Yooka-Laylee
Collect-a-thon
1 Player
System: PS4
Developer: Playtronic Games
Year of Release: 2017
Beaten: April 23rd, 2017
Huh, I really thought I wrote this already. That's weird, and more proof every day I'm waking up in yet another alternate universe. Yooka-Laylee is one of those kickstarter darlings, with promises of returning to the glory days of Banjo-Kazooie it didn't take long to be fully funded. A few years later, and Yooka-Laylee is released to.... an incredibly mixed consumer base.
A ton of people seemed to dump all over Yooka-Laylee. As a massive fan of Banjo-Kazooie and that whole genre of game, I had already pre-ordered the game and it arrived on release day. I don't often binge through games anymore, and... I didn't for Yooka-Laylee. I still managed to beat it quickly, mainly because when I did sit down and play it I played through massive chunks at once. The game was drawing me in, but not in the all consuming manner I was kind of expecting.
Yooka-Laylee is set up very similarly to Banjo-Kazooie, there's a hub world you crawl through unlocking levels as you go with new abilities opening up new areas. Levels are set up in a very similar manner too, find, or complete challenges until you have all the collectibles and then move on. Personally for me, this style of gameplay works very well. Exploring these levels and finding everything held up on it's own.
There's a strange quirk to Yooka-Laylee though. Instead of just unlocking levels, you need to expand them as well. Basically, at first a level will only allow a fraction of itself to be available to you, including locking off collectibles. This is a little odd, but it's really easy to just instantly expand levels immediately if you collect as many pagies (the main collectible) as you can. While the developers put this in here so as to ease players into each new world, it's really unnecessary and I can see it putting off more players than helping enrich their experiences.
Controlling Yooka-Laylee is a joy, the only real problem was sometimes while rolling around I would get stuck or just fuck up and miss a turn. All the moves you unlock make sense and aren't all direct rip-offs of Banjo-Kazooie's repertoire. This game includes a stamina gauge which is odd. It makes sense so as to limit your abilities, but it ultimately just slows things down and recharges on it's own anyway. By the end of the game this is a negligible problem, but I'm not a huge fan.
Now, I do have several other problems with the game. Strangely one of my major issues is with the transformations. Compared to it's spiritual predecessor the transformations all feel really lacking. Maybe it's just personal taste, but they felt kind of shoved in there just because they had been in those earlier games. Similarly all of the NPCs don't feel right. In Banjo-Kazooie there was a rhyme and a reason to most of the nonsensical characters, almost always they were some kind of anthropomorphic animal, and when they weren't it just felt kind of quirky but still appropriate. In Yooka-Laylee it feels like there is no pattern whatsoever to the characters. The ability selling snake feels like he fits, and the main enemies do too. But the retro dinosaur, the octopus lady, the shopping cart people, hell, Kartos feels like he's in there just for the initial God of War joke. Neither of these factors affect the gameplay experience very much, but they really did bother me the most.
The levels are a little lackluster too. While I was playing through the game I was enjoying my time more than anything, but in the back of my mind there were always some doubts. I cannot deny how overly large and kind of empty most of the levels felt. Aesthetically they all look great, but that sense of emptiness can be felt in every single one of them. That hollowness can also be found in some of the challenges, specifically I hated the kart sections, they weren't very fun and they originated in Donkey Kong Country. So why are they there? Some other challenges were kind of frustrating, but really nothing tripped me up for too long. In the worst case scenarios there were always some other points of interest I could explore to take a break.
At the end of the day Yooka-Laylee delivers precisely what they promised. I really do not understand all the hate, or claims of mediocrity being thrown at the game. I guess a lot of people really just don't like this style of game. Maybe I'm biased, but I really love these games. I've been yearning for Banjo-Threeie for so many years. And now with Yooka-Laylee, I'm still waiting. Don't get me wrong. I think Yooka-Laylee is an excellent game. There's so much negativity surrounding this game I feel a little recommending whole heartedly, but I honestly think it's a wonderful time, well worth picking up for fans of the genre, and people interested in the concept. Though, I'd suggest playing through the Banjo games first. Those are timeless classics. Here's hoping Yooka brings in at least a small wave of new games playing with this genre. Already there are at least a couple of other games I'm keeping my eye on.
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