Yooka-Laylee is a wonderfully built revist to the N64-era 3D platformers. More of a "family-style" game, it walks familiar territory without being boring, and brings enough colorful environments and characters to put a few smiles on people's faces. The band that brought about Banjo-Kazooie is back in full force and they've proven that those games can still be worthwhile purchases. If you were a fan of those games, Yooka-Laylee will not disappoint. If you want a more Mario-esque approach in terms of sound design and hand-holding, or if you just didn't like 3D platformers at all, you might want to look elsewhere.

Cons first to be helpful, pros to follow:
-Not Keyboard and Mouse friendly. This may seem like a sin given that this is a review of the PC version of this game, but it was built primarily to run on most modern consoles and is based on purely console-grounded predecessors. Controller advised. I use an Xbox One S controller and the controls worked wonderfully without any issues.

-Feels short. Yooka-laylee feels more reserved than the platformers that came before it, like it doesn't want to outstay it's welcome. For some, that may be a plus. If you were looking to get 40 hours out of this game, you'd have to do multiple play-throughs. As of writing this review, I sunk 23 hours into the game to achieve 110% completion.

-Any challenge involving a ball. There's about three or four of these in the game and they all seem to be frustratingly built against the players better angels. The physics and boundaries always seem to throw caution to the wind when a ball is involved to where sometimes winning is more a matter of luck than skill. These were the only truly maddening moments with the game.

-Character voices. About 1/10th of the cutscenes are unskippable and the various chirps, grunts, groans, and quips can get on some people's nerves. The rest of the time you can just bash the A-button and ignore them. If you've played Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, or Nuts N' Bolts, this is not an unfamiliar con. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's charming, most of the time it can be agitating if left unchecked. Turning down the sound effects to half helps.

-Camera can be a little unfriendly at times. This is rare and only cropped up for me at 3 moments across the entire game. It doesn't impede enjoyment of the game, but it can prove a little unsavory at critical moments. Most the time the camera behaves like any other game really.

-This is a "collect-a-thon", a rarity in modern games it seems and not without reason. Some players find them tedious. These games appeal to explorers and treasure hunters, those that like to check every corner to find rewards. Yooka-laylee also doesn't hand out participation trophies often - it's common to struggle for just one of the games coveted 'pagies' and sometimes without any hints. This style of game is ripped from an era where player's guides were incredibly popular, and so instead a quick google search can trivialize some of the games more potent puzzles.

Pros:
-"Family style" platformer. Not too challenging for kids, but providing enough of a challenge and humor for adults to stay engaged. Good clean fun!

-Colorful and fleshed out graphics, characters, and environments. Everything looks great and polished!

-Relatively bug-free. The game is built rock-solid and with enough resources to not leave the player hanging.

-Diverse challenges. There's not many dull moments in the game, and it never tries to repeat the same trick twice without some added twists. Trials broadly range from extreemly easy to frustratingly difficult, but all of them are short lived and spaced out.

-Nostalgia-friendly. Yooka-Laylee gladly brings Banjo-Kazooie to modern platforms in a way that doesn't scorn what the older games accomplished nor is it a direct copy.

-Excellent music. Grant Kirkhope is back again and has done an amazing job. The shifts in music throughout are both impressive and pleasing.


This is a kickstarter backer review. I backed Yooka-Laylee to see the old Rare team come back together again and make another delightful platformer, and they have.