing and you definitely feel like you're a page behind the game. Unlike you I really liked the first level as a starting point. It feels like a great start to the game, wearing its inspirations on its sleeve with pride, and proving a bouncy fun kickoff. As a player you're looking at the environment thinking ooh what does that do? When will I get to use that bit? After that though, I feel like they abandoned the idea of making a quality platform game for something entirely different and I don't know what it is. It's level 2 and it's a stealth level? Noooo! The next bit is a strange Hollywood thing and there's penguins taking my photo...er ok. There's a strange murder mystery level that comes out of nowhere. And now I'm at this big parade level and I feel like they've completely jettisoned the idea of a platform game altogether. Yooka Laylee has its faults, it sure does, but it sticks to the platform ideal. If only there'd been more variety of levels instead of these huge vast empty things that are just not much fun. I'll stick with this I suppose and hopefully beat this awful parade level, but I can already feel the joy being drained away.
bro I'm playing and mafia town is God awful it's so boring and I hate the character models I hope what you said about it getting better later is true because I was really hyped for this game