Yooka-Laylee

 Xbox One
Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 39 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 24 out of 39
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 39
  3. Negative: 1 out of 39
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  1. Eurogamer
    Apr 4, 2017
    Playtonic's tribute to Banjo is a gentle, irreverent platformer let down by spotty handling and a slight shortage of genius.

Awards & Rankings

30
#30 Most Discussed Xbox One Game of 2017
24
#24 Most Shared Xbox One Game of 2017

User Reviews

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User Score
5.5

Mixed or average reviews- based on 129 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 62 out of 129
  2. Mixed: 17 out of 129
  3. Negative: 50 out of 129
  1. bubblegumfuji
    Apr 12, 2017
    10
    Absolutely unique, beautiful, and a blast to play. Yooka Laylee's gameplay is centered around one simple concept: fun. You'll spend theAbsolutely unique, beautiful, and a blast to play. Yooka Laylee's gameplay is centered around one simple concept: fun. You'll spend the roughly 30-40 hour quest playfully exploring giant colorful dreamscapes filled with a surprising amount of challenges and a plethora of quirky (and quite needy) characters.

    Yooka-Laylee doesn't hold your hand while forcing you along a linear path--instead, it trusts you to play the game at your own pace. This freedom not only provides a fantastic and epic adventure but also a great sense of accomplishment as you see your collectable list fill up with tokens marking your achievements.

    This game is a stunning creation by a very passionate team of developers and deserves a place in gamer's hearts. An instant classic!    … Full Review »
  2. unknownhero
    Apr 14, 2017
    4
    Edit: With constant frame rate drops and unresponsive controls, I'm lowering my score to a 4. It makes already unbalanced mini gamesEdit: With constant frame rate drops and unresponsive controls, I'm lowering my score to a 4. It makes already unbalanced mini games impossible, especially to get the 'high score' pagies. I found myself about to get the high score on the arcade mini games only to have the game jump suddenly, screw me up and have to start again. What pains me more is there's no 'retry' button on the pause menu, meaning having to go out of mini game, read the same irritating dialogue again and again and restart the game for it to happen again.

    I signed up to Metacritic just to review this. I've been waiting (unknowingly) for this game pretty much since finishing Banjo-Tooie when it came out on the N64 - "Just you wait 'til Banjo-Threeie!'. I have to say, I am a little bit disappointed with it. It looks nice with vibrant colours and nice textures, exactly what you'd expect from a graphical upgrade. The music is also really nice and features the same sort of BK/BT sound effects for NPC's and upgrades. The characters are also quite funny at times, however, a lot of the jokes seem to miss the mark by trying to be 'down with the kids', in a sense.

    This game, however, does fall short in several place; the levels are far too big with very little direction or guidance. I get that this is all part of the adventure, running around and what not, but it leaves it feeling very empty. It can be very easy to miss a tiny crack in a wall or whatever and just spend half an hour wandering around bored. I bet this is why Nuts and Bolts added vehicles and obvious challenges to try and avoid this (I can't believe I'm justifying N&B) - just to break up the boring emptiness.

    BK worked in the sense that the smaller levels and reduced number of things to collect meant that this wasn't too strenuous a task. However, instead of 100 notes and 10 jiggies, it's now 200 'quills' and 25 'pagies'. As an adult now, I'm finding it really difficult to find the motivation to spend so much time exploring every nook and cranny to find that 1 quill hidden in some ambiguous crevice. You now have to spend pagies to 'expand' the level to make it bigger to get everything, so before this you're exploring what looks like a half designed level!

    I suppose you could argue that this game isn't for adults (it is VERY hand holdy to start with), however, with some of the adult jokes the kids would miss ('The Bat Ship Crazy', or a snake named 'Trowser' anyone?) along with the obvious n64 BK/BT references in there, this game was clearly intended for old fans as well as new. I also keep seeing things around and being like 'oh, that's just the Yooka-Laylee equivalent of X or Y thing in Banjo; I get that it's a spiritual successor but nothing seems very original at all. The new power ups just feel more like ticking boxes than anything fun - 'this puzzle is solved by shooting this thing into that thing as it's places right next to it'.

    The camera is absolutely dreadful, whereas BK games would just let you control it and platform as you please, YL insists that on certain parts that it'll swing around willy-nilly and lock into place, making the (dull) combat and platforming more difficult than it should be. I'm all for challenge, but not created by technical limitation. I also can't stand the equivalent of the 'talon trot', where Laylee jumps on Yooka and runs on him as a ball; it just simply doesn't turn properly making going around corners a nightmare and resulting in you plummeting off of high ledges and needing to climb everything all again.

    The enemies are completely boring, there are about three different re-skinned enemies you see throughout the game's worlds. They have absolutely no unique personality or charm and can easily be killed by just running up and spinning at them. It makes everything very unchallenged and tedious. Even the BK enemies were relevant to the theme of each level and had unique designs and attacks.

    A lot of the puzzles are far too convoluted also, I've experienced incidences where I've thought I had the right answer straight away, but it didn't work. Then I'd look up a guide when stumped and it would tell me that I did have it right to begin with, but you just have to do the same thing multiple times - that's just bad game development. There was another puzzle where you'd have to do a certain thing to a very certain spot, otherwise you can't progress. However, the spot is just like any other and there would be no way of telling unless you just happened to do it by accident - it's a bit like the secret shine sprites randomly placed in Mario Sunshine.

    It actually breaks my heart only giving this game a 5, I had such high hopes for it after waiting for so long. I like the direction they tried to go with it, but it just seems uninspired from how groundbreaking old games were. It certainly isn't bad if you have a lot of time on your hands; as well as not costing £50 like most triple-A games recently    … Full Review »
  3. ooo77
    Apr 14, 2017
    0
    This game isn't trying to revive 3D platformers, it's just copying banjo kazooie so that they can get money from everyone who played it as aThis game isn't trying to revive 3D platformers, it's just copying banjo kazooie so that they can get money from everyone who played it as a kid. The camera is awful, the lever design is bad, and it has horrible frame rate issues. Skip this and play banjo kazooie for a good platformer similar to this, or the newest Mario game for a modern one… Full Review »
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