I was so happy to back Yooka-Laylee back in 2015. I was an N64 kid and had super fond memories of Banjo Kazooie and 3D platformers in general (including Glover, Chameleon Twist, and Gex, even though I didn't know who any of the celebrities Gex talked about were), and all of the initial concept work for Yooka-Laylee looked fantastic. The character design was charming and unique. That cheeky British humor was front and center. There was lots of platforming promised. I was so excited.
The game came out in April and I played about 3 hours. It just didn't click for some reason. I played bits of the first and second worlds and I thought there was potential there, but it was a bit rough. I dropped it and haven't gone back to it. Fast forward to today, and Mario Odyssey put me in a 3D platformer mood. I picked up YL again and loaded up in a quiz show area. I immediately shut it off.
Sometimes you get that nagging feeling that you're missing something though, so I turned it on again on Thanksgiving and I could not put it down. I powered through the quiz and went back to worlds 1 and 2...and ended up playing through 4 and 5 as well. Some of the little quirks that had bothered me previously-- the slow-crawling voice text most notably-- had been fixed with a patch and I was really chugging along having fun!
My observations:
The game came out in April and I played about 3 hours. It just didn't click for some reason. I played bits of the first and second worlds and I thought there was potential there, but it was a bit rough. I dropped it and haven't gone back to it. Fast forward to today, and Mario Odyssey put me in a 3D platformer mood. I picked up YL again and loaded up in a quiz show area. I immediately shut it off.
Sometimes you get that nagging feeling that you're missing something though, so I turned it on again on Thanksgiving and I could not put it down. I powered through the quiz and went back to worlds 1 and 2...and ended up playing through 4 and 5 as well. Some of the little quirks that had bothered me previously-- the slow-crawling voice text most notably-- had been fixed with a patch and I was really chugging along having fun!
My observations:
- The most common complaint I read in reviews (and I at least initially agreed with) was that the game did not effectively use Quills to mark areas of interest for the player. When coupled with the size of the levels, it felt very hard to learn how any of the levels worked and exploration felt difficult because of how easily you could get lost. Well, for World 3, I decided just to follow the Quills and see what I would find. JUST following those, I got 17 of 25 Pagies on my first go. So maybe I misinterpreted the size of the levels as a lack of guidance. They really do work to make the levels more memorable.
- Generally speaking, I find the design to be pretty good. The first level is probably the best, which is unfortunate since it means the game fizzles out over time. The levels really have so much to do in them. There's a ton to explore and a fair bit of puzzle challenge thrown in here and there. It is an interesting mix of BK and BT-- YL's big thing is that you can "expand" a world once you unlock it by paying Pagies. This makes the worlds even larger. I think, if you want, you can explore the "smaller" world at first and it feels more like BK. Once you learn the levels a bit, you can expand and you get a level more like BT. However, I will note you never end up backtracking through vast expanses of empty space like BT...so that's a plus.
- There is a LOT of actual platforming in the game, far more than legacy Rare platformers. It is fantastic. There is some stuff in here that made me happy even after playing SMO.
- The visuals and audio are mostly fantastic, though the game can feel inconsistent. Playtonic absolutely nailed the "You got a Pagie" jingle, my god. It's so good. Every piece in the game except for the Hivory Towers piece is great (that one is just annoying, honestly-- it hurts to listen to it because it's too brass heavy), memorable, and really sets the stage. The game can look really beautiful, though there are pieces that just look sort of unfinished (the swamp water texture, the interior of some of the monuments...).
- The music is dynamic omg.
- I like that some of the trappings of 3D adventure games from the N64 era were maintained, including the fade out / fade in effect when you enter a new room. It allows the developers to play with space in a way that wouldn't otherwise work. A tiny building on the outside can be massive once you step into it.
- The camera mostly works for me. I think it was patched. I'll say that I have never really had issues with the camera in any game. You kind of just adapt. Notorious camera games like Psychonauts and Super Mario Sunshine were never that bad for me. Just watch it when you need to and adjust. I'm used to playing games like Croc and stuff though so you just have to work with it. It's certainly not the worst camera in a platformer. Not a ringing endorsement but I really think the complaint is overblown. I didn't die because of the camera ever.
- The controls could be tighter. 30 fps was a mistake too. They make the game feel sluggish at times. Yooka moves pretty loosely, which feels a lot like the old Rare games (I think I read something once on European-developed platformers vs. Japanese...but not sure if that thesis actually holds true). I think they should have targeted 60 fps on all platforms. The PC version looks so much more fluid and I wish I could play that.
- The casino level just really blows.
- Playtonic bit off a bit more than they could chew I think. Every level has a ton of pagies, transformations, minigames, etc. And aside from the core platforming, it's not always great. The Retro minigames are universally bad and boring. The minecart minigames are fun at first but just drag on way too long in places and get WAY too hard. The minecart in the Casino level is really hard and then has a dreadful, terrible boss tacked onto the end of it.
- The boss fights in general are lackluster. They feel glitchy in places and remind you that the controls could be tighter.
- The hub world is a huge mistake. It's too big. They had to patch in signs that tell you where the levels are...which, honestly, is a huge help. There needed to be more short cuts looping the world together. I think something more BK sized would have been appropriate. This is just a slog.
- The quiz show is not fun.
- The characters yapping endlessly gets old really fast. And just because you make fun of something in your game doesn't mean it can be excused. Why is Laylee joking that she fell asleep during a character talking? Just have that character talk faster. It's unfortunate because SOME of the jokes actually ARE funny, but you might miss them in between the droning on and on...
- There are no unique characters in each level. It's the same squad of Bad Art™ characters in every level. The pigs. Dr. Puss. Clara the skeleton who is a skeleton because she is a skeleton. Lots of reviewers have said they just kind of sit there and don't react to you at all (or anything you do in the world), and that's true. And bad. They needed to come up with characters that fit every world or at least THEME the characters for each world. Throw a Santa hat on the pigs in the snow level for chrissakes.
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