I hope we see more of DKB at tomorrow's treehouse that wins me over to the game's side more. Some of the creative decisions they're rolling with just... don't sit well with me so far.
Like yeah, you can do a lot with the random rock chunks you can pick up but why are you doing stuff with them? Also the fact that it looks like a lot of puzzles and challenges can be bypassed just by smashing the wall around it I'm like... why? That feels like broken design. When there are too many ways to solve a problem things end up just becoming kind of boring because people will just find the fastest/easiest way to do it and do it over and over again. Plus the idea of collectibles hidden in really obscure places that aren't even signposted because you can smash through stuff fills me with dread.
I just need to know what the general gameplay loop is. What are the collectables and what do you use them for? We see the fossils, we see the Banandium, we see the Crystal Bananas, but what do they do.
Also I hope some of the lairs have more interesting themes. The fact that everything is underground is gonna be really really weird. Now that I think about it I kinda miss the idea of smaller "worlds" connected by hubs. Like Grunty's Lair and Peach's Castle had so many interesting places that didn't need to fit together geographically because you were like... teleporting to them from magic portals/doors. I kinda feel like the fact that they don't need to do this anymore means they just don't wanna anymore and I think that looses something of the fun. IDK. Just my thoughts.
I'm not too worried about the Underground part, Galaxy managed to do a lot with "Space" and Sunshine with "Beach Vacation". I think the main thing I'd worry about is if the collectables are closer to Oydessy, where there's SO many that a lot of them are sorta whatever or hit this one thing. Hard to say if it's like that again, or closer to Mario 64/Sunshine etc. And since it's just DK seemingly, I don't see needing to do some **** 5 times over.
The lack of loose theming, we'll have to see about, obviously. But then again, I like Prime 1 A LOT and it had VERY traditional themes to its levels. We know there's a beach area and an ice level. DKC 1 was pretty down to earth. But DKC 2 was more fantastical. Then everything after that felt like a mix of that, IMO.
I imagine that the "puzzles" ARE figuring out ways to bypass with his skill set. But I get why that might be a concern. Maybe certain areas will be harder to break through? But like I said, it could be a problem if it homogenizes