For those curious, here's what I've played for Backlaugust:
Anodyne
I bought this when it was on sale for 99 cents because it appeared to be inspired by The Legend of Zelda games. The 8-bit style feels more in line with Game Boy games than NES for a few reasons, including that characters are made up of few pixels and the tile grids are fairly small, sometimes causing rooms to feel a little cramped. The adventure is more bite-sized too, as throughout it the boy only ever gains two tools, leaving most progression gated by keys and switches. There's some decent exploration as the game opens up, but combat and puzzles usually remain pretty simple. The story and world lean towards the more drab and abstract side. I know there's symbolism in here, but as far as I can figure out, there's no cohesive whole or meaning to the plot else than what's already implied by the game's title: a drug-induced trip, fighting manifestations of the kid's issues, thoughts, and feelings.
Overall, simple isn't bad, so it was decent enough for the price. I noticed there's a sequel though, and I'm not sure I'd play it unless it offers more variety.
Scored: 6.5/10
Bouncy Bob
I'm pretty sure I got this for 1 cent, and it shows. It's like a terrible version of Joust, and Joust is already not very good. I'm guessing it's a port of a mobile game, as the control is simply using the A button to jump. Holding it not only jumps farther, but brings up an arrow that tilts back and fourth as its means of moving left or right, making for an annoyingly little amount of control. It's a high-score game where the goal is to defeat as many enemies as possible in one life, and achieving a certain score will unlock the next awful arena, each one likely inspired by someone's vision of purgatory. Unfortunately, it was the final game I played so I rounded out Backlaugust with a real stinker that's easily the worst of the bunch, but c'est la vie.
Scored: 2/10
EQQO
Ummmm this might be another freebie or maybe it was a few cents. It's a short little point-'n-click style adventure game about a blind boy and a god egg, as told by his mother who can (as the player's perspective) direct him and interact with the environment. The puzzles mainly involve hitting switches and figuring how to get the boy carrying the egg to the next area / room, but they remain pretty simple throughout and never get very challenging. There are sometimes shadow creatures that try to swipe the egg during the times when the boy needs to slip through gates by himself to open the path forward, providing a bit of tension to more quickly get the switches in order and throwing things at them to delay them. The story itself is decent and the voice acting of the narration is well done. Overall, not a bad little game, but not particularly satisfying as a point-'n-click goes.
Scored: 6.5/10
Journey of the Broken Circle
I'm pretty sure I got this one for free from owning one of the publisher's other games. It's a simple little platformer about a circle searching for its missing piece, which as you've probably guessed, is an obvious allegory for relationships. The characters met along the way are placed into the slot and have an ability, which helps add some variety to the levels, but it's never very challenging else when the physics get a bit wonky. The story it tells is decent and is probably relatable to a lot of people, but I felt the writing is a bit too matter-of-fact and didn't have enough subtlety. The graphics are too minimalistic for my tastes. It isn't a bad game, but not really my kinda thing.
Scored: 5/10
Trine
I got the collection on Switch back in a holiday sale, but never got around to them until now. We tackled it in 3-player co-op, which appears to be the way these games are meant to be played. It's certainly a hoot in that setting, figuring out the best ways to cooperate which often just means not getting into each other's way. As a physics-based platformer there's plenty of ways for things to go hilariously wrong, though I could see this game being a bit of a pain in single player with some of the (unintended?) weird physics quirks. The abilities and level design feel largely rudimentary, so my hope is that the sequels expanded on these aspects. The graphics are pretty good and nicely-detailed, though it feels a little drab for an enchanted magical fantasy. We may play through one or more of the other games before the end of August, as well.
Scored: 7.5/10
Tumblestone
I remember being interested in this when I heard about it way back on the Wii U, but never pulled the trigger until it hit $1.99 on Switch. Unlike most match-3 puzzlers, this one isn't action-based, with instead having the goal of clearing the play field of all blocks; it's a nice change of pace. The story mode is surprising lengthy, I wonder if too much, though it does introduce a new obstacle or gameplay wrinkle in each world to shake things up and try to keep them fresh. The story itself is simple and mostly nonsensical, but was sometimes worth a laugh just from being incredibly stupid. I noticed that the Wii U version had online play, but the Switch one doesn't; seems like an odd exclusion, but I doubt I would have tried it anyway.
Scored: 8/10
The Way Remastered
This is made as an homage to PC side-scrolling adventure games of the 90s. With the "remastered" in the title, I actually wondered if it were an old PC game brought back until I looked it up after finishing it, which I s'pose is high praise for what they attempted to achieve. It takes a while for the protagonist to gain some abilities, but once the game reaches that point it provides some nice puzzle challenges. I felt like it ended right before everything came together for one last elaborate puzzle that utilized all abilities to their fullest, though. The platforming sections can quickly be a pain due to the stiff controls and the man's weak knees, being unable to survive more than a five foot drop, but fortunately there are frequent checkpoints. The story is simple but decent. Overall, it seems like a good throwback, but probably not really my kind of thing.
Scored: 6/10
Yoku's Island Express
Its mix of platforming and pinball mechanics works pretty well, and I like that it focuses mainly on exploration and discovery without having to worry about survival. The world feels thoughtfully designed and there's some wonderful and varied artwork in the various different sections of the island. With that said, the game shows some cracks at times during backtracking, since certain sections can be a pain to go through multiple times. Playing out the main adventure was definitely the best experience, while tracking down all collectibles wasn't always fun, and I ended with looking up how to nab the last few goodies. Overall, I enjoyed the game, but I can't help but wonder if I would have preferred it as a linear level-based platformer...
Scored: 8.5/10
Yooka-Laylee
This was one of the first games I had started playing on Xbox Game Pass, so it was before I was familiar with the way it handles games leaving the service. I had collected around half of the game's goodies, and luckily it was in this month's second batch of Gold games, so I decided to pick up where I left off and bring it home.
With all of the complaints and negative reactions I'd seen for this title, I went into it with pretty low expectations, which probably ended up working out for me. Overall, I ended up enjoying the game as a throwback N64 platformer, and while I probably wouldn't argue against the first world being the best and most-realised, I felt the second and third ones were quite good as well. The fourth and fifth start to fall apart a bit, particularly the fifth where it's tough to keep track of everything without notable landmarks, but they still have their moments. There's a nice variety of activities throughout the worlds to keep things interesting, utilising many of the duo's moves in one form or another. The best part was when first starting out in a world, as I could explore it in any direction and there was lots to discover and see. Things did start to feel a bit of a pain when it came down to there being only a few collectibles left in a huge world, with no real indication of where to look; the first world is the only one I completed on me own, the rest I looked up a video to locate the last few goodies. However, I can't think of a solution to this problem which doesn't ruin the spirit of the game.
With that said, I don't think the game lives up to the Banjo-Kazooie pedigree, and it wasn't unrealistic for people to expect as much given it's many of the same people. It feels more like an evolution of Banjo-Tooie, which I personally loved but I know most BK fans didn't, which I actually find kind of surprising. I would have thought the devs would also know what fans like about the original over the sequel, and instead of these huge sprawling worlds of YL, they'd design smaller compact worlds like those in BK. The game doesn't have the same charm either; there aren't enough unique visual landmarks in most worlds and characters are very stiff and non-expressive. I guess this is the problem with the devs not continuing to make platformers in the years between BK and now, and didn't hone their craft.
I s'pose that leaves me with some mixed feelings; I feel it failed as a Banjo-Kazooie successor, but still succeeds as an N64 throwback platformer in general. Since I knew it was going to do the former, I could still enjoy it as the latter.
Scored: 8.5/10
I was thinking about it, and perhaps I'll also count Quake as a completed game as well. Technically I've played a version of this game on the Nintendo 64, but I've never played the PC version, which is the newest release. We not only played the main game in co-op, but also the included expansions as well, though I won't be counting those as separate games. What a wild 'n crazy game, these classic shooters are certainly something else!
Scored: 9/10