Yooka-Laylee is a 3D action-platformer title for PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC, which was developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17. It is spiritual successor to N64 classics such as Banjo-Kazooie series as we all know this game was created by the group of former team personnel from Rare.
Back in my good old days of gaming in 90s, I remember playing Banjo-Kazooie on N64 for first time when bought it out from rental stores to see if the game are any just good as the Nintendo's 3D platforming mastermind title like Super Mario 64.
The answer is it's pretty solid 3D platformer with various of platforming and exploration such as collecting all items, puzzle solving, jumping over obstacles, and defeating bosses which is why it garnered acclaim reception from gaming media praised for the visuals, soundtrack, characters, writing, humour, and level design.
It also received numerous year-end accolades including two from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, and sold over 3 million copies making it the 10th bestselling Nintendo 64 games.
It also spawned a series which includes two sequels such as Banjo-Tooie (2000) and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (2008), and two spin-offs such as Grunty's Revenge (2003) and Banjo-Pilot (2005).
Banjo and Kazooie are highly being recognised as the best video game duo, which they made their appearances in later crossover titles such as SEGA's All-Stars Racing series and Nintendo's Super Smash Bros series as a playable guests.
Since after the former employees had left Rare, they began to form their own video game development companies called Playtonic Games to create their project titled as "Project Ukulele", which was described as a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie.
They had launched Kickstarter campaign that attracted significant media coverage and raised a record-breaking sum of over £2 million.
Yooka-Laylee has finally released in 2017 which had received mixed reception with critics divided on whether the predecessors was fair enough to make it a successful game, or whether it was purely trying to capitalize on nostalgia.
Despite the mixed overall from the first game, it was followed by the sequel called Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair was released 2 years after with more positive reception than the predecessor.
So I began to pick up a copy of the first game for PS4 to see whether if the game aren't as bad as many says or is it just a pure waste of time? depending on how the presentation and gameplay still manage to holds up to today standards.
I really liked the looks of the titular duos that attracted my attention to play it on my modern console, but the question is are these still worth to play which is why I am here to review this game to make my final opinion.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game took place in outside of Hivory Towers where the corporation headquarters was owned by evil CEOs named Capital B had began to activate the machine, invented by his scientist assistant Dr. Quack, and sucked up many old-fashoned books including magical book that belongs to Laylee had scattered and drops all the golden pages around the worlds, as Yooka and Laylee went on their quest to retrieve a magical book from an evil corporation.
The story as a whole is somewhat pretty interesting. It involves a greedy corporate just went after the book that has the power to rewrite the universe which is why you have the duos went on their quest to gather all missing golden pages that are being lost somewhere in overworld.
Those golden pages from the magical book are worth lot of money which is the reason why Laylee, deciding to sell it for a large portion of profit, get Yooka to help her after it before it's too late if the corporate had manage to gather all the stuff they needed.
Yeah it's basically like these typical rich assholes trying to steal everyone's valuable items that are worth of millions, which I can understand why Laylee's reasoning to keep magical book safe with her, so that no one like Capital B will putting his hands on her valuable stuff.
The conversation between the characters during the cutscenes does share with amazing sense of humour and made funny one-liners that really adds the game's comedy, which are just as entertaining as you see from Banjo-Kazooie on N64.
Aside with simple plot and cool humour, then you have a heroes of duo such as Yooka, a green chameleon who is a easy-going adventurer with chilled attitude and intelligent person, while his purple bat friend Laylee who is energetic and quick-witted person can be wisecracker and cheeky, often getting Yooka into trouble which is why I find these duo quite decent as the two major protagonists.
It also shares with supporting NPCs characters such as Trowzer the red snake that teaches the duo a new abilities, Dr. Puzz the humanoid octopus scientist helps the duo by providing a unique transformation, Kartos the wooden minecart will ask the duo for help to collect a specific amount of gems, Vendi the vending machine will provide the duo with various play-tonics in every world if they complete some optional objectives, and of course most surprising special guest cameos is Shovel Knight as you may know him from the successful kickstarted 2D side-scrolling platform game produced by Yacht Club Games, as he appears asking for help to retrieve a jewel.
Lastly I got to talk about the villains such as Capital B (OH GOD, NOT ANOTHER F***ING BEES IN VIDEO GAMES!!!), a rich capitalist bee who is a CEO of Hivory Towers and desires to turn world's literature into a pure profit to have a monopoly over the book industry. He just like every corrupt businessman loves to ripping people off to increase his profit and he is also cruel and impulsive douchebag really sums up to stereotypical rich businessman.
He also has Dr. Quack, a duck scientist assisting his boss to create inventions as well as supporting Capital B's plans.
He is mentally-unstable, but also highly intelligent worked so hard to satisfy the demands and create inventions for his boss.
The presentation is actually pretty appealing in terms of environmental locations in each worlds.
Stuff like Hivory Towers which is a factory facility filled acts as main HUB world. It filled with lobby, station, archive room filled with libraries, waterworks, toxic and wind tunnel, and office room that belong to Capital B.
Tribalstack Tropics is basically ancient ruins and nature which consists of tall floating islands that have underbrush, waterfall, plant bulbs, huge tower, and numerous of tribal structures.
Glitterglaze Glacier is an icy world filled with ice castles, igloos, ice caves, underwater cave, and of course snowmen.
Moodymaze Marsh is a swamplands filled with muddy and foggy environments that consists of bridges, green fog, and small islands.
Capital Cashino is a casino-themed world with various of casino games such as roulette tables, slot machines, pachinko machines, and card tables.
Galleon Galaxy is a space pirate themed world filled with planets, cosmic cavern, cog station, cabin, and lighthouse.
I really liked how these environmental presentation starting off from bright and colourful themes to some dark and moody settings that gives the game a wonderful throwback vibes to classic N64 game is what makes it quite appealing to look around and see how amazing these levels had design to be look spectacular.
Overall, it has interesting story, great characters, and spectacular presentation design.
Gameplay
You take control of Yooka and Laylee in 3D perspective overworlds, as they must work together to explore the environment, collect items, solve puzzles and defeat enemies as a main goal in the game.
In exploration, you'll be roaming around the levels where you must complete the certain of objectives that I've mentioned above, so if you have completed each of the objectives then you will received golden pagies which you will need these to unlock a new world that require enough pagies to gain access to stuff such as extended world that adds the double size of the environmental stages with a new locations, and also you will able to head onto the next world if the amount of pagies has met the requirements.
There are plenty of quills in many areas that you will collect those, which you will use them to purchase the new abilities, so I will explain it for later on this review.
In gameplay, you will have health bar which indicates the player's health, where as the power bar which represent the player's abilities meter on the left-side corner of the screen.
Pushing the left stick to move, while using the right stick to control the camera system to look around the surrounding in the levels.
Using the cross button to jump, while double tap to perform double jump, then you can crouch by holding the left trigger button, hitting the circle button to use tongue to grab objects or eat stuff, and Yooka can attack enemies nearby with spinning attack by pressing the square button in close range, while tapping it faster will rapidly his spin attack.
The duo can learn a variety of abilities which you will able to meet up and gain moves from Trowzer depending on which types of moves he can give you for free, while others you had to pay these moves if you had enough amount of the quills currencies.
There are numerous of abilities in every worlds such as buddy slam uses as ground pound moves by hitting the left trigger button in mid-air, which uses for breaking objects or hitting ground switches.
Reptile roll allowing them to move much faster and travel up steep hills by holding the right trigger button, while reptile rush allowing them to perform charging move uses to destroy or moving objects and break through glass.
Slurp state allowing them to copy physical properties such as metal turns Yooka into metallic and gain great weight, luminous makes Yooka becoming bright to illuminate dark areas, sticky allowing him to walk on slippery surfaces, battery that allow him to charge lighting symbols on the ground, and fire that makes him firey heat allowing him to light unit torches and melt ice cube which can temporary last in 20 secs.
Slurp shot allowing Yooka to perform various of berries such as scorchberries that allow him to breathe fire, frostberries that shoots out icy projectiles to freeze stuff, splashberries that spits out gallons of water, and of course bomberries acts as grenade weapon to blow out solid objects in these of the berries items which again I've mentioned above can temporary last in 20 secs.
Lizard lash allowing Yooka's tongue as grappling hook to attach to grapple points to reach the high platforms or pulling objects.
Sonar Shot allowing Laylee to fire ring of sound waves which can activate objects or stun enemies, while sonar splosion making Laylee firing a large damaging sound wave that can break glass and ice cubes.
Lizard leap allowing Yooka to perform spring jump with his tail to jump onto unreachable high places, while glide used by Laylee helps Yooka to get across the gaps or land on the ground which lasted for a short time, but you can also use flappy flight used by Laylee helps Yooka to fly even higher above in mid-air to reach a impossible platforms.
Buddy bubble will make duo breathe in underwater with bubbles reduces drowning, camo cloak makes the duo invisible which they can able to avoid being detected by securities as well as refracting the light onto activated switches, and of course sonar shield will protect the duo from harmful hazards and enemy's projectiles.
The exploration in the whole game are quite faithful to its classic N64 platformer where it's heavily focuses on retrieving key items that you will need to complete certain of the task, so that you can use these to gain access to next world.
I also liked having to collect numerous of collectables items such as quills that you may need these to purchase the new moves, pirate treasure is a rare item can be found hidden somewhere in each worlds, ghost writers are the colourful group of ghosts where you had to search them in each worlds, butterfly booster can increase your player's health containers, power extender can extend your player's stamina bar, and mollycool is the atom item which you will need these to hand over to Dr. Puzz so that you can able to transform yourself into the different forms.
Having to earn a new abilities are also cool which I liked the idea of obtaining a new moves that really adds the gameplay element, so my favourite of all is got to be slurp state and slurp shot because I really liked having to use these to not just attacking on enemies, but also destroys objects and activating stuff in many areas just seems to be really interesting for this platforming game.
I also liked the transformation part such as snowplough form which can destroy piles of snow, chopper form is a helicopter which can fire missiles and fly around infinitely, and of course pirate ship form is a ship which can sail around the water and shoot various of landmark materials such as snow, fire, and cannonballs.
While gaining new abilities and focuses on exploration are pretty interesting, but unfortunately what brings the experience down is the gameplay as whole is kind of somewhat pretty outdated which really reliant on old-school assets rather than modernising the stuff to address the issue that was found on original N64 classics.
It suffered with wonky controls which I had a trouble of controlling the duo especially using the abilities like reptile roll which you can accidently fall off the stage while jumping on the obstacles, lizard leap sometimes may not attached properly onto grappling point in mid-air, and flappy flight which I got to say that I really did not like pushing left stick back to descend down which made me accidently hitting the left trigger button that leads me falling down on the ground by mistake and hurt myself, and also I really don't like the camera system in the game which is a huge pain in the ass because its swoops around like crazy when the duo are too close to the camera which blocks the view of the platforming makes it frustrating to play.
I got to say the courses are kinda bit mixed overall because there are some good stuff that I did manage to enjoy, while some of others may not act as friendly due to game's design are trying to capture the same nostalgia of the classic platformer which is totally fine, but it's the game's difficulty as a whole are not suited for newcomers may going to find the game quite tedious to play because some of those courses may have aggravating time limits, some platforming segments are much difficult to get pass through, and some of the puzzles solving are somewhat takes too long to solve problems which the players may going to lose patience, but as a person like me I don't think it's really that bad so there are stuff like tile puzzle, temple shootout, crystal pattern puzzle, Nimble race, Kartos challenge, maze-like area, golf course game, and blow ball game which I have managed to beat it all even though it's taking forever to solve it.
The boss battle is somewhat okay, except the final boss stage which I considered it as the weakest part of the game as opposed to rest of 5 bosses from different worlds are slight acceptable depending on how straightforward the enemy's patterns and weak spot is which unfortunately the final boss is the total opposite that I've mentioned before are ludicrously spineless to play.
Sometime your energy meter bar gets depleted very quickly takes forever to recharge, his weak pattern is way too long to take damage due to poor collisions detection, and it's really hard to avoid projectiles and stage hazards which makes it one of the broken final bosses in any platform game, so thankfully I've managed to beat it which took me about 10 tries to solve it.
I wish the development team should have delay the game to give more time to polish stuff, so that the game itself doesn't cause to stress out the players could have made the game bit playable.
Despite the clunky controls and few tedious challenge takes away the experience, at least the world exploration and having to learn new moves are done fair and square.
Overall, wonky controls and some tedious courses, but fine exploration and abilities.
Graphics
To be fair, the visuals are looking pretty good for the 3D platformer like this because I adored the environmental design in each worlds which I consider it as colourful and bold gives the game a cartoony like presentation much closer to Banjo-Kazooie series.
It has nice use of lighting shades, deep clean textures, and some shiny effects that made the level design looked remarkable as a whole, and I also been grateful of having a wide overworld design giving a much larger portion to its environmental levels which is why I have mentioned earlier about having to unlock a extended world that made the area quite big for 3D platformer.
The character's model is sure looking decent especially with Yooka and Laylee which I find these duo quite just as appealing as the predecessor like Banjo and Kazooie from the original N64 title.
The game could have been done better with the background layouts like from world 1 and 2 are in static images rather than adding a animation effects.
For example: look closely on skies and clouds in world 1 which doesn't seem to be moving at all, same goes with night clouds and moon in world 2 just seems to be lacking the use of animation effects which I can honestly understand the game is supposed to be look simpler, but c'mon guys this is mid-2010s which I was expecting to see the game with even more impressive use of details could have made it quite good on modern PCs and console platform, but so far everything in the whole are still pretty good.
Overall, it has colourful and bold environments, wide overworld design, and decent character's model.
Music and Sounds
The original soundtrack is sounds excellent in entire part of the game which is a great throwback to the classic N64 platformer, so as you can see these are the same composers such as Grant Kirkhope and David Wise, an ex-Rare members had previously worked on classics like Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie, did an remarkable job of capturing the same style as you hear it from the original 3D platforming game from the N64 era.
The sound effects does shares with wacky sound design and some atmospheric noises in some areas, and of course you got to love a silly gibberish dialogue like from the classic game which some of you may or may not like it in the game, but you can sometime change it to short dialogue voice in options menu only if you want too.
Overall, a really has excellent music, wacky sound design, and hilariously fun gibberish voices.
Special Features
The game does share with cool features like Rextro's arcade which is a mini-games are also featured 8 unique multiplayer games in both single and 4-player play. Stuff like Kartos Racing, Glaciators, Bee Bop, Hurdle Hijinx, Up N Nova, Gun-tlet Run, Blag the Flag, and Jobstacle Course which these mini-games are actually fun to play for families and friends can join in and start playing together with simple and easy to learn and play.
Then you have numerous of unlockable play-tonics cheat codes which allows you to select and activate one of the cheat code such as faster regenerate power meter, no fall damage, sensing rare item nearby, more ammunition from berry bushes, longer invisibility move, helium voices, and 64-bit style graphics.
Overall, a stunning in-game features.
Advantages
Spectacular presentation design
Fine exploration and abilities
Good visuals
Excellent music
Stunning in-game features
Disadvantages
Wonky controls
Some tedious courses
Disappointing final boss
Final Verdict
Presentation 8.5/10 - interesting story, great characters, and spectacular presentation design.
Gameplay 6/10 - wonky controls and some tedious courses, but fine exploration and abilities.
Graphics 7/10 - colourful and bold environments, wide overworld design, and decent character's model.
Music and Sounds 8.5/10 - excellent music, wacky sound design, and hilariously fun gibberish voices.
Special Features 8/10 - Rextro's arcade mini-games and Play-Tonics cheat codes.
Overall 6/10 - Yooka-Laylee is actually not that bad, but not definitely the best 3D platformer title for 8th-gen era.
I was expecting the game to be a true worthy successor to beloved N64 classics, but it does share with flaws that kinda drags down the fun factor of the game that may be not going to impress the newcomers due to having an issue with the movement controls and camera system are just makes the platforming part quite uneasy for some areas, and there are few courses are okay while others are just downright annoying to play, and lastly the final boss stage are kinda bad which adds the frustrating experience that the team behind the game hasn't been polished the entire thing before releasing the title.
Despite the flaws, the game does have some charm into it like you have interesting story and characters, spectacular presentation design, big exploration and unique abilities, and likable soundtrack are the main positive points they done it just right.
Is it definitely for everyone's cup of tea? the answer is not really, unless you're one of the hardcore fan of Banjo-Kazooie series are willing to give the game a try which is absolutely fine. The physical copy of the game cost about less than £10 is not a bad purchase, where as the digital release are not worth of £35.
If you're seeking for the quality indie 3D-platformer, then go check out games like A Hat in Time and New Super Lucky's Tale are better recommended options to pick up and play.
So I am hoping to give the follow-up sequel like Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair a try and see if it is anything does better than the first game.
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