Pretty middling to mediocre. Level-design was overall basic and uninteresting, with a bunch of flat worlds neatly sectioned with attractions to explore. Nothing unique like Click Clock Wood, Grunty Industries, Clanker's Cavern, etc. In terms of the moves, nothing stood out to me as anything to write home about, but they at least made the High Jump and Glide feel good to use. On the flip side, the flight move damn near invalidated those moves once you got it, and it felt bad to use to boot. That and the Roll move handle like a fucking Cadillac with awful turn radius', and it was a dumb move to map the flight descent with the same input as the camera. Saving grace for this game was the lack of invisible walls and the sequence breaking you could get away with as a result.
Didn't come away all that impressed with the character design or writing either. I'm not a kid anymore so its hard to be too critical on this, but I doubt anyone's going to think as fondly of Yooka or Laylee as opposed to Banjo & Kazooie. Shit, I'll take the Kongs over YL. They should've switched it up and given YL different personalities, instead of just making them B&K clones. They just pale in comparison that much more because of it. Laylee's not THAT much of a downgrade to Kazooie, but Yooka is super boring; Banjo played the straight man role too but he was also lazy and had those funny idle animations w/ Kazooie. Those 4 little whatever taunts YL had don't cut it. I did get a chuckle out of some of Capital B's quips, but I'm a cubicle monkey so it hits different.
Music overall was bland, save for the Kartos themes. Were those the only ones composed by David Wise? Bosses weren't complete pushovers and the World 4 boss was a genuine surprise that paid off since the minecart sections were highlights. The arcade games were take-it-or-leave-it w/ me, most of the transformations felt undercooked, and I basically ignored 90% of the tonics as they were uninteresting gimmicks. The pirate tokens were hidden well, though I wish the reward you got was actually something worthwhile.
I'll give the next YL game a shot since its a different genre entirely, and I'd be willing to check out another 3D platformer from Playtonic, but this game just wasn't it. Do something creative with these levels, cook up some interesting movesets next time, and give Yooka some damn personality.
Didn't come away all that impressed with the character design or writing either. I'm not a kid anymore so its hard to be too critical on this, but I doubt anyone's going to think as fondly of Yooka or Laylee as opposed to Banjo & Kazooie. Shit, I'll take the Kongs over YL. They should've switched it up and given YL different personalities, instead of just making them B&K clones. They just pale in comparison that much more because of it. Laylee's not THAT much of a downgrade to Kazooie, but Yooka is super boring; Banjo played the straight man role too but he was also lazy and had those funny idle animations w/ Kazooie. Those 4 little whatever taunts YL had don't cut it. I did get a chuckle out of some of Capital B's quips, but I'm a cubicle monkey so it hits different.
Music overall was bland, save for the Kartos themes. Were those the only ones composed by David Wise? Bosses weren't complete pushovers and the World 4 boss was a genuine surprise that paid off since the minecart sections were highlights. The arcade games were take-it-or-leave-it w/ me, most of the transformations felt undercooked, and I basically ignored 90% of the tonics as they were uninteresting gimmicks. The pirate tokens were hidden well, though I wish the reward you got was actually something worthwhile.
I'll give the next YL game a shot since its a different genre entirely, and I'd be willing to check out another 3D platformer from Playtonic, but this game just wasn't it. Do something creative with these levels, cook up some interesting movesets next time, and give Yooka some damn personality.