Yooka-Laylee Review
A revival of not-so-recent times
The nostalgia effect has never been as prominent as it’s been in recent history — we presently live in an era where countless remasters and revivals have been released to varying degrees of success. While many of us have wondered whether we’d ever see some of our favourites brought back to life, Banjo-Kazooie fans have known for some time now that they’ll likely never see another entry in that series again; rather, they’d be getting the game’s “spiritual successor” in Yooka-Laylee, as defined by developer Playtonic Games. Given that the developer’s founding members worked on the original Banjo games nearly 20 years ago, it’s safe to say that both fans and intrigued Kickstarter backers had every reason to feel hopeful about this “Rare Revival”.
The game follows the adventures of the adorable lizard and bat duo of Yooka and Laylee, who are seeking to reclaim their magical book from the wicked corporate president known as Capital B. The journey takes them through the game’s hub area, Hivory Towers, along with five expandable book worlds, in search of the book’s missing golden pages, called Pagies. With enough Pagies in hand, the pair are able to ascend to Capital B’s office for a final showdown; a process that felt quite identical to the Banjo games.
Even as a longtime fan, it surprised me to see just how similar the odd pair of Yooka and Laylee were to the classic bird and bear duo of Banjo and Kazooie. Laylee provides many classic quips and snarky remarks that serve as the gateway for Yooka to become the voice of reason. Generally speaking, the game is filled with all sorts of the kind of humour you’d expect to find in a Banjo game, if not a little more subtly adult-oriented, which made for some brief hilarious moments.
Yooka-Laylee follows many traditions from its “spiritual ancestors”, including having a primary focus on collectables. Pagies are the equivalent of Jiggies (or jigsaw pieces, for anyone who’s not Banjo-literate), and are almost always earned by overcoming a challenge or solving a puzzle; Quills have taken the place of Notes, used as a form of currency that allows Yooka and Laylee to learn new moves to take advantage of. While platforming unfortunately appears to have taken a backseat to this collection process, there are a still a fair number of situations in which the two are blended quite beautifully.
Speaking of beauty, Yooka-Laylee has no shortage of impressive visuals to marvel at. Despite feeling so much like a 90s platformer, it looked every bit the part of today’s generation. The lighting and shading throughout the game did a fantastic job of capturing each of the five worlds’ different atmospheres, and googly eyes have never looked, well, googlier; they’re also highly complimented by a fantastic soundtrack by well-known Banjo composer Grant Kirkhope. Regrettably, though, there wasn’t a terrific variety of character models to be seen. There are mostly only ever a couple of varieties of enemies to be seen in each world, with no real world-exclusive enemies outside of the bosses themselves, who didn’t exactly impress with their designs.
Unfortunately, the beauty within each book world is quickly undone after the visual awe begins to fade. For a start, each world bears a rather unoriginal theme that at times felt far too similar to that of the Banjo games. While this was occasionally good for nostalgia’s sake, it didn’t lend well to the idea that Yooka-Laylee should simultaneously feel like its own game while reminding fans of the Banjo titles. These worlds also appear to have been stretched quite thin, where impressively large landscapes felt a little too confusing to effectively navigate, especially when players take advantage of the option to expand them individually at the cost of a few extra Pagies.
It remained entirely obvious throughout my playing experience that Yooka-Laylee was designed to look and feel every bit like a Banjo game, which unfortunately saw several of the original 1990s platformers’ flawed mechanics re-introduced in 2017. The game’s camera proved to be a scathing issue on more than several occasions, easily catching on walls and other solid objects and obstructing the player’s entire view from time to time. This not only over-complicated certain platforming experiences, but also served to make the game feel generally more difficult that it actually was. While flying was more of a pain than ever, the swimming mechanics surprisingly felt a lot more polished than those remembers from the Banjo games, particularly with the added Bubble Buddy feature that allows Yooka to walk, run and jump normally while underwater.
While most mini-games didn’t tend to fall short of the mark, the minecart challenges were little more than insufferable. A combination of jagged movement, poor cannonball recovery times and rather unreliable jumping mechanics all made for a very unforgettable experience. This would likely have been an easier issue to swallow if it wasn’t completely necessary for facing one of the world’s bosses.
Outside of any mechanical faults, Yooka-Laylee’s deceptively difficult moments were quite well met. The puzzles that were laid out in both the hub world and each book world ranged from the painfully simple to the oddly complex, with a few unpleasant fetch-quests on the side. Most puzzles made good use of the moves learned throughout the game, and each platforming section provided enough of a natural challenge to warrant the attention, unless of course the player chooses to forgo the challenge entirely by using Flappy Flight to soar over any obstacles. With that said, each move was tactfully measured by a power bar, so thankfully not every situation was over-simplified at the push of a button.
With that in mind, it would have been far better to see more difficult arise from facing each of the game’s various bosses. As with any classic platformer boss fight, Yooka-Laylee’s battles were almost solely dictated by how quickly the player could recognise each enemy’s rather predictable fight pattern. While the level of difficulty certainly grew with each passing book world, right up until an annoyingly tough final boss, they still left me wanting a lot more from each encounter.
Above all else, what Yooka-Laylee does both right and wrong is that it sticks to the blueprints of its spiritual ancestors. It shares the Banjo series’ successes and flaws, carries the same wit and humour, and attempts to deliver an equally memorable adventure. It also delivers its share of new features and mechanics, all of which vary rather equally from hits to misses. Whether a player is keen to go through the struggle of finding every collectible in the game, or bypass all the extras in order to strive for a roughly 20-hour finish time, this is certainly the kind of game that makes for a mostly-enjoyable trip down memory lane.
Our verdict:
Yooka-Laylee almost perfectly follows Banjo-Kazooie’s legacy, even to a fault. While those who are unfamiliar with the Banjo games may find that the spiritual successor feels a little too outdated, longtime fans should certainly get their money’s worth.
