Yooka Laylee
Helmed by former Rare crew, the developer Playtonic crowdfunded the game as a spiritual successor to Banjo Kazooie

Once the game released-reception was mixed

Having played it twice, I can see the critiques, but I had a lot of fun with it

Let’s begin with the good-Yooka and Laylee control really well, they’re fast and snappy compared to the admittedly very slow and bulky Banjo and Kazooie

Their moveset is based around their lizard-bat combination, Yooka can eat plants with his tongue for temporary power-ups, and later use it as a grappling hook

He can throw Laylee into the air to propel them off the ground

He can bounce with his tail

Double jump, hover and spin

Yooka can roll into a ball that Laylee rolls on

Laylee’s abilities focus on echoing powers-she can reveal invisible platforms and stun enemies with a shriek

One thing I love about the platforming is how the game lets you climb anything-every rock ledge has collision detection

Upgrades are gained by collecting quills and spending them on moves taught by Trowzer the snake-one of many NPCs who appear in each level

Others include Kartos the minecart, Rextro the retro dinosaur, Dr Puzz, and Vendi the vending machine

There are also the Ghostwriters-the equivalent of Banjo’s Jinjos-who are caught in different ways

The graphics are fantastic-colourful huge levels that manage to be easy to traverse, you’ll rarely lose track of where everything is

I’m incredibly surprised at how uncompromised the Switch port is-little in the way of visual sacrifices, the game still runs well aside from a few stutters, it’s impressive

There are a lot of neat ideas-a giant casino level, galactic pirates, even a dungeon at one point that pays homage to Rare’s early title Knight Lore

The game uses the same captioned gibberish as Banjo, as well as Grant Kirkhope returning for the soundtrack

Now what about things that aren’t quite good?

Let’s break down the gameplay-Pagies are collected to unlock new levels and expand old ones

The game’s jiggy equivalent-pagies are found by completing various objectives-which arises one of the game’s core issues-it matches Banjo too close with many of the objectives being mediocre minigames

Minecarts, races, awkward puzzles, timed challenges, slide rooms, they aren’t that great

But I will say this-you more often than not can just go find an easier or more fun Pagie to collect, and the levels are still fun to explore

Also-a number of challenges can actually be cheesed by coming back later with the flight ability

Enemies can be pretty annoying, Rextro’s minigames are very meh, the minecart sections are awkward but simple score challenges

The transformations from Banjo Kazooie are included-I like how they incorporate both characters this time, but they’re mixed

The plant is just use for one Pagie really, Snowplow and Pirate Ship are used to clear rubble throughout the stage, which is fine, the Piranhas are cool, and then there’s the Helicopter, which is awesome

There’s a lot of neat stuff in Yooka Laylee-I won’t deny its inconsistency, there was more they could have done with a modern Banjo Kazooie, but it’s still an enjoyable time