YOOKA-LAYLEEDeveloper: Playtonic GamesGenres: Adventure, PlatformerPlatforms: PC, Xbox One, PS4, SwitchReviewed On: Xbox OneScore: ★★★

GAME REVIEW
By HAYDEN WAUGH

From a bygone era of 3D platformers during the late '90s and early 2000s, Yooka-Laylee has surfaced as a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie.

Made by a group of former-Rare developers who worked on Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka-Laylee is a friendly reminder of how enjoyable video games can be.

However, its lack of polish diminishes what could have been a fantastic nostalgia experience.

Your adventure begins under the evil watch of corporate fat-cat Capital B, who sets to rid a fictitious world of its literature. On doing so, he steals a book from Laylee (a tiny purple bat) and his friend, Yooka (a green chameleon), containing gold-tinted pages, called Pagies. So, the pair set out to reclaim their lost book.

The hub area is always an important aspect of platformer titles and Yooka-Laylee’s – called the Hivory Towers – is both hit and miss. It’s a surprisingly sprawling area, filled with secret nooks and crannies to obtain Pagies.

It also contains various paths that split into five themed stages with collectibles and useful power-ups, as well as hordes of Quills (the game's currency of choice).

However, finding your way is a task in itself, not only around Hivory Towers but in each successive world as well.

Whether by choice or unintentional oversight, Yooka-Laylee has no mini-map, quest log or significant in-game markers to help you. It is far too easy to get lost or lose track of your current task.

Completing tasks awards Pagies and mostly gives platforming a backseat. Birdseye view time trials and collecting a set number of gems on precarious mine cart tracks take your mind off an infuriatingly bad camera, which frequently locks up and sticks to surfaces.

Even though the theme of each world isn’t particularly original, each is cleverly crafted and exudes a colour palette reflective of the setting. The warm and inviting feel of Tribalstack Tropics, on top of the icy labyrinth of Glitterglaze Glacier, is truly spectacular.

The enemy design is a masterstroke too. From pairs of eyes that can attach to different objects to create new enemies, to persistent underwater jellyfish and robotic bees with heat-seeking projectiles, the imagination behind the enemies is quite fantastical.

The ability to spend your collected Pagies on opening new worlds, or expanding old ones, is probably the game’s biggest strength. Along with the satisfaction of chaining useful moves like rolling and flying, the latter not only unlocks new routes and puzzles, but also reveals more Quills you can spend on newer abilities.

While Yooka-Laylee may partly be a nostalgia trip, it is also partly a warning. Its score is catchy, carrying tones of adventure, happiness and danger, but the enjoyment in some platforming sections is non-existent.

For instance, one puzzle transforms the pair into a truck, plowing piles of snow to reveal a collectible. A gauntlet of platforms and several icy roads reveals a character that’s very hard to control and a situation that’s quite rage-inducing after several attempts. Players are quickly reminded why this genre has been so troublesome to reignite.

In addition, the main characters just aren’t that likeable. Yooka has an extremely bland personality that is merely fixated on progressing the story without much deviation.

On the other hand, while she makes for a cute sidekick, Laylee is quite nasty for the most part, calling other characters nasty names and offloading comments about their appearance and demeanour.

It doesn’t help Yooka-Laylee’s case when it comes to voice design either. Each character has a unique sound effect that plays whenever their subtitles appear on-screen.

However, it plays for every word they say. While some sound bites are more tolerable than others, it’s no surprise that overall it’s an infuriating choice in game design. A few sound bites per interaction would’ve been preferable but, in this instance, it’s possibly the worst you’ll ever hear.

Yooka-Laylee is so close to being a great video game. The glory days of the Nintendo 64 may be over, but bringing that console’s problems to a contemporary title is bordering on unforgiveable.

Overall, Yooka-Laylee is a lot harder to love than it should’ve been.