Yooka-Laylee is a colorful throwback to collect-a-thon games of the past. However, it seems to forget to bring innovation, making the experience a bit tedious in the process.
While it seems to have been inspired by Rare's classic, Banjo-Kazooie, I never actually played it yet to make a direct comparison, although I did find Yooka-Laylee's gameplay style to be similar to Jak & Daxter's, another collect-a-thon game.
From collecting many of the game's precious rewards, currency, and even explorations to its huge and sprawling worlds, the two games are one for one.
What's surprising here is that a game made in 2002 somehow approaches the collect-a-thon genre, much better than a game made in 2017, as it lets you keep track of which side activities you still need to clear up. Instead, in Yooka-Laylee, there's a lot of wandering around aimlessly, as it's difficult to figure out which activity you've already finished.
This is further made challenging due to the game's massive and complicated open levels that's easy to get lost in. The game desperately needs a map or mini-map of sorts where you can see where you are, and the objective that still needs to be done.
The game also keeps making jokes about how this is the new game generation and that old games should update themselves, but funnily enough, this game never felt modern.
Many of the abilities that you learn are also quite underutilized. You could bypass many puzzle challenges with the use of your wide array of abilities, but the game limits you to using only a specific ability, essentially removing experimentation.
The final boss is also an awful encounter as it demands you to fight Capital B's 7 phases without any health pickups and unskippable cutscenes. Truly awful and tedious.
While most of my comments about the game may have all been negative, I did quite enjoy the game. But the lack of contemporary changes to the genre is just not that easy to shrug off.
While it seems to have been inspired by Rare's classic, Banjo-Kazooie, I never actually played it yet to make a direct comparison, although I did find Yooka-Laylee's gameplay style to be similar to Jak & Daxter's, another collect-a-thon game.
From collecting many of the game's precious rewards, currency, and even explorations to its huge and sprawling worlds, the two games are one for one.
What's surprising here is that a game made in 2002 somehow approaches the collect-a-thon genre, much better than a game made in 2017, as it lets you keep track of which side activities you still need to clear up. Instead, in Yooka-Laylee, there's a lot of wandering around aimlessly, as it's difficult to figure out which activity you've already finished.
This is further made challenging due to the game's massive and complicated open levels that's easy to get lost in. The game desperately needs a map or mini-map of sorts where you can see where you are, and the objective that still needs to be done.
The game also keeps making jokes about how this is the new game generation and that old games should update themselves, but funnily enough, this game never felt modern.
Many of the abilities that you learn are also quite underutilized. You could bypass many puzzle challenges with the use of your wide array of abilities, but the game limits you to using only a specific ability, essentially removing experimentation.
The final boss is also an awful encounter as it demands you to fight Capital B's 7 phases without any health pickups and unskippable cutscenes. Truly awful and tedious.
While most of my comments about the game may have all been negative, I did quite enjoy the game. But the lack of contemporary changes to the genre is just not that easy to shrug off.