Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie are two of my favorite games of all time. I played BK in '99, so there's a ton of nostalgia there, but I didn't play Tooie until a few years ago, so there's no nostalgia there at all. I feel that they're both 10/10 experiences, and I backed Yooka-Laylee the very second the Kickstarter went live.

I think I was set up for the most disappointment possible. Since I am so hyper-familiar with the Banjo games, all of Yooka-Laylee's flaws and shortcomings were even more jarring to me.

The levels were too big and had too little in them, and what was there wasn't very interesting. In Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie, there aren't any repeated Jiggy challenges that show up in every level besides collecting Jinjos. in Yooka-Laylee, you repeated similar objectives constantly, and they weren't even fun. The characters' controls are cumbersome, the stamina meter is frustrating, combat is janky, and the whole thing just felt... rough.

I wanted to love it, but it felt like some rusty devs trying to get back into the swing of things. I'm really hopeful that they can shake the dust off and put out a fantastic 3D follow-up soon. (And if The Impossible Lair is any indication, they're already learning from their mistakes!)