Yooka-Laylee

Yooka-Laylee is another 3D platformer similar to A Hat in Time. But while A Hat in Time managed to navigate the pitfalls of 3D platformers quite well, Yooka-Laylee does not. At all. Yooka-Laylee was a kickstarter project made by former Rare employees who made Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. Which only makes this more disappointing.

The worlds are massive in Yooka-Laylee. Massive and empty. It manages to both make the worlds uninteresting and same-y. Large sections of land are clumsily laid down like a tech demo, rather than making sure everything feels good and making sure different sectors feel unique and interesting. By comparison, Banjo-Tooie is more sprawled out and confusing than Banjo-Kazooie was, but Yooka-Laylee really takes it up a notch. It's awful.

The hub world of Yooka-Laylee is confusing. I never knew you could make a confusing hub world in a video game. It doesn't seem possible, but here we are. I got lost in this game multiple times, and with the mysterious black doorways going every which way it’s no surprise. The different powerups are confusing. There's like three different forms of fire peppers. Some make you immune to fire, some make you immune to cold, and some make you breathe fire. These seem like little things, but there's little things everywhere. The whole game is a mess.

There's this bizarre mechanic where half the world is cutoff from you at the start, and then you grow the world later. I guess this is supposed to make the worlds less daunting at first, but what it actually does is create a bunch of confusing dead-ends when you first explore. It's baffling.

It really feels like Yooka-Laylee wasn't properly playtested. The quiz show (a favorite from the Banjo games) is given to the player way too early, interrupting the flow the game. Everything seems designed to frustrate and confuse a player, or just wear them down with tedium.

I did not get very far with this game before giving up. I do not recommend this game.