Yooka-Laylee

I've reached the final boss and I hate giving up on the game, but it really is one of the most frustrating games I've ever played. Maybe I'll try to finish it in the future, but probably not. The only redeeming features it has are the size of the world and the graphics, which are still pretty nice looking in 2025. Sadly, the controls, camera and difficulty completely ruin the game. The flying ability in particular has you all over the place. Moving around on the ground is pretty good, but that's about it. The poor control makes the intricate things you have to do in the final boss virtually impossible, so the game will probably remain unfinished.

IMPORTANT: Do not play this game if your PC can't achieve 60 FPS. The lower your framerate is, the slower the game will be. Many challenges are timed and use the real-time clock. Trying to finish a challenge in time is impossible if the character is moving at only 1/3 its normal speed. Review: This game is a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, and the similarities are more than obvious. Unfortunately, it's just not a very good game, especially when compared to its N64 predecessors. While Yooka-Laylee has larger worlds with more stuff to collect, everything is packed so densely together that the game feels lacking in content. And most challenges are so easy, you feel like you're just collecting scrap rather than earning rewards. The worlds are also completely independent, unlike in Banjo-Tooie, where one world could affect another. The game feels repetitive, even though it's not. While most challenges are relatively varied and unique, each world has a Mining Kart challenge and an Arcade Machine. Without them the game would've felt much less repetitive, and I would've given 3 stars instead. The Arcade Machine is the worst offender: While its mini-games are a nice change of pace, you need to finish each game twice (once to finish the mini-game, once more to beat the Highscore) to get all reward. Even if you play well enough to beat the Highscore the first time around, you have to play twice. Yooka-Laylee has awful affordances. What are "affordances", you ask? If the game gives you grenades, which you'll need to destroy cracked stone blocks, then you'll expect to be able to destroy cracked objects with grenades. It's how the game teaches the player what they can or can't do. Yooka-Laylee has cracked glass windows, which can't be destroyed with grenades. It even has a move specifically for destroying glass, which won't work either. And that's just a small example of Yooka-Laylee's awful affordances. And finally: the camera is simply awful...

The game got trashed after release and the reviewers were on point. The game IS a complete retread of the old Nintendo 64 games, but without ANY advances that were made in 3D platformers in the last years. The gameplay feels awful, jumping physics are not present, it´s just an animation that is played and therefore the gameplay feels just not right. The camera is atrocious, like they tried to emulate the awful camera sticks from the N64 gamepad....the only thing is we now have two analogue sticks, so there is no need for a camera that constantly swirls around the character and makes navigation a chore. The worlds are big, very big without any clear indication were you are supposed to go. Again, this was fine many years ago, now it is just pointless and hinders progression for no reason. Boss fights are painfully designed, Rambo for example you have to roll up a hill while logs roll down and try to knock you down, but the camera is so broken that it only looks down and not up like you need it to. The humor is painful and not funny, the characters are unlikable and the voice acting is atrocious. Stay away from this game, there are MUCH better 3D platformers out there....A Hat in Time showed how you do it....this is not it!

While it may not be as great as the best 3D plateform games like Banjo Kazooie or Super Mario 64, it's not that far behind. It's definitely a great game. I had a blast with it from start to finish and couldn't put it down until I collected everything. Thank you Playtonic for this nostalgic trip.

It's still pretty good. It even does some things better than Banjo. Like for example, transformations are more consistently fun and useful, well, except for the first one. First transformation is pretty weak, but the rest are at least decent/good, and are used to get more than just one or two Pagies in a world. The last two world's transformations are definitely my favorites. The game got understandably a bit dumbed down from Banjo in some ways, like for example, you no longer need to collect items such as eggs, or red or gold feathers to use certain moves, as that can get a bit tiresome. Instead, you have a recharging energy meter, which can also be increased from certain hidden collectables, same as with your health. The game even has a Tonic system to provide different effects, they are unlocked by completeing certain tasks. The 1 additional health tonic, and collectable detector tonic are quite useful, although only 1 tonic can be equipped at a time. The detector tonic is incredibly useful for completionists, especially towards the end of the game and you're only missing small scraps of things. The worlds start out fairly big, and can be expanded by spending some pagies by standing on the pedastal at the entrance of the world. This will make the world bigger and thus have more pagies and other stuff to do and collect. The worlds can be a bit too massive at times, and it can be easy to lose track of things, again, detector tonic comes in handy at times if you need it. Not quite the "Banjo-Threeie" of our dreams, but not bad at all, minus some small nitpicks and some weak minigames, etc.