But don't, because once you master Snake Pass's intriguing arrangement of inputs, it becomes a wonderfully relaxed, take-your-time experience, and somehow "easy" feels like a cheat towards achieving that. You can switch to "easy" controls in the options, which maps all movement to the left stick. Then, Noodle's right is no longer Noodle's right, it's ours, unlike the old Micro Machines control scheme of a direction remaining correct from the controlled character's perspective, not the player's.
![xbox one screen snake xbox one screen snake](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71xIJkYYP-L._AC_SX466_.jpg)
It's entirely unintuitive at first, especially when Noodle-who can't drown, we're reassured by a loading screen message (but he can fall from any of the game's floating islands, putting him back to the previous activated, fairly generously spaced checkpoint)-flips around to face the player, sliding into the screen. Related on Waypoint: 'Yooka-Laylee' Is a Game Out of Time, for Better or Worse Snake Pass's is this singular slither, entirely unlike any other means of traversal I've ever (memorably) experienced. Grow Home's was the individual control of its robot B.U.D.'s hands, to grip onto and climb a massive beanstalk. In that sense, Snake Pass is reminiscent of Ubisoft's Grow Home, another small, cute-looking game that served to essentially showcase, or trial, a novel mechanic born from closed-doors playing around. This control scheme was born from an internal game jam, where one of Sumo's staffers was playing around with rope physics, and a piece of it fell to the ground but remained controllable-I'm paraphrasing from sketchy memory here, based on what someone from the studio told me at a preview session a few weeks ago. Simply holding the trigger won't move the game's starring reptile, Noodle, very fast at all and it's only through stick, trigger and face button harmony-"A" on the Switch raises Noodle's head, allowing him to climb bamboo frames and access higher parts of each level-that meaningful, deliberate progress can be achieved.
![xbox one screen snake xbox one screen snake](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/SnakePass_03.jpg)
![xbox one screen snake xbox one screen snake](https://static-ca.gamestop.ca/images/products/754726/5scrmax1.jpg)
Thinking like a snake, in this instance, means slithering to move from A to B and beyond, which in the game requires holding the right trigger button (ZR on the tested Switch version, though I've also played on Xbox One) and nudging the left stick back and forth, right to left, to commence the wiggling, writhing momentum-maintaining an "S" shape represents the best way forward. All Snake Pass screenshots courtesy of Sumo Digital.