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REVIEW: YOOKA-LAYLEE (PS4, Xbox One, SWitch, PC - PS4 Version Tested)

5/6/2017

20 Comments

 
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I appreciate that this review is late, but please allow me to explain. You see, it is late for this many reasons: ONE HUNDRED REASONS!!!

Reason one is this reason: Been busy. Reasons two through one-hundo are this: I didn't much love the otherwise much-loved classic 3D platformer Banjo-Kazooie, which Yooka-Laylee is - in all but name and official license - a sequel to.

Consequently, I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to play it. Yes: what a hairy plum of a man I am.

By all accounts, I should've loved Banjo-Kazooie. It was a game by Rare - a developer not unknown for doing well good games - arriving at a time when decent 3D platformers were still a relative novelty.

And yet... to me it compared unfavourably to Super Mario 64, in the same way that I felt that Rare's Donkey Kong Country games paled next to Nintendo's own 2D platformers. Solid... but somehow... I dunno. I still can't put my finger on it, even after all these years.

It was as if... you know when you eat something that mostly tastes fine, but there's something a bit funny about it - like, a flavour you can't quite identify? Sort of as if there was a tiny splash of soy sauce in an otherwise really lovely "Brown Derby sundae", and that somehow taints the overall experience. For me, that's what Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country were like.

But what a difference those years make. I'm not the cynical, scattershot edgy, youth that I once was. Being old-ish, things that I pretended to be irritated by in my prime are now coloured with the wistful glaze of nostalgia.

Whereas once I might've scoffed, now I'll happily watch hours of vintage footage of Richard Stilgoe barking rhythmically in an allotment, or eat my way gladly through a packet of Findus Crispy Pancakes that expired in 1991, 
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DIFF'RENT STROKES
Similarly, the games industry is a very different place now. It is a place where there are mainly two types of video games: games with sexy robots pointing at holographic touch-screens, and games where men in khaki bellow profanity at explosions.

Also... the world is crying out for a bit of optimism and joy right now, and it seems to me as if Yooka-Laylee is rather well-timed.

You're not an idiot, probably. You know what Yooka-Laylee is.

That's right; it's one of those games they used to have where a cartoon animal - in this case, a pair of sods (a chameleon and a bat) - has to run around collecting stuff. Collecting stuff in Yooka-Laylee - here, the pages of a magic book - will allow you to purchase new abilities for your characters, thus unlocking previously inaccessible areas. And thus, getting closer to dealing with the evil Capital B, a big, bad sod (bee).

The game has just five worlds, spinning off a central hub, but they're huge worlds. In fact, that hugeness is probably my biggest issue with Yooka-Laylee. 

See, there's so much here that the game gets right - in as far as it sets out to be an old-school-style 3D platformer - from its colourful (albeit not-exactly-next-gen) visuals, it's cast of characters and their cheesy, meta, one-lines... to the sheer variety of gameplay on offer - that it's a shame that it gets let down by a lack of focus.

Yooka-Laylee is at its best in its earliest hours, where you're exploring and getting used to its idiosyncrasies. It's when you realise that navigating around the levels is more trial-and-error that it starts to feel like a chore. To keep moving forward you have to keep unlocking new abilities, and that means collecting all the magical pages in a level... and finding them all becomes profoundly frustrating.

Additionally, there's a lot of backtracking, due to the hub structure, other side-quests where you're expecting to find things... and... well... the amount of wandering back-and-fro starts to get a bit annoying.
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A SHAME IN THE MEMBRANE
It's a shame that something so fundamental took away some of my enjoyment of Yooka-Laylee, because I really wanted to love it.

As mentioned, it seems to hit the zeitgeist head on; I think a lot of us are looking for more optimistic, more colourful, brighter, less cynical, ways to be entertained and Yooka-Laylee has no agenda other than to be entertaining.

It is crying out to be loved, but not in a desperate way - like somebody on Twitter, or a famous comedian - but in the way that a puppy looks at you with its big eyes, and wags its tail when it sees you walking up the driveway.

However... despite that, puppies can be challenging and test your patience when they chew the TV remote, or do a poo on your throat while you're asleep. And that's what Yooka-Laylee is like.

<PRETENDS TO CLEAR THROAT>

Unfortunately, that's the best simile I can come up with right now. Okay, anyway... bye then. BYE!


<RUNS OUT OF LECTURE THEATRE, WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOPING>

SUMMARY: Old-school and charming, but not without its irritations.
​SCORE: 1,995AD out of 2,500AD
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
REVIEW: INJUSTICE 2 (PS4, XBOX ONE - PS4 VERSION TESTED)
REVIEW: PREY (PS4, XBOX ONE, PC - PS4 VERSION TESTED)
​
REVIEW: MARIO KART 8 DELUXE - SWITCH​



20 Comments
Spiney O'Sullivan
5/6/2017 10:11:00 am

So basically it's Donkey Kong 64? Good, but lacking the tighter focus of the levels in Mario 64 due to its massive levels and trillion collectible widgets and jinglebobs?

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Findus McCartney
5/6/2017 12:32:14 pm

Keep it down mate we're chatting about Crispy Pancakes down here

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Antony Adler
5/6/2017 10:12:44 am

Just ordered a box of Findus crispy pancakes. THAT'S what I took from this review! ;)

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Leigh
5/6/2017 11:19:37 am

Sadly the modern Crispy Pancake seems to be 10% breadcrumbs, 2% filling, 88% air. This may have always been the case but we were unfussy kids with gobs like hoovers back then.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
5/6/2017 12:53:01 pm

That's because they had to take out the horse meat a few years ago.

Toblerone Tony
5/6/2017 11:32:32 am

Enjoy your slipper filled with puke!

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Voodoo76
5/6/2017 11:51:06 am

Findus Crispy Pancakes NEVER expire, they just lose a bit of the crispyness.

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lilock3
5/6/2017 12:38:18 pm

Still waiting for the Switch version here... Apart from Found Footage this is the only thing I've ever backed on Kickstarter, here's hoping that neither disappoint. I replayed Banjo-Kazooie a couple of months ago and for me it still holds up, so hopefully Yooka-Laylee will be just what the proverbial doctor ordered.

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RichardM
5/6/2017 01:37:23 pm

Yeah, same problem I had with Banjo Tooie and especially DK64. Worlds are too big, too much to collect, but relatively little novelty. The SM64 and Banjo Kazooie levels are tighter and more... fun? Hard to quantify. Also that feeling of mystery and exploration in BK, with the ice key and so on.

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Jeseppi
5/6/2017 07:27:45 pm

Bang on. After BK, their 3D platformers suffered from 'more is less'. Too large and empty, lacking tightness, and resulting in a much lower 'fun density'. YL is the same. This excessive emptiness in design is part of the reason Breath of the Wild was a steaming pile of shit in comparison to vastly superior installments.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
5/6/2017 03:15:36 pm

YES. I have been saying this FOREVER. Even back at the time when the N64 was the hot thing. Rare's 3D platformers simply are not that good. Hours of tediously jumping around trying to find coins or tokens or jinjos or bananas or whatever.

Locking away parts of a level until you have a certain ability is especially frustrating because you can't be sure if you just need to come back later once you've learned Botty Burps or Head Slapping, or if you're just being dull and there's totally a ledge around the side that you can't see (note that on the N64, that ledge would be blurry and covered with washed out, smeary textures, and perhaps behind a bitmapped bush or tree that rotates to face you no matter which way you're standing). Jet Force frigging Gemini did this and, combined with having to shoot flying enemies, made me wish I actually had the name of the dog (lupus) rather than have to play it any longer. Hell, Ape Escape... er... 'aped' Rare's style and did this nonsense and I stopped playing that, too.

Rare churned these games out. They all had Rare's trademark snarky and dislikeable sense of humour and dialogue, annoying characters, and this obsession with locking away as much content as possible. The only Rare games I ever really got into were Goldeneye (not a platformer) and Viva Pinata. Viva Pinata nevertheless shared many of the same traits, namely irritating characters (Leafos who would wander around bossing you around and would take your tools away if you attacked her with them out of frustration; the 'evil' ones who would come and kill or poison your hard-raised pinatas), repetitive annoying dialogue (if I had to hear "can I interest you in something SEEDY" one more fucking time) and much of the game locked away behind time-wasting guff that was painful to get through even if you looked up how to do it.

Of course, say any of this and you will be branded Mr Wrong Wrongington-Wrong of 223 Wrong Street, Wrongsville, Wrongfordshire, WR0 NG0.

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Voodoo76
5/6/2017 04:40:20 pm

Seriously though "can I interest you in something SEEDY"

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Leigh
5/6/2017 05:25:53 pm

I wrote that line but they didn't tell me it was going to be repeated EVERY. DAMN. TIME.

Sorry.

RichardM
5/6/2017 07:37:44 pm

I think you can be forgiven: Mr Pants makes up for it.

Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
12/6/2017 02:52:07 pm

My ex played both VP games a lot (arguably more than me) so we heard the line constantly, especially in the first one where they didn't have the quick buy commands on the cursor interface.

We would bellow out "seedy" putting as much effort on a gargly effect as possible.

Jim
6/6/2017 08:35:35 am

I agree with you, Rares best games were made for earlier eras. For example Solar jetman and snake rattle and roll were amazing and highly innovative games for the NES

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Col. Asdasd
6/6/2017 09:43:22 am

Banjo Kazooie was definitely the high watermark of the collectathon genre, and perhaps 3D platforming in general. There was a decline in the sequel and in DK3D as Rare struggled to recapture the magic formula that made the first one so good.

But to characterise their output as a cynical churn of shovelware is so wrong you could personify it as a huge, low-poly ape named Wrongky Kong, whose fallacy gun can fire in bursts.

Their output on the N64 was indeed prolific, especially considering that in today's industry a middle sized "second party" studio would be at most putting out one game, what, every couple of years? Unless they were on a permacrunch deathmarch?

Despite this Rare maintained a pretty high standard of quality in their releases. Consider this list (or DIE):

- Killer Instinct Gold. Not considered a classic but a cult favourite.
- Blast Corps. Critically lauded, genre-defying cult favourite.
- GoldenEye 007. Critically lauded, list-topping all-time genre great.
- Diddy Kong Racing. Popular and extremely well-received.
- Banjo-Kazooie. Critically lauded, list-topping all-time genre great.
- Jet Force Gemini. Popular, well-received, but far too long and grindy past the first half of the game (bloat syndrome setting in?).
- Donkey Kong 64. Popular, well-received, but far too long and grindy (this game is symptomatic of Peak Collectathon and possibly heralded the death of the 3D platformer).
- Perfect Dark. Extremely popular, well received, absolutely loaded with features and other stuff that tried to push the genre beyond what the console was really capable of (co-op campaign, AI deathmatch bots, etc).
- Mickey's Speedway USA. Er, does anyone remember this?
- Banjo-Tooie. Generally remembered for not being as good as Banjo 1.
- Conker's Bad Fur Day. Cult classic but more remembered for its poo jokes than anything else.

Looking at the list you can definitely see where the output begins to suffer, and of course the less said about their post Nintendo output the better. But cynical out-cranking of shittery this was not. Now be a good chap and stand over there while I heat up this branding iron.

(Something else to notice is that the 11 games they made for the N64 spanned a whopping 9 IPs, including 5 completely new ones. That's insane by today's standard, but for the time, be it on either the Playstation or the N64, this wasn't even really remarkable. I feel like the generation of new IP is one area where the industry has since lost its way direly.)

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Alastair
6/6/2017 03:56:34 pm

Yup, I never got into their platformers either, nor did I like SM64 that much either.

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Jol
5/6/2017 03:54:55 pm

What's that? People don't like large boring maps with loads of stupid time consuming hunts for collectibles? Boy are we lucky that modern developers haven't spaffed that particular trope all over every other release that falls under the wide-ranging 'action adventure' genre!

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Kram
5/6/2017 08:36:11 pm

What if Bencho-kablooie was modarn? bencho get microsoft surface pro

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