Serviceable game but nothing really stands out about it. The titular Impossible Lair is a fun idea in theory but I found it - especially the boss fight parts of it - a bit tedious in practice.
The regular levels don't really have a lot of character, I found them mostly...unremarkable. You play through a level and nothing really sticks out, neither good nor bad. It's just a thing you did. There aren't really any creative twists on it (even in the altered versions of the levels) that make them stand out from the rest. This is not a bad game, it's just never feels like it reaches what it promises to be.

A major downgrade in style and identity from its criminally underappreciated predecessor. I know that the same YouTubers who destroyed the first game said this one was okay to like, but come on - every single level here (outside of its titular Impossible Lair, an exemplary feat of difficult platforming) feels pretty much indistinguishable from the last. The hub world stuff is fun and inventive as expected, reminiscent of the genuine whimsy that the first game had, but the main stages are your standard (and I mean standard) baseline 3D side-scroller fare with nothing too new or nostalgic to offer (again... unlike the first - which offered both). I also find this one to be way less funny, engaging, and atmospheric. Another case of heavily watering-down a sequel after backlash from the previous game resulting in a fine but overall less engaging experience.

Fair bit more interesting and inspired than the predecessor, opting for a 2D platforming style this time. Revisting the stages is a very novel idea, but the overworld is largely unnecessary. It's very cool at first but as they add puzzles and more intricate design to it it becomes annoying when you just want to get to the core platforming.

Also fuck the gimmick of the last level, I heard it's been changed now to be a bit more forgiving but it's needlessly frustrating, even if the idea was good on paper the kind of challenge presented would work far better as an optional post-game challenge or something of the sort.

Gameplay - 9
Trilha Sonora - 9
Gráficos - 9
História/Campanha - 10

Nota - 9.25

it's all right! it wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but it never really feels like it excels at doing its own thing. particularly towards the back half of the game when it becomes apparent just how few original ideas the game has to offer when the same handful of thematically ill-fitting enemy types are haphazardly sprinkled along same-y looking stages that blur together in a slurry of increasingly annoying and uninteresting platforming challenges. it's impressive what they did manage to pull off, but i kinda feel like people are gassing it up a lil too much

As someone who did not much enjoy the original Yooka-Laylee, I was very surprised how good this game ended up being. They really nailed the DKC style of platforming with a ton of fun level gimmicks. The controls are tight and very satisfying, allowing for a lot of speed. Level design is pretty consistently great, with only a few small dips in quality here and there. There's a ton of music that's all good, but nothing too mind blowing. The overworld is shockingly fun to explore, with some really great puzzles and environmental interactions. Each stage has an alternate version that is unlocked via various puzzles, and these are really clever. The alternates feel really different most of the time and it's a good way to get more content out of less development time and budget. The game also looks quite nice, especially in the lighting department. Character designs are good, environments are really detailed, and the animation is quite fluid. To top it all off, the final stage, the IMPOSSIBLE LAIR, is an extremely satisfying challenge with a few instances of BS. Establishing it as the final goal right at the beginning was a very smart move and it makes every stage feel worthwhile and important. The tonic system seems a little weird, like a lot of the buffs or debuffs just don't seem worth using at all. Other than that, this is one great game with a lot of fresh ideas, tight pacing, and fun platforming. Easy recommendation.

The worst thing about Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is that it's trying to retain the "soul" and humor of Banjo-Kazooie, while clearly being an homage and iteration of the Donkey Kong Country series. Not to say that Donkey Kong wasn't funny at the SNES games, but the humor was in small gestures instead of being one of the main elements like it is in Banjo.

Everything that characterizes the characters in Donkey Kong is before and after a level (with the exception of the waiting animation that happens if you don't move the gamepad). While you're in the game designer's challenge, he wants you to fall in love with the music and enjoy the obstacles he made with so much care. Yooka-Laylee's music is completely forgettable, to not say that is altright BAD, and the whole aesthetic is horrible, from the characters to the collectables. However, the strength of this game comes precisely when it is being an honest platformer.

Well, the truth is, the game is kind of awesome. In my first two hours of Yooka-Laylee 2 (I'll call it that for short) I was finding it to be a completely normal game. It didn't arouse any good feelings in me, but none VERY negative either. But things started to get to me around 3 or 4 hours of gameplay, which is when I had gotten used to the gameplay. I mean, before I played Yooka-Laylee 2 (and the only reason I played it) I did a marathon with my friend Aiden (love you bro) playing all FIVE Donkey Kong Country to the end. And when you come off the adrenaline of having played two insanely good games that complement what the other games in the franchise did, and update the design philosophy for a new generation, it's hard not to feel that literally every other 2D platformer outside of these are weak.

What I mean by that is: the bar was set obscenely high, and I had to lower my expectations. Once I went into the game enjoying what he was offering me instead of asking for things he wasn't going to do, everything got much better. RetroStudio's Donkey Kong games are heavy and accurate. Each movement needs to be calculated to the millimeter, you need to feel and absorb the monkeys' gameplay and have a good enough connection to become an extension of your own body. Yooka-Laylee 2 is the opposite. In fact, its logic operates in a similar way to 2D Mario games. Take your skill set, and react instinctively, improvising whatever comes along (obviously within the limits imposed by the level. You don't have freedom, but that's the magic of Donkey Kong games). When I understood that, the game was a delight to play, I went through all the stages the way I most want to play Donkey Kong: using dash to run through the entire thing without looking back.

Best of all, Yooka-Laylee 2 has some great ideas. For instance: I love the hub world and how collectibles are implemented in your progression. The premise of the game is: the villain of the game has a lair... the so-called -IMPOSSIBLE LAIR-, that you can face at any time. The big issue is that the Impossible Lair is... almost impossible, as the name implies. So to have a better chance of winning, you need to go around the world solving puzzles, unlocking stages to play them in order to rescue a bee. When you rescue a bee, it becomes part of your shield in the Impossible Lair, this means that the amount of hits you can take increases the more stages you finish, because at the end of every stage there is, obviously, a bee.

The game has 48 bees and 20 levels. 8 of the 48 bees are "secret" and can be found in the hub world. But if it's one bee per level, how come there are 40? Simple: every level has two versions. Just as Symphony of the Night's castle has its inverted version, Yooka-Laylee 2's levels have a sister version that changes, most of the time, drastically the gameplay. It's hard to explain to anyone who has never played or seen a gameplay, so I won't go into the game's mechanics too deeply, but basically the overworld is full of interactions and allows you to play with the properties of the scenario. You might fill the surroundings of a level with water, and find that the "inverted" version of it is an aquatic level. Or, on a stage that is located near the furnace, you can place smoke on top of the stage, revealing that its "inverted" version is the same stage but with clouds that add another layer of platforming.

Yooka-Laylee doesn't have good music or decent sound design, so the setting work is all done through these interactions. Turn on the power of a level to make it energized, press a lever that lift the level to play a SCARY vertical version, make the level swing, to play a version where your main means of locomotion is ropes. These ideas are very good and cohesive with what the game does. It got to the point where I was genuinely looking forward to seeing what the next gimmick they were going to come up with, and that feeling is very DKC-like.

Talking about the Impossible Lair itself, it's probably the hardest video game level I've ever played in my life. Even with 47 bees, I sweat to pass. There are 4 bossfights (although one is almost a tutorial) and insanely difficult platforming sessions on a kaizo level, that require you to know all the game mechanics. As I said earlier, you can do Impossible Lair from the start, but the game is smart enough to wire all of the game's systems together so that you NEED to play all (or almost all) of the levels. Did you skip any? less bees, less coins to open more levels and less knowledge. Perhaps you skipped the level that presents the platforms that fall and come back every 3 seconds, and you will miss this mechanic.

This review doesn't exactly have a point, but what I'm getting at with all this is that, despite having a bad reputation, being ugly, having bad music, having bad characters, and a bunch more flaws: Yooka-Laylee 2 is non ironically one of the most inventive 2D platformers I've ever played, and overall I enjoyed it more than Donkey Kong Country 1 and 3 (less than 2, Returns and Tropical Freeze). I don't know if it's for everyone, because the game is HUGE, the levels are big, the difficulty scales and that requires dedication. But if you're a person who has already dedicated hours to the DKC games, it's worth a try.

I thought the original game was ok I was a bit disappointed with it. I would've liked a sequel that improved on the original game but we got a 2D platformer instead which I'm ok with as it was a lot of fun especially it took some inspiration from Donkey Kong Country & possibly other 2D platformers. I liked the idea of each level changing depending on what you do on the overworld & the levels themselves are fun & challenging. I would've liked more level theming (fire level, desert level, etc) as most of them have similar aesthetics but you can't go wrong with playing this game especially on a sale. They is a lot of stuff to do in the overworld though I would've preferred the controls in the overworld to be better. The tonics also add some replayability making the game a easier or harder. I highly recommend if you love 2D platformers.

i really liked the overworld and solving simple puzzles to get new levels and level variants. unfortunately i viewed the levels themselves as a kind of unfortunate barrier to doing more of the overworld stuff. which is more about me than the game!

the platforming was surprisingly generous with checkpoints and allowing skips. it looks gorgeous. the movesets were clever and useful and there were plenty of secrets. i, uh, just didn't care to invest myself in any of them. its generous but fairly demanding (but not unfair) and it just isn't my bag.

100% complete, will all bees and tonics completed, except for beating the "Impossible Lair" final stage. After their modern take on the 3D platformer with the first Yooka-Laylee, Playtonic's second game, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair now takes on the 2D platform genre, very much attempting to recreate the magic of the Donkey Kong Country games... and pleasingly, the game does so in fine fashion. Well-designed, interestingly themed levels present a decent challenge, made all the more interesting and enticing to explore by often well-hidden collectibles. Particular highlights of the game are its superb soundtrack (featuring several entries from the legendary David Wise and Grant Kirkhope), the ability to attempt each level in two alternate forms (each with their own unique challenges and collectibles) and, especially, a fantastically well-built overworld to explore.

One significant negative point bears mentioning, which comes from the final level - the eponymous "Impossible Lair" - a half-hour long, checkpoint-free mammoth. As you progress through the main game, you'll build up the ability to take up to 48 hits during each attempt, but even taking this into account, the final level is a very steep increase in difficulty, sufficient that many people won't be able to beat the game, leaving a bit of a sour taste right at the end. Up until this point, though, the game is excellent and one that I'd highly recommend.

I got this game because it was on a deep discount on the Switch, but I also got it because I heard it was a 2D platformer on the level of masterful games like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.

I don't think it's that good by any stretch. That isn't to say I don't like Impossible Lair, but it's just a testament to the other game.

As for Impossible Lair, it's a game that, at least for me, took me a while to warm up to. The early levels felt much more mild compared to the later ones, which I think are very strong in both of their forms. By the time I reached the teens (out of the 20 chapters with each having two variations) I was really loving the level design and the platforming, and I think that's when they really hit their stride. The levels are fantastic and a blast to get through, it just is a shame that, for me, it felt like it takes so long for the level design to really hit that high of a level.

(Also, I will say, while normally I'm not the biggest fan of underwater platforming in games like these, Impossible Lair was actually pretty good! The controls were solid and the physics were nice!)

The final level is, of course, the titular Impossible Lair, a long marathon where you use the Beetalion members you rescue to act as a shield as you struggle your way through. I think in practice, it's good, because the entire game teaches you everything you need up to that point, it just feels a bit padded out in terms of adding boss encounters in between to break it up. The final boss in it was a great rush with how it switches things up, and between multiple attempts, learning how to adapt to it, but when you're going between extra boss encounters in between, it feels a bit much.

The Impossible Lair, too, also feels like a bit... much. It might just be that I'm no longer as intensely keen on the "masocore" type platformers like I was when I was younger, but some segments just feel so plugged up with stuff after stuff that, while I have no doubt there are runs where people lose no Beetalion members, it feels a bit overwhelming both in a sensory sense and in a "ok how can I even approach this when everything is rushing my way at rapid speeds."

I get that's the point, and I know this is just a personal thing. It's great when you make it through the Impossible Lair! It was a rush! I just, ultimately, feel conflicted on this final level in some ways, but I think overall I quite liked it.

The final section of the Impossible Lair, though, is incredible, it's a rush because of the time limit given to you and how it feels frantic without throwing everything and twelve kitchen sinks at you. It's a fantastic end to the game.

Last but certainly not least, the soundtrack is amazing, and to me, easily the best part of the game. Every level's track is a banger, there's great variations, and listening to how they knocked it out of the park each time was great. An S-tier soundtrack without a shadow of a doubt.

Ultimately, Impossible Lair is a very good game, but to me, it just falls short of a great game, and certainly not something in the upper echelons of 2D platformers.