Yooka-Laylee doesn't quite live up to Banjo-Kazooie. It has much of the same fun and charm of Banjo, but it often feels like an unpolished imitation of Banjo than a true successor. I would still recommend fans of the original give this game a shot, but expect to get irritated at many parts.
I'll start out positive and say that the controls are pretty solid for a 3d platformer. You have a double jump and a hover ability, which makes platforming require less precision. It feels good hopping around the levels. There is also a roll ability which acts as your sprint and feels pretty good to use. Also collecting Pagies and Quills is just as satisfying as collecting Jiggies and Notes.
While the controls are good, the camera is not. The camera frequently gets stuck on things, and when it's not getting stuck on things the game barely lets you control the darn thing. The frequently times I wanted to point the camera down at something below me, but the game just wouldn't let me do it. Many abilities Yooka and Laylee have require stamina, which just feels more like an annoyance than an interesting mechanic. Even worse, it takes like 10 seconds or so of waiting around until your stamina regenerates back to full, which is an awkwardly long time.
This game has similar problems to Tooie in that the levels are too big and require moves from later levels, but it's much worse in this game as the levels are significantly bigger than even Tooie's levels. It slows game down quite a bit, and makes it harder to figure out where you have and haven't gone. Plus all the levels feel like a bunch of small levels glued together instead of one coherent thing, which just kinda sucks.
The bosses and minigames also suck. They're not particularly fun and all take much longer than they should. I could forgive the bosses if some of the bosses weren't weirdly difficult. Dying to the last phase of a boss and having to do it all over again is such a drag. Every level has a "Rextro Arcade" minigame, which might make you think it will be styled like a retro arcade game, but no there all 3d and you play as Yooka-Laylee in all of the them. If you want to 100% the game, you will need play each of these at least twice because the game ties two pagies to each for some reason.
Overall, I did enjoy much of my time with Yooka-Laylee, but it never reached the same highs as Banjo. Plus, I often found myself irritated with the larger than necessary levels, awful camera, unnecessary stamina system, and particularly annoying Pagies. It's not nearly as good as Banjo-Kazooie, but I am at least happy that they tried.
I'll start out positive and say that the controls are pretty solid for a 3d platformer. You have a double jump and a hover ability, which makes platforming require less precision. It feels good hopping around the levels. There is also a roll ability which acts as your sprint and feels pretty good to use. Also collecting Pagies and Quills is just as satisfying as collecting Jiggies and Notes.
While the controls are good, the camera is not. The camera frequently gets stuck on things, and when it's not getting stuck on things the game barely lets you control the darn thing. The frequently times I wanted to point the camera down at something below me, but the game just wouldn't let me do it. Many abilities Yooka and Laylee have require stamina, which just feels more like an annoyance than an interesting mechanic. Even worse, it takes like 10 seconds or so of waiting around until your stamina regenerates back to full, which is an awkwardly long time.
This game has similar problems to Tooie in that the levels are too big and require moves from later levels, but it's much worse in this game as the levels are significantly bigger than even Tooie's levels. It slows game down quite a bit, and makes it harder to figure out where you have and haven't gone. Plus all the levels feel like a bunch of small levels glued together instead of one coherent thing, which just kinda sucks.
The bosses and minigames also suck. They're not particularly fun and all take much longer than they should. I could forgive the bosses if some of the bosses weren't weirdly difficult. Dying to the last phase of a boss and having to do it all over again is such a drag. Every level has a "Rextro Arcade" minigame, which might make you think it will be styled like a retro arcade game, but no there all 3d and you play as Yooka-Laylee in all of the them. If you want to 100% the game, you will need play each of these at least twice because the game ties two pagies to each for some reason.
Overall, I did enjoy much of my time with Yooka-Laylee, but it never reached the same highs as Banjo. Plus, I often found myself irritated with the larger than necessary levels, awful camera, unnecessary stamina system, and particularly annoying Pagies. It's not nearly as good as Banjo-Kazooie, but I am at least happy that they tried.