A gem of a game. If you like murder mysteries, detective and point and click games, do yourself a favor and buy/play this game. Highly recommended.
An action RPG masterpiece. Excellent game design in every aspect. Tons of secrets to be discovered. A modern classic definitely worth your time. Highly recommended. Buy it and play it.
Let me tell you, I really wanted to love this game. I really did. I backed the kickstarter campaign, followed the updates, enjoyed the Toybox Demo and waited patiently for the good ol' times of 3D platform games to return home. Well, it did, but it did so bringing along some unnecessarily archaic design choices and other major problems with it. Firstly, the horribly spastic and stubborn camera makes 3D platforming tedious at best and a nightmare at worst. The problem is, it simply does not stay where you place it, as it keeps changing angles and distances. For example, without spoiling the game, when using the last special move you can acquire in the game, it goes haywire when trying to make accurate air movement or when getting close to level geometry. The camera will get in the way at the worst possible times. Secondly, there are some terribly obtuse game design choices, leading at times to much frustration and some infuriating moments. Again, I do not want to spoil the game, but it suffice to say that there are some unnecessary difficulty spikes caused by a combination of a wonky camera (angles), inconsequential object hitboxes, questionable physics, arbitrary game logic and downright obtuse design. I wonder how some of these elements have gotten through Q&A without being modified or removed. Lastly, there are other elements like unskippable, annoyingly slow dialogues, drawn out check points, performance issues (e.g. frame rate dips and long loading times) and occasional glitches. All these problems combined, lead to a very sweet-looking game tasting rather bitter. These are problems that will make many rage quit, which is a shame since the game has every potential to live up to the days of Banjo-Kazooie, which I loved. Yooka-Laylee has great art direction and music, but it simply lacks the polish and quality of games like Super Mario Galaxy. In conclusion, it pays homage to the good ol' days of 3D platforming without learning from the genre's best offerings.
