REVIEW | Yooka-Laylee
Written by Michael Richardson
Published 31 July 2018
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All trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
Opinions expressed in this review are of the reviewer alone.
Game Copyright 2015-2017 Playtonic Limited
Available on PS4, X1, NS, Linux, macOS, Windows
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Stock Drop
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Writing arguments is challenging. In everything I write, I make sure bias is nonexistent, arguments make sense, my conclusion sums up my entire thesis, and more. But there is always a chance that an individual will stand out from the crowd, one whose argument is an outlier and deemed inessential. But I believe that everyone deserves a right to their opinions and respect. What I’m getting towards is that opinions justify respect, and if mine stand out from the crowd, know that these are only my thoughts.
With that being said, let’s get to the topic at hand. Having broke multiple Kickstarter records, Yooka-Laylee crowdfunded itself in May of 2015, developed as a tribute to the N64 collectathon era by the people who popularized the genre. Developer Playtonic’s effort was released in April of 2017 to mixed reception, and numerous journalists headlined the game as a crowdfunded failure among the likes of Mighty No. 9. I’ve always loved 3D platformers, in fact they are my favorite genre, so I was excited upon Yooka’s announcement and finally picked up the game recently on sale. After spending twenty hours completing the game, Yooka-Laylee was an overall good experience. While flawed and frustrating in many gameplay and design aspects, Yooka-Laylee’s addicting gameplay structure and great presentation motivated me all the way to the end.
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The Collectathon Begins
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Right off the bat, Yooka-Laylee’s story leaves an interesting predicament. Cooperate henchmen Capital B and apprentice Dr. Quack have been hired by the Hivory Towers Corporation to eliminate all literature from the world and reshape history as they see fit. Lounging on a rock one sunny day, Yooka and Laylee notice that their one book gets flung into the large Hivory Towers factory and scatters all of the Pagies with it. Consequently, Yooka and Laylee set out to retrieve all the Pagies in their one book and defeat Capital B, meeting new characters along the way. Overall, I found the story of Yooka-Laylee enjoyable. While the plot is only emphasized in the opening and ending cutscenes, characters thoughtfully remind Yooka and Laylee of their ultimate goal throughout the adventure. Additionally, I enjoyed the designs of most of the characters. Counting especially towards Trowzer and Capital B, many stood out as memorable with their whimsical and humorous animation that brought them to life. Of course, Yooka and Laylee are the real stars of the show. While not as funny or memorable in design as the bear and bird that inspired them, they served the story well and often presented humorous dialogue into the game.
Yooka-Laylee prides itself as a rare-vival of the 3D collectathon that was popularized from Rareware’s acclaimed work on N64 titles such as Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Like it’s spiritual predecessors, Yooka-Laylee is about collecting a bunch of items scattered throughout biomes. The most prominent type of collectable are the Pagies, like the Jiggies from the Banjo series, which have twenty five hidden within each world and twenty in the hub world. Pagies can be obtained from platforming challenges, boss fights, minigames, and more. The most enjoyable pagies revolve around platforming gauntlets that put the titular duo’s moves to the test. Whether it be flying around platforms, using Yooka’s tongue to reach distant platforms, and more, these challenges were often satisfying to conquer. However, precise platforming becomes a chore since the camera is stationed far behind Yooka and Laylee, and rotating it barely helps. While Yooka and Laylee run, jump, attack, and roll fluidly, many of their moves moves such as flappy flight are not designed for precise physics with their wacky motion, and receiving collectables mid air consequently proved tiresome. Furthermore, the game would have benefitted from tweaked physics to allow for precise movement.
While the platforming challenges are enjoyable, a majority of the minigames are anything but. Numerous side characters require weird, fixed perspective, and timed tasks that generally rely on one mechanic to make it through challenges, such as rolling a ball around, and were irritating to complete as a result. This is to say nothing of Kartos and Rextro, two of the game’s most prominent side characters. Both Kartos’s minecart challenges and Rextro’s minigames are tedious, dull, and frustrating affairs that offer imprecise controls, dull presentation, and boring design that the fact their games were included in their current state shocks me. Their minigames are by far the worst aspects of the game, which is worsened considering their minigames make up ten percent of the game’s pagie count and the characters themselves shine with inspiration and care. It got to the point where as soon as I entered a world, I depressingly admitted how ‘this world looks really cool, but I really do not want to deal with Kartos and Rextro’.
Yooka-Laylee’s boss fights emphasize the overall lack of polish permeated throughout the experience. Their mechanics are dull, tedious, and often have glitchy camera positions that ensure nearly unavoidable hits. In particular, the world four boss had me screaming in frustration with it’s reliance on Kartos and ridiculous physics that I was happy when it ended. However, I enjoyed the world three and final bosses because they felt more like actual battles, with their multiple phases and reliance on memorization. Furthermore, most bosses would have benefited from complete overhauls to their design to ensure fun and challenging affairs that tested skill rather than patience.
While there are only five grand tomes in the game which have worlds inside of them, each one can be expanded using Pagies to create areas unavailable on a first visit. While I like the concept of expanding worlds, their execution falls flat. Unexpanded worlds have literal gaps that transform into fully fleshed out locations upon expansion, including all the bosses. Therefore, Yooka-Laylee necessitates expansion to the point where whenever I entered a new world, I immediately expanded it because gameplay would be limiting otherwise. Yooka-Laylee would have benefitted from removing the expansion system and adopting a Super Mario Odyssey style endgame approach with permitting new collectables in a new world after the main game, or implementing smaller, denser worlds where every collectable is available on a first visit.
While each of the game’s worlds are far larger in scope than Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka-Laylee is a shining example of why bigger is not always better. While they all employ fantastic art direction with colorful scenery, they come off as a bit too large and disconnected from numerous loading screens. In particular, the second and fifth worlds incorporate many far away, disconnected areas that result in feelings of isolation. My favorite worlds are the ones that feel dense yet all connect to one another through fast traversal. For example, while it integrates many tedious slot machine mechanics, expanded world four’s Capital Cashino’s dense design ensured everything felt connected and memorable, and was my favorite world as a result. Also, the world implements a unique type of currency to purchase pagies, as well as the best transformation in Yooka-Laylee. Upon collecting a stage’s molecool, players can interact with Dr. Puzz to use her D.N. Ray mechanism and change form. While the first three world’s transformations feel inessential and somewhat hard to control, worlds four and five’s feel integral to completion and were fun to maneuver and gock at. However, each transformation succeeded in getting a chuckle out of me, with their nonsensical designs and ways Yooka and Laylee’s eyes bulge out of them.
There are many more types of collectables throughout Yooka-Laylee. There are five ghost writers in each level that reward a page after retrieving them all, a play coin that unfortunately permits access to Rextro’s minigames, a secret pirate treasure that unlocks achievements, health and power extenders, and quills. Two hundred quills are mostly well scattered throughout each stage and can be used to purchase new moves from Trowser, the snake merchant. While satisfying to collect, the utilization of quills leaves much to be desired. Purchasing moves proves bothersome since many techniques required to get items are blocked off by quills. While this approach works in genres such as metroidvanias, Yooka and Laylee start off unequipped to the point that combat and exploration feel unenjoyable until the latter half of the game. Backtracking through levels was such a chore that I waited until the end when I had all my moves to obtain all my missed collectables, which would have been mitigated had all moves been available from the start. However, the moves themselves provide entertainment into both combat and traversal. Combat is strengthened through moves such as the sonar splosion, and traversal is aided from the flappy flight and roll move, which Banjo veterans will recognize as Yooka’s version of the talon trot. Furthermore, while I wish the moves were better utilized, they are still amusing to use and benefitted the experience.
While I’ve been tramping over Yooka-Laylee for the majority of this review, leave no doubt, the base gameplay proves as fun as ever. Exploring each of the diverse worlds was often a joy and when I first entered them I was overwhelmed with feelings of curiosity and awe at their sublime art direction. Traversing with the roll move was fun and encountering different NPC’s was enjoyable. The variety of well hidden collectables had me scouring each location except for the hub. Incorporating bleak design and numerous loading screens that discourage exploration, the hub world left much to be desired. However, I appreciate how the hub world connects throughout the adventure, making travel less of a burden.
In terms of performance, Yooka-Laylee ran well in my experience with occasional frame rate dips when the action got hectic, and the aforementioned camera issues. Also, the game looks, plays, and animates well in both docked and handheld mode. The colorful landscapes fill the screen with joy and each character looks and sounds unique, culminating to create a visually intriguing experience. However, the soundtrack is what caught me off guard the most. Fellow Rareware alumni Grant Kirkhope, David Wise, and Steve Burke have contributed tunes to the game, with Kirkhope handling a majority of the composition. Kirkhope aims for a more atmipshieric approach unlike that seen in Banjo, and I liked the change. Each song fits the area brilliantly and have catchy orchestrated melodies that I found myself wanting to listen to. Additionally, the compositional detail with changing music in different locations throughout a world, such as in submerged areas, never ceased to impress me. Simply put, the presentation of Yooka Laylee triumphs from a good soundtrack, striking art direction, and performance across the board.
Another thing I must shed light on is the game’s writing. Yooka-Laylee includes many fourth wall breaking jokes that fall flat from inexorable, often frustrating dialogue had me in a state of bewilderment. The game tried to poke fun at itself by saying that it’s minigames such as Dr. Quack’s quizzes reek of budget cuts, that Rextro and Kratos's games are no longer appreciated because they’re terrible, that the voice clips annoy, and more. While all are absolutely correct, why the developers did not cut those mundane parts out of their game shocks me. Playtonic was well aware of issues and refused to fix them, likely because of release date crunch. Had they remedied Yooka-Laylee’s issues, I would have chuckled at the jokes. This is not to say the writing is entirely flawed, because some dialogue comes off as genuinely funny, such as Trowser’s video game references and a character’s interaction in one of the final cutscenes that had me smiling ear to ear.
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Verdict
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Whether it be the dumbfounding Kartos and Rextro minigames, the expansion system, or erroneous physics, Yooka-Laylee struggles to provide a consistently fun experience. Additionally, the game’s sprawling landscapes seldom connect to provide enthralling gameplay. Despite its mistakes, I still enjoyed Yooka-Laylee and consistently found myself wanting to collect just a few more pagies or quills. Overall, Yooka-Laylee provides a fun, albeit shallow experience that should have taken more development time to innovate its systems and provide more polish. If you’re looking for a modestly enjoyable 3D platformer with a great presentation, give Yooka-Laylee a try on sale. It's not worth the risk at full price because of its flawed design and frustration. With that being said, I look forward to what Playtonic has in store for the inevitable sequel because Yooka-Laylee leaves a good foundation despite its flaws. Hopefully, the next installment will improve gameplay to the point where Playtonic’s aspirations for a spiritual successor to the N64’s 3D collectathons comes true.
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