Yooka-Laylee (2017)

The first Yooka-Laylee entry is a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, created by former Rare developers, and it clearly aims to revive the late-’90s 3D platformer formula. The game succeeds in delivering a colorful, charming world full of quirky characters, lighthearted humor, and a nostalgic collectathon experience. Its bright visuals, varied level designs, and catchy soundtrack capture much of the playful atmosphere that fans of the genre love. And although I'm not a big fan of collectathons, particularly I prefer regular 3D platformers, I still play some of these, from time to time.

There’s also a lot of content to explore, with expansive worlds and plenty of hidden items if you enjoy hunting for secrets. However, the game also inherits many of the flaws of its inspirations. The camera and controls are often frustrating, making platforming less precise than it should be. Navigation can feel clunky due to confusing level layouts and the lack of helpful tools like a map, which turns exploration into wandering at times. And this is very unfortunately since this was supposed to be a modernized version of the classics of the same genre, all these elements should have been improved.

Some challenges and boss encounters feel dated or poorly balanced, showing rough edges in design and pacing. While the game’s retro charm appeals to nostalgic people, modern audiences may find these issues more irritating than endearing. Overall, this title delivers on its promise of reviving the classic 3D platformer, but it does so with a mix of charm and frustration. For those who grew up with games like Banjo-Kazooie, it’s a heartfelt throwback worth experiencing despite its flaws. For those expecting a polished, modern platformer, however, the game may feel too dated and uneven.

I didn't care much for the sequel but this first game in the series is just bad.

Constant interruptions early on, annoying conversations you have to manually speed up and, wow, Yooka has the turn rate of a fighter jet. I honestly struggled to get up the ship at the beginning because of this and the awful camera. Even at the highest sensitivity it is bad. And instead of a clear and simple level selection system you have to walk around and find stuff? Awful

Gameplay: 2.5/5 Story: 2.5/5 Presentation: 3.5/5

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

The game as far as platformers go was not that well made. A lot of the controls were very clunky the shooting and "flying" in particular were quite frustrating. I do like a challenge and a difficult game, but when that difficulty comes from the lack of well-developed controls I get frustrated. Also, I know the cart levels were supposed to be challenging, but because of one, in particular, took me so many tries that my real motivation to beat it was the rage. The "boss" quiz was a joke, but I don't know if it was an actual joke. I hated that it was in there more than once.

As far as the story goes there is a villain who scatters something important to you are a bunch of different worlds and you have to go collect stuff to beat him up. Pretty standard for a kids platforming game that tries to pull from the N64 era. It confused me at times if the audience for this game is supposed to be kids though? There were times where dialogue is used that I know as a 10-12 year old I would have no idea what they are talking about. Now being older a majority of the humor falls flat.

What they did well was the art design and animation. The main characters could have looked a bit smoother and had more personality, but the other characters nailed it. The "mini" bosses looked cool and the environments were each unique and gave you lots to find and experience.

For fans of good platformers, you can skip this one. I would buy it as cheap as possible and probably for a 6-9-year-old because they don't really care what games they get yet.

I just finished up Yooka Laylee. I was expecting it to be so-so, but I actually really liked it. They set out to create a modern day Banjo Kazooie and I think they nailed it. If you aren’t a fan of that game or the genre, then you won’t like this.

I was waiting forever for a physical copy of the game on a Nintendo console (thanks Limited Run Games), as it seemed sacrilegious to play a Banjo clone any other way. Luckily, this meant the version of the game I played had all the kinks worked out, a solid camera and some added quality of life options.

I know I am in the minority, but I may even prefer this game to Mario Odyssey. Sure, it doesn’t have first party Nintendo polish, but I think it has a lot more character. Plus, I think Mario Odyssey had way too many moons, many of which were annoyingly trivial to get. I felt like I earned each pagie in Yooka Laylee.

The only thing I did not like was the boss fight. It was way too hard with no health pickups. It took me 3 hours and a lot of rage to get through. Overall, I really enjoyed the game, and may try to 100% it over time.