kirby007

User Score
9.3

Presentation - 9.5
Gameplay - 9.5
Value - 8.5

Yooka-Laylee is exactly what I had hoped for.
And actually that is mainly because the game does almost exactly the same as Banjo-Kazooie.
The bright, primary color palette is identical, you play again with two main characters stuck together and Yooka-Laylee is also full of collectibles. As if you were taking a time machine back to 1998.

I hear you ask, 'if Yooka-Laylee really looks like Banjo-Kazooie,
is it secretly just a cheap kind of remake?'.
Well, I can not really disagree, apart from the word 'cheap'.
But is that bad? After all, how many platform games
have appeared since Banjo-Kazooie who could only
touch that quality? Sure, we had the different Mario's,
but apart from a single Donkey Kong or Rayman,
the platform offerings in recent years have been mostly horrible
In addition, the game does indeed have new elements.
The worlds, for example, are much larger than those in Banjo-Kazooie,
and you are now constantly encountering something to do (puzzles, mini-games, new moves).
And otherwise there is always Rextro the dinosaur,
which provides entertainment for many extra hours with its traveling retro arcade.

Another nice addition is that you can expand the levels;
think of a structure that did not have a staircase yet, but now, so you can also get on the roof.
Something that keeps things fresh and improves replayability.
For a Kickstarter project Yooka-Laylee feels and looks pretty Triple A
The worlds are big and detailed, the controls are tight, everything runs steady,
60 frames per second on PC and 30fps on Xbox One,
 PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch and the camera works fine with it.
In that respect you notice that Yooka-Laylee is made by connoisseurs. Enthusiasts,
who have earned their spurs in the golden-age of platforming and now want to bring
the genre to the present time, although especially the nostalgic recognisability,
like in that typically British humor, is what makes it happen to me.

Yooka-Laylee
Yes, I'm just happy with this game. I laugh at the grumpy voice of the pig Sir Scoffsalot,
dream about the colorful worlds at night, and once I have started the game again,
I hum with the catchy tunes. Exactly what I've been waiting for almost twenty years.
When I was 10 I played Banjo-Kazooie. Now that I am 28, I play Yooka-Laylee.
Funny how little has actually changed.

Conclusion
Yooka-Laylee feels more like a remake of Banjo-Kazooie at times than a completely new game,
they are so much alike. In this case, however, that is only positive.
The world just needs more of these gems!!