The worst thing about Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is that it's trying to retain the "soul" and humor of Banjo-Kazooie, while clearly being an homage and iteration of the Donkey Kong Country series. Not to say that Donkey Kong wasn't funny at the SNES games, but the humor was in small gestures instead of being one of the main elements like it is in Banjo.

Everything that characterizes the characters in Donkey Kong is before and after a level (with the exception of the waiting animation that happens if you don't move the gamepad). While you're in the game designer's challenge, he wants you to fall in love with the music and enjoy the obstacles he made with so much care. Yooka-Laylee's music is completely forgettable, to not say that is altright BAD, and the whole aesthetic is horrible, from the characters to the collectables. However, the strength of this game comes precisely when it is being an honest platformer.

Well, the truth is, the game is kind of awesome. In my first two hours of Yooka-Laylee 2 (I'll call it that for short) I was finding it to be a completely normal game. It didn't arouse any good feelings in me, but none VERY negative either. But things started to get to me around 3 or 4 hours of gameplay, which is when I had gotten used to the gameplay. I mean, before I played Yooka-Laylee 2 (and the only reason I played it) I did a marathon with my friend Aiden (love you bro) playing all FIVE Donkey Kong Country to the end. And when you come off the adrenaline of having played two insanely good games that complement what the other games in the franchise did, and update the design philosophy for a new generation, it's hard not to feel that literally every other 2D platformer outside of these are weak.

What I mean by that is: the bar was set obscenely high, and I had to lower my expectations. Once I went into the game enjoying what he was offering me instead of asking for things he wasn't going to do, everything got much better. RetroStudio's Donkey Kong games are heavy and accurate. Each movement needs to be calculated to the millimeter, you need to feel and absorb the monkeys' gameplay and have a good enough connection to become an extension of your own body. Yooka-Laylee 2 is the opposite. In fact, its logic operates in a similar way to 2D Mario games. Take your skill set, and react instinctively, improvising whatever comes along (obviously within the limits imposed by the level. You don't have freedom, but that's the magic of Donkey Kong games). When I understood that, the game was a delight to play, I went through all the stages the way I most want to play Donkey Kong: using dash to run through the entire thing without looking back.

Best of all, Yooka-Laylee 2 has some great ideas. For instance: I love the hub world and how collectibles are implemented in your progression. The premise of the game is: the villain of the game has a lair... the so-called -IMPOSSIBLE LAIR-, that you can face at any time. The big issue is that the Impossible Lair is... almost impossible, as the name implies. So to have a better chance of winning, you need to go around the world solving puzzles, unlocking stages to play them in order to rescue a bee. When you rescue a bee, it becomes part of your shield in the Impossible Lair, this means that the amount of hits you can take increases the more stages you finish, because at the end of every stage there is, obviously, a bee.

The game has 48 bees and 20 levels. 8 of the 48 bees are "secret" and can be found in the hub world. But if it's one bee per level, how come there are 40? Simple: every level has two versions. Just as Symphony of the Night's castle has its inverted version, Yooka-Laylee 2's levels have a sister version that changes, most of the time, drastically the gameplay. It's hard to explain to anyone who has never played or seen a gameplay, so I won't go into the game's mechanics too deeply, but basically the overworld is full of interactions and allows you to play with the properties of the scenario. You might fill the surroundings of a level with water, and find that the "inverted" version of it is an aquatic level. Or, on a stage that is located near the furnace, you can place smoke on top of the stage, revealing that its "inverted" version is the same stage but with clouds that add another layer of platforming.

Yooka-Laylee doesn't have good music or decent sound design, so the setting work is all done through these interactions. Turn on the power of a level to make it energized, press a lever that lift the level to play a SCARY vertical version, make the level swing, to play a version where your main means of locomotion is ropes. These ideas are very good and cohesive with what the game does. It got to the point where I was genuinely looking forward to seeing what the next gimmick they were going to come up with, and that feeling is very DKC-like.

Talking about the Impossible Lair itself, it's probably the hardest video game level I've ever played in my life. Even with 47 bees, I sweat to pass. There are 4 bossfights (although one is almost a tutorial) and insanely difficult platforming sessions on a kaizo level, that require you to know all the game mechanics. As I said earlier, you can do Impossible Lair from the start, but the game is smart enough to wire all of the game's systems together so that you NEED to play all (or almost all) of the levels. Did you skip any? less bees, less coins to open more levels and less knowledge. Perhaps you skipped the level that presents the platforms that fall and come back every 3 seconds, and you will miss this mechanic.

This review doesn't exactly have a point, but what I'm getting at with all this is that, despite having a bad reputation, being ugly, having bad music, having bad characters, and a bunch more flaws: Yooka-Laylee 2 is non ironically one of the most inventive 2D platformers I've ever played, and overall I enjoyed it more than Donkey Kong Country 1 and 3 (less than 2, Returns and Tropical Freeze). I don't know if it's for everyone, because the game is HUGE, the levels are big, the difficulty scales and that requires dedication. But if you're a person who has already dedicated hours to the DKC games, it's worth a try.

Its a solid 2D platformer with decent level design and a good moveset. It's not on the level of something like Tropical Freeze because it's missing that extra layer of Nintendo polish but it was enjoyable. The ideas in this game are innovative for the genre like how effecting the overworld can create alternate levels. It had cool ideas. Didnt like the final level very much, precise platforming with janky hurt boxes from spikes and enemies was just not a fun time. Felt like it went against what made this game fun by making you play extremely slow and safe. It's like those slow levels in Sonic 1 you really hate but 10x worse but I got through it with 34 bees. Cool idea for a final level but it needed work.

Serviceable game but nothing really stands out about it. The titular Impossible Lair is a fun idea in theory but I found it - especially the boss fight parts of it - a bit tedious in practice.
The regular levels don't really have a lot of character, I found them mostly...unremarkable. You play through a level and nothing really sticks out, neither good nor bad. It's just a thing you did. There aren't really any creative twists on it (even in the altered versions of the levels) that make them stand out from the rest. This is not a bad game, it's just never feels like it reaches what it promises to be.

Muy buen plataformas 2D basado en los DK Country.

El juego tiene una dificultad buena, varios niveles se pueden hacer complicados, pero realmente a menos que vayas al 100% no son un dolor de cabeza.
El nivel final es jodidisimo eso sí.

La forma en la que interactúas con los niveles, ya sea en los propios niveles o en el overworld para abrir nuevos caminos es muy ingenioso.

Visualmente llamativo, aunque un tanto repetitivo, sé que hay diferentes secciones, pero no le noté un cambio increíble a cada zona.

Al igual que los DKC, si te golpean, pierdes a tu compañero, Laylee, pero aquí se te da la oportunidad de recuperarlo en unos segundos al contrario de con Diddy, Dixie o Kidie, haciendo que puedas enmendar el error si eres capaz de tocar al murciélago.

Me podría quejar de que no tiene jefes, cosa que me molesta un poco, pero realmente no se me hace que el juego pierda algo por no tenerlos, los niveles se sirven de su propia creatividad para hacer que no pierdas el interés.

A big surprise as a sequel to a controvertial game but a welcome one indeed.

I haven't played the original yooka layle but considering the history of the devs, you can feel how much passion and work put was put into this title.

One can expect it to be a classic bootleg take on a classic formula from the classic DKC games and actually this won't make the title justice.

Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair does something I have never seen in a game like this: you open the game and it goes "HERE THE FINAL LEVEL! YOU WANT IT! GOOD LUCK" and presents you from the start an incredible endurance match that make you feel like the Path of Pain of Hollow Knight is a slugfest.

It's a tough challenge that you can try to get immediately... or you can explore the rest of the world to save bees that acts as your life stock, able to save you if you fail the overmentioned impossible lair.

THe levels themselves are incredibly creative: each of them lets you enter into a book in the 3D overworld, which on its own is fun to explore in all its corners. But the ability to change the event of the overworld to shaped how the level will look like is such a creative aspect that alone makes you appreaciate how well designed most of the challenges are: you got a level where the entrance is a book floating over water? THe whole level is set over / under water... but if you try to freeze the lake in the overworld- BAM the whole level is frozen in ice and turn into a completely new thing.

This alone makes the levels fun to travers, and it may be fun to explore even if Yooka and Laylee had a weird movement.... luckily they are also fun to play has: they have such a cool and responsive movement that is also able to feel unique, combining elements from the DKC games with the floatyness and gimmicks of Yoshi's Island.... not to mention that you have a lot of customization for the duo, making the adventure more fitting to your liking if you want.

THe cast of characters I feel aren't as memorable as the ones from Banjo or other Rare games of the time (except Trowzer, I love that guy), but the adventure is still able to be incredibly charming.

I admit I still haven't beat it because the Lair DRIVES ME NUTS, but this game still is able to makes so many things that it will be impossible to hate this. Wat a comeback for Platonic. I am happy to see that they really made something great.

An improvement from the original Yooka in every way possible. Playtonic proves they can be more than "Banjo, but not as good" with "Donkey Kong Country AND on an almost equal level." Playtonic is essentially returning to their roots even further by opting to follow up their 3D platformer with a 2D one. Each of the 20 levels are very well crafted with a fantastic Soundtrack, while also taking the idea of the expanded tomes from the first game and making them 10X better with the new Change State function that completely alters how you play every level. The tonic system has also been reworked to be way more fun with a selection of boosters that can help or hinder your play of a level. Using more detrimental tonics can have a big risk, but big reward function, while helpful tonics can do the opposite. The overworld is also really fun to explore as this is where you'll find said tonics, along with puzzles that'll help you State Change a level, and some of the more memorable characters from the first game. The titular Impossible Lair is an aggravating, but very satisfying gauntlet to complete once you get the hang of things, and for the true masochist, Playtonic rewards you greatly for beating the Impossible Lair on your first try without the use of the games main collectible, The Beetalion army. It's crazy to think it's already almost been 5 years since the release of this. Hopefully Playtonix can break their silence soon. I'd love to see them finally take a 2nd crack at 3D platformers with everything they've relearned from the original Yooka and this one.

Playtonic has excelled with The Impossible Lair, surpassing their 3D platformer installment. I've always been a fan of the original game, even though it's not the popular opinion. However, I'm thrilled with the improvements made in every aspect with this shift. It's great to see that they hit their strides with this game.

The buddy duo Yooka & Laylee are an absolute blast to navigate through the tightly designed levels. They perfectly blend the challenging elements of Donkey Kong Country games with a satisfying flow that kicks in once you get the hang of controlling the characters.

The setup of this game is a nice twist & double that with the hub world which is a top-down structure like 2D Zelda. At first, I had concerns about its shallow nature, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much it has to offer. The puzzles are captivating, there are plenty of collectibles to explore, and mini-challenges are quick & fun to do. It offers a cozy experience, especially after enduring some intense levels. It serves as a refreshing break without feeling half-fasted.

The presentation has certainly seen an improvement in visuals and soundtrack compared to the first game. I'm glad they maintain their excellent writing style, adding charm & entertainment to the characters. It's impressive how they've carved unique personalities & not much being under the Banjo-Kazooie’s shadows as time goes on.

I have two main issues with this game. Firstly, a significant portion of the Tonics you collect are simply different visual filters, which I find unrewarding. Secondly, the few altered levels that exist are not particularly unique compared to their original forms.

Besides these complaints, this game goes for a significantly reduced price, often seen at bargain prices during discounted sales. It is such a steal considering that it is one of the finest modern 2D platformers that I have played. Playtonic has crafted a game that retains familiarity without being trapped in the past while introducing unique elements that set it apart without losing focus, a criticism often directed at their 3D platformer installment.

This is a gorgeous re-iteration of Donkey Kong and DK64, with absolutely flawless music. The movement and level design really elevate the DK formula and the addition of overworld puzzles and level interaction adds a compelling dimension to the platforming. Unfortunately overworld movement is frustratingly limited, and there were a number of glitches throughout my playthrough. The tonic system is really cool, but barely utilized as most tonics are purely aesthetic. The inability to quit during a level and resume at a checkpoint is annoying. The titular lair is just not my jam - I appreciate that there is the option for a high-difficulty challenge, but I wish I could have gotten some kind of resolution for my more casual playthrough. Overall a decent, if janky, nostalgia trip.