And I no longer have the time to mindlessly comb through levels if the experience isn't rewarding.

I recently saw a video (can't remember if it was youtube, a reel, or a TikTok... Maybe someone on here posted it?) that defined a vibe-based genre of games called cousin games. These are not bad games, they just aren't the pinnacle of a genre or a big name upon release, and you most likely haven't heard of them unless you played them at your cousin's house. (I am the cousin I have learned).

TY is the perfect example of a cousin game. There is nothing glaringly wrong, the different boomerangs add a little variety beyond just being artificial roadblocks to your progress, movement is fluid, and the humor lands a decent amount of time. But it's all just whelming.

When I jumped into the Steam release of this game for Grouvee's game club, I was very worried because TY always jumps his full height no matter how long you hold the jump button. But the levels were actually very well designed with this in mind. This remake allow you to toggle camera distance, full camera rotation, the option to choose regular or inverted aiming and camera controls, and really any quality of life feature you would expect. I can't remember how much of this was present in the original game since I traded it in to help buy my DS as a kid. This is a typical collect-a-thon aimed at younger players, although a few "treasures" were frustratingly difficult for me. (Looking at you, Geyser Hop!) There were multiple distinct areas in which levels took place before the final boss fight, and 4 of them were re-used for the last set of levels. This wasn't a problem because the design of those levels was entirely different, and there were some tweaks to the setting for most of them. My only gripe was that the snow world was re-used, and I found those levels to be the least cohesive in terms of routing, riddles etc. (They just seemed like big open spaces with no central theme other than collectibles placed about all the corners of the map). The soundtrack was not great. There were no absolute stinkers, but each track was very short and just played on a loop so I tired of them quickly. The reused settings also reused the same music.

I assume the Australian-ness of the game was very cheesy, and I loved the over-the-top British accent of the Koala. I was glad to have watched a ton of Bluey with my daughter, as I picked up on a lot more of the game this time through, and she loved the dunny checkpoints. I audibly chuckled when to deliver the final blow to the final boss you took control of a boomerang and flew it like a spaceship through the tubing of the robot to land a death-star type shot. I had to change the controls to be inverted for this section because the latter portion of the flight contained surprisingly tight navigation. I could see how this would be a fitting end to the game as a kid. The only thing missing as you destroyed the boss was a large overlay stating "It's the way it shatters that matters" before fading into the credits.

My biggest complaint with the game is that to progress to each "hub" you have to collect a certain number of Thunder Eggs to activate a teleporter. Especially in the first hub, the number you need seems prohibitively high. I believe you could only miss 3-5 across the three levels? This means in at least one of the levels you would have to collect all 300 of the coin stand-ins (opals in this game). For someone who didn't want to look up guides, or is just casually playing the game following the route indicated by the trails of opals, if I reached the teleporter and saw I still needed 10 more thunder eggs after "completing" each level, I would have put the game down. But then again, why would a player like that be playing a 10 year old remake of an obscurish 3D platformer that was over 10 years old when it was remade? I woulnd't recommend the game unless you are driven by nostalgia, love this genre, or have kids that enjoy this type of game and have medium fear tolerance of bad guys.

A fun experience that won't have lasting impact on me, although I'm glad I got to see this one through after never making it out of the first hub as a kid. There's also a Shadow the Hedgehog style character for those that enjoy a good edgy villain turned hero. I'm sure he plays a role in the sequel.