Time to beat: 13 hours
Date beaten: November 9, 2021
Platform: XB1
Yooka-Laylee is a lovely retro homage loaded with hiccups. It doesn’t quite hit the highs of a classic Rare collectathon, but boy does it hit the lows.
+ Charm through the roof. The music, art direction, characters, and writing all nail the cozy, hilarious vibes of classic Rare
+ While there are only five worlds, they’ve each got enough content and visual variety to be a treat to explore and discover
+ Plenty of fun challenges and gameplay moments that ultimately outweigh the repetitive or poorly done parts
- The desire to explore is weakened by reused challenges, world expansion, move-gating, and disorientingly large levels
- Janky controls and frustrating mechanics pop up several times, such as with flight, minecart levels, the stamina meter, and those atrocious arcade games. And the final boss is Boring with a Capital B
- Yooka-Laylee is a Voltron of the worst aspects of old Rare collectathons. Banjo-Kazooie’s quiz show, DK64’s obtuse final boss, and Tooie‘s obsession with negative space (Note: since I originally wrote this review in 2021, I have concluded that Tooie does negative space well, but Yooka-Laylee definitely does not) are all back in force.
Date beaten: November 9, 2021
Platform: XB1
Yooka-Laylee is a lovely retro homage loaded with hiccups. It doesn’t quite hit the highs of a classic Rare collectathon, but boy does it hit the lows.
+ Charm through the roof. The music, art direction, characters, and writing all nail the cozy, hilarious vibes of classic Rare
+ While there are only five worlds, they’ve each got enough content and visual variety to be a treat to explore and discover
+ Plenty of fun challenges and gameplay moments that ultimately outweigh the repetitive or poorly done parts
- The desire to explore is weakened by reused challenges, world expansion, move-gating, and disorientingly large levels
- Janky controls and frustrating mechanics pop up several times, such as with flight, minecart levels, the stamina meter, and those atrocious arcade games. And the final boss is Boring with a Capital B
- Yooka-Laylee is a Voltron of the worst aspects of old Rare collectathons. Banjo-Kazooie’s quiz show, DK64’s obtuse final boss, and Tooie‘s obsession with negative space (Note: since I originally wrote this review in 2021, I have concluded that Tooie does negative space well, but Yooka-Laylee definitely does not) are all back in force.