Yooka Laylee Reviews
Yooka-Laylee doesn’t bring much new to the table and the nostalgia factor will only keep you engaged for so long.
Yooka-Laylee brings back the best memories of good old 3D platformers from the Nintendo 64 era, but along with it, comes some of the bad choices made at the time.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Fundamentally Yooka-Laylee is a good game, but it’s a shame that Playtonic failed to bring an undeniable great game. The potential was extremely high but they left me a little disappointed. Wonky controls, bad camera work, annoying voice dialogue and issues with performance make Yooka-Laylee nothing more than an average game. It could have been so much more …
Even if Yooka-Laylee is inspired from Banjo-Kazooie, since ex-Rare developers joined up with Team17, for players who didn’t get to play the aforementioned game will definitely enjoy this Banjo-successor. The worlds you get to explore, the characters you meet, and how visually spectacular the game is, Yooka-Laylee is a platformer that you don’t want to miss.
Be careful what you wish for, lest it become Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee is heavily inspired on Banjo-Kazooie and will be enjoyed by the fans that are thirsty for a new plaform and adventure 3D game. There are issues, like some moves for the characters, the weak transformations and the uninspired hub world. But overall, the game delivers its promise.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Taking you to magical worlds filled with lovable, memorable and frankly odd characters, Yooka-Laylee captures what made us love and hate 3D Platformers. If you weren’t a fan of this type of game in the past, then it’s very doubtful this new entry in the genre will change your mind. If you were a fan, then you’re in for a treat.
Yooka-Laylee is exactly the type of game that Playtonic Games set out to create when they initially launched the Kickstarter for the game. It is in every sense of the word a spiritual; successor to the Banjo-Kazooie franchise. It's a true return to the collect-a-thon games that were great back on the Nintendo 64, but many of the game's core mechanics feel archaic on today's platforms.
Yooka-Laylee is an excellent 3D platformer, featuring open levels that reward skill and exploration, tight gameplay mechanics and a killer soundtrack. A few technical issues prevent it from reaching the heights achieved by classics such as Banjo-Kazooie, but gamers looking for a collect-a-thon in 2017 should definitely consider picking up Playtonic Games’ debut title.
Some long-forgotten issues from way back in the day crop up again in this throwback action-plaformer, but even if you aren't playing it through the nostaliga of someone who grew up with Banjo-Kazooie or other adventures like it, you'll still find a solid game to play in Yooka-Laylee.
Yooka-Laylee is a fun throwback to a bygone era of gaming, with more than enough charm, variety, and engaging challenges to make up for its shortcomings.
Overall, Yooka Laylee sets out what it originally promised - it gave us a fun and entertaining ode to 3D platformers of old. The controls needs some polish. And the camera and lack of voice acting is annoying. I still recommend Yooka Laylee, especially if you are looking for a 3D platformer with many areas to explore and challenges to conquer.
If you’re expecting Yooka-Laylee to push the platforming genre into new and exciting directions, you’ll be left disappointed. While the game fails to make any big strides into new and unknown territories, it lives up to the overall quality, quirky nature, and well-designed platforming elements put in place by its predecessor nearly 20 years ago – and that’s no easy feat.
The harsh reality is that I wanted to love it just as much as anyone else. The team is clearly talented and Yooka-Laylee is a work of passion, but it's simply not enough. Yooka-Laylee is simply a chore to play and it relies too heavily on past glories and self-referential humour.
The nostalgia is real in this Kickstarter success story from a group of ex-Rare staffers. But so is the clunky camera and repetitious backtracking
Yooka-Laylee is a fun platformer, despite some technical issues and outdated mechanics. If platforming wasn’t your thing in the ‘90s, there’s little here to change your mind now, but fans of the genre – and the Kickstarter backers that brought it back to life – can rest assured that they’re getting exactly what they wanted.
Overall, this is a game of inconsistent highs and lows. The simple joy of interacting with a colorful, childish world serves to remind us of a different time for video games. But when stuttering camera angles send you plummeting off a high platform, the lack of polish is painfully obvious. Further patches and updates might be able to salvage the solid foundation that Yooka-Laylee is built on, but in its current state, it does little more than present a charming love letter to its predecessors.
At its core Yooka-Laylee features solid 3D platforming, all wrapped-up in a charming and funny package that oozes with the quality that drew a lot of players to Rare's output during the N64 era. And although this may sound like strange criticism, we would have preferred it if the game featured fewer ideas, smaller worlds, and a more focused design. Yooka-Laylee's better moments far outweigh its troublesome ones, and for the most part you'll feel like you're playing a Rare platformer from the year 1999. And when that's what Yooka-Laylee promised to be, you can't fault it for delivering on that promise. Warts and all.
Yooka-Laylee verspricht in Welt 1 viel, verliert aber danach immer mehr an Leichtfüßigkeit und Charme und rappelt sich erst viel zu spät wieder auf, während die durchwachsene Steuerung und verkrampfte Kamera immer wieder für Frust sorgen. Trotz toller Ideen, viel Abwechslung und Charme: Das großartige Comeback ist leider ausgeblieben.
Review in German | Read full review
"Yooka-Laylee" accomplishes what it sets out to do. It reminds players what was so appealing about collectathons at the height of their popularity. Even if it overstay its welcome toward the end, it's mostly a joyful journey through a long forgotten genre.