Yooka-Laylee Review

Yooka-Laylee is a mixed experience. On the one hand, the game provides a nostalgic love-letter to platformers gone by, with more than a little passing reference to its biggest-name influence Banjo-Kazooie. On the other, it is marred by technical issues and elements of poor design that results in a disappointment. Despite this, there is still some fun to be had with the nostalgic platformer, and it is well worth a buy at the right price.

Yooka-Laylee is a game that began life on Kickstarter; other videogame websites have covered its development cycle more thoroughly, but the main point here is that it represents more than just a game. Yooka-Laylee represents an idea. As times have gone by, old-school 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie have fallen out of style and almost totally out of the videogame market. This game represents a desire by nostalgic gamers for a new instalment like those of the genre’s heyday but also for more development in the 3D platformer space as a whole. Many gamers put their money where their mouth was in the interest of demonstrating to the industry at large that gamers wanted to see more titles like Banjo-Kazooie in the modern videogame market.

The game that we have today stands as a result of a concentrated effort by both gamers and developers to bring back old-school 3D platformers. I wished for this game to be something great; modern gaming has become too reliant on ultra-violence and shooters and it would be of great use to the industry to challenge that status-quo. However, Yooka-Laylee’s quality fails to match up to the standard required to truly break open the modern videogame market, and perhaps as gamers this was indeed too much to expect from a throwback novelty title.

Yooka-Laylee’s story is undeniably simplistic, in an effort to relive such storylines as Banjo-Kazooie. In short, the titular protagonists are thrust into adventure by the nefarious deeds of the villain Capital B and his henchman Dr Quack, and are required to collect pages out of a magical book to progress in the game. The motivation for the characters is in the form of monetary reward as they wish to sell an old book they found in their home as an antique.

The game offers some fourth-wall breaking dialogue and jokes to present the plot in a manner that sends up old Rare titles.  This can be to the game’s detriment; in particular, the way in which characters speak through grunted syllables can become irksome, especially with certain unskippable cutscenes. On the other hand, the game’s story lies strictly in the spirit of its influences, and this authenticity and nostalgia can sometimes translate into pure charm. On the whole, however, Yooka-Laylee’s story could have done with being less like its spiritual predecessor, as the storytelling elements are one of the most aged parts of the whole package.

On the other hand, Yooka-Laylee’s presentation is spectacular. In its HD glory, the colours are eye-popping as players are served up plenty of visual eye candy. The expansion of the first world looks beautiful when one first lays their eyes on it, and benefits from the sense of scale. Other graphics, such as logos and text, are presented sharply and in a visually-pleasing way, with most elements of the game fitting remarkably well in a thematic sense; not many things look out of place, except for the things that are meant to look that way. These graphics not only look beautiful but they also have plenty of influence from older predecessors in the 3D platforming genre, which from a nostalgic point of view also brings a little more charm.

The sound of the game, in comparison to the presentation, is a little lackluster. It is a shame that in the face of such beautiful graphics and eye-popping visuals that the experience should be marred by sound that never reaches to the dizzying heights of the game’s potential. It is not just the grunting speech, but there are many other effects that through repetition can become an annoyance; Laylee’s various squeaks as she powers up different moves and abilities is ear-grindingly irksome, as are most of the cartoonish effects themselves. Thankfully, the noise itself never ventures into totally annoying territory, though it comes terribly close with certain background tracks repeating far too often to be enjoyable to listen to.

Unfortunately, the gameplay just isn’t designed well enough to tie the package together. While presentation-wise Yooka-Laylee attempts to offer a polished, high-value production, overall the final gameplay effect is underwhelming. The controls can at times be floaty or poorly-responsive, sometimes even slippery (this is especially the case with Yooka’s rolling move, which has unforgiving turning circles and poor traction). These are perhaps at their most obvious in the ice level or when using one of the titular pair’s many abilities. On top of this is an uncooperative camera, which has always been a sticking point for 3D platformers. In Yooka-Laylee the camera can result in a few frustrations, such as mispositioning jumps and getting stuck on walls, and even in some cases forcing control of the camera from the player.

The pacing of the gameplay oftentimes feels at odds with itself. As the player progresses through the game they are met with several roadblocks and ‘come back when you have the right move’ type challenges; oftentimes these can be achieved anyway with proper exploitation of one’s environment, or in the worst cases can often feel inappropriate: many times it feels as if you have missed a previous level or are playing out of sequence. While in Banjo-Kazooie the use of moves served as a very clear road-block and level-design feature that for the most part worked well, in Yooka-Laylee things seem to have stepped back; perhaps more work should have been put into polishing invisible walls and correctly gating off the content, as well as polishing the pacing so that the final result would feel more like a complete experience.

Other times, gameplay can seem to unfairly spike; one unfair section in the second level of the game requires twitch-perfect mastery of the rolling mechanic and combat skill or luck that seems to be intended for later in the game. It felt like the developers’ choice of having all of the level’s challenges accessible from the start got in the way of providing an evenly-paced difficulty experience in this case. In Banjo-Kazooie, there seemed to be a stronger relationship between the level and the player’s abilities, with each stage being well-designed so that difficulty seemed to grow in a natural way. In Yooka-Laylee, however, it often seems that the player’s abilities exist in spite of the level, which means that organic traversal can oftentimes be an issue.

Another issue with the game is the placement of collectibles; the Quills, in particular, deserve singling out for poor placement. As the game’s version of Notes from Banjo-Kazooie, it feels like the Quills should play the part of breadcrumb trails to lead the player organically across the level. In practice, however, they are placed as simply another collectible, one annoying instance of collecting a Quill occurs in the first level, for example, where a cameo from a character of another famous game series leads to a platforming challenge. In this example, a Quill is fiendishly placed behind a part of the game’s geometry with little to no hint of its presence. Unfortunately many of the game’s lesser collectibles seem to be placed in a similiar way, which makes the final result of the design seem somewhat lacking.

The game’s minigames are rather hit and miss. Some are enjoyable, like the occasional arcade game or combat challenge, but others, like the on-rails minecart section can be a drag to the fun. Oftentimes the tricky nature of some of these minigames also means that they must be replayed in order to achieve the reward, which can make them more frustrating exercises in patience than changes of pace and fun side-tasks. Many times I would much rather do anything else rather than the challenge of the minigame, and often left these until last because I found them so unenjoyable.

Overall, the gameplay of Yooka-Laylee is fine enough, not nearly as bad as the 2/10 review by Jim Sterling would suggest; the controls are functional, despite being irksome during some tighter platforming sections. The design is often contradictory and many times seems to work against the player, but not enough to make traversing the beautiful levels unenjoyable. It is a shame that the gameplay wasn’t polished just that little bit more, because otherwise it would have been a blast to play.

As a sum of its parts, in many ways Yooka-Laylee can feel like a lesser experience. It is unfortunate that the modern poster-child for the comeback of the 3D platformer seems to limp across the finish line. With the value of being a nostalgic throwback title, there is plenty to enjoy in the final package of Yooka-Laylee. It’s just a shame that the final result is ‘good enough’ rather than a great title, thanks to some poor design decisions that mar the final experience. I would recommend that this game be picked up on a budget; at full retail price there are just too many mis-steps to justify a purchase.