I really did not enjoy this game. I couldn't care less that it's dissimilar to the RPG's. But it's just not a great adventure platformer. Let me start with the positives. While I don't think it was anything crazy, I enjoyed the story fine enough. Most of the writing was at least entertaining, but it has a weird amount of drama that feels half-baked. The music was pretty good, and there was a lot of creativity to the visuals. So here's where the problems start. The game is just REALLY boring. The game gives you MANY mechanics to work with but they are rarely used in an interesting way. Pretty much every puzzle is just "Swap into 3d" or "change into a different character/pixl." The game doesn't combine or telegraph these abilities very well. There were MANY occasions where the solution was to switch to 3d, and the only telegraph was that you were stuck. But often, you wouldn't even realize you WERE stuck until you reached a locked door, and then you have to backtrack randomly trying the 3d ability. Even if you figure it out, it's not satisfying to realize that the solution to the "puzzle" is just to change your ability. On top of that, the pacing is all over the place and extremely bloated. Every chapter is interrupted by a drawn-out bit where you go wander into a different part of town to unlock the next chapter. They aren't fun or creative, they just waste time. Bosses are also extremely easy or monotonous. The quality can vary by chapter to chapter.
Chapter 1: It's fun enough, mostly just a tutorial.
Chapter 2: This one sucks. it's tedious and FULL of places where the solution is not telegraphed at all.
Chapter 3: A decent chapter. Has a good amount of variety to it, and was more entertaining than I expected.
Chapter 4: Actually fun. It has many of the same issues as before, but there's a decent schmup segment and the platforming is generally more enjoyable here.
Chapter 5: Tedious and drawn out.
Chapter 6: Terrible. It's really just fighting the same few enemies over and over and then walking in a long hallway for a few minutes.
Chapter 7: Also pretty bad. It has many bits where it just wastes your time for no reason, and has a bit where you need to navigate through several near-identical cloud areas to find specific items. Very tedious.
Chapter 8: Very long and drawn out, exemplifying every issue the game has. It feels padded, it has simple and unintuitive puzzles, the bosses are boring, everything.

In short, this game is not fun. I'm not the biggest fan of TTYD, but boy does that game blow this out of the water.

Few games are hampered by their own ambition the way this one is.

The worlds of Banjo-Tooie are massive yet mostly empty. The open world approach simply does not fit the Banjo series, which benefited much more from compact, meaningful levels wherein everything serves a purpose, like in the previous game. Trekking through these massive landscapes, switching between characters and effecting elements in future levels only to come back can feel extremely tedious. I do not recommend playing this game to 100% at all.

The abundance of new moves for the iconic duo, new gameplay styles and new boss fights are all fine ideas on paper, but the game bounces back and forth between ideas far too often for anything to leave an impression. Very little in this game feels polished or inspired, instead opting to throw every idea at the wall and see what sticks.

I can play the original Banjo-Kazooie to 100% anytime, anywhere, and I remember so much from that game, yet so little from this one. I think the overall experience would have been much stronger if some ideas were cut and the levels were shortened.

With that said, the game is still enjoyable up to a point. Many of the levels, while huge and unfocused, still provide fun objectives from time to time. The game will make you work very hard for many of those golden puzzle pieces, but they can be very satisfying to collect for those willing to spend the time.

Altogether, I can still recommend this game for a casual playthrough, but it would have benefitted greatly from keeping its ambition in check.

A Short Hike finds a way to make hiking actually fun. The experience was uniquely immersive and had a wide range of ways to keep me interested. Hawk peak is portrayed beautifully and the game looks amazing. I also love the character designs. It obviously took a lot of inspiration from Animal Crossing in that regard. The game also just feels like if you took animal crossing and made it into a sandbox exploration game. Going around meeting and helping everyone just feels great and probably is the best part of the game. If I were to nitpick, I would say the fishing is just okay. Other games do it much better and are more suited for it. It feels a bit out of place here but for players who haven’t played stardew or AC its good. The movement complements the environment perfectly and feels very empowering by the time you get all the golden feathers. I think it works great for this game, but I think it would need a bit more options if it were a full-length game. The dynamic music as you go from trail to trail was super enhancing and added to the fun of exploration. Speaking of exploration, this game kills it in that regard. It gives the player complete freedom to play the game in any way or order they’d like. Pretty much everything is on the table. The game maximizes everything that it has and is satisfied doing just that. It doesn’t try to be anything more than a short, but oh so sweet, game.