If there was one word I could use to describe this game, it'd probably be "Disappointment".

The foundation for a truly great game is there but it just didn't have the funds or the team to push that foundation into a classic status like Banjo Kazooie before it. The game will feel immediately familiar to BK veterans, but that glowing nostalgia will slowly give way to disappointment. The length of the game is the first one. Only 5 worlds and probably 35 hours later (had the game left paused in menus for a while) you're left wanting more. While you can easily 100% complete BK in roughly the same amount of time, the fact that BK has 9 worlds to YL's 5 just makes this feel like a shorter experience. And even with only 5 worlds, 3 of those are essentially similar themes to worlds in BK (Tribalstack Tropics = Mumbo's Mountain, Glitterglaze Glacier = Freezezy Peak, Moodymaze Marsh = Bubblegloop Swamp). That leaves you with only two truly unique theme worlds. Disappointment.

The lack of enemy variation is another point against Yooka Laylee. In Treasure Trove Cove in BK, you get to fight crabs, jumping clams, a giant hermit crab, a shark, and sea mines, and the enemies are completely different in each level. In YL you get to fight the corplet minions, the flying bees, the eyeballs that possess objects, and the underwater jellyfish. These 4 enemy types are pretty much the majority of the enemies you'll come across in the whole game, with the addition of the security robots and the VERY occasional large Corplet minions. Only the small corplet minions change their appearance to match their theme level. The rest are just plonked in everywhere. It doesn't really feel like much effort was put in to make the enemies match the worlds. Disappointment.

The lack of variety of the puzzles was another low point of the game. In Banjo Kazooie, in the first world alone, I had to fight a giant ape, appease a totem pole, and climb a termite mound. In Yooka Laylee, I had to hit some switches to unlock a cage, fly through some hoops to unlock a cage, or use some other moves to unlock a cage. Most of the puzzles are just in cages. When comparing that to truly stand out jiggies like lighting the christmas tree in Freezezy Peak or swimming inside a giant metal shark, the puzzles just seem lacklustre. Disappointment.

Overall there's a lot that could have improved the game. More levels, more enemy variety, more puzzle variety. In fact, lack of variety seems to be the core problem with this game. I chalk that up to the limits of crowdfunding. They got $2 million and they probably needed close to $40 million to add the variety I was hoping for. I still had fun playing this, but it was the kind of fun that was constantly making me think "if only they'd done a little more here...." It will make you want to play Banjo Kazooie again. And while it admirably reaches the tone and feel of Banjo Kazooie, it fails in the creativity and execution of that tone. It does innovate well with the welcome feature of collectibles staying collected once you leave the level. You no longer need to collect all the notes/quills in one go, which is a welcome update over Banjo Kazooie. But still, if they'd only had more funding to push this game where it needed to go, then this could have been a worthy sequel. The fact that it wasn't is just a disappointment.