Yooka-Laylee (Playtonic's spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie / ONE, PS4, PC)

[Milo]

54 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

It's telling that the biggest complaints about this game so far are aspects that were either overlooked or praised back when Banjo-Kazooie came out. While I doubt this game will bomb, I hope Playtonic just kind of dial back and focus on the audience that play these games, as niche as they may be.

I dunno if that rings entirely true in the case of Yooka-Laylee. Several of the reviews say it's identical to the Banjo formula to a fault, but I've seen other reviews argue Yooka gets things wrong that Banjo got right in comparison (I've read fans say it looks too similar to Banjo-Tooie/DK64 rather than Kazooie/SM64, the former two titles I've seen people argue they took the genre too far), while still others are fine with the game on both counts.

Or to put it another way--based on the reviews / impressions I've been reading--critics are are describing it as an fun but flawed game that can find an audience with fans of the formula willing to try anything that meets the bare minimum of expectations, but nothing more than that. Few, if any, reviewers are praising Yooka-Laylee it in a vein of being the modern sequel or advancement of the Banjo / collect-a-thon formula people have yearned for and/or a "must-play" title than can even be enjoyed by people outside the genre.

Neither the reviewer consensus or aggregate scores seem to definitely position Yooka-Laylee as a game that's just as good or even better than Banjo-Kazooie (regardless if you're using the highly positive original reviews at the time of release, or the significantly less enthusiastic but still positive reviews for the XBLA re-release).

[Daisy-Fan]

16 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

This game really deserved to be good, considering it was the fruit of real passion. I'm disappointed that the criticisms are what they are, because the game shouldn't feel nostalgic and retro at the cost of being outdated. 

Well, here's the thing, a lot of games are actually as good you think, metacritic/reviews shouldn't be a matter if you're interested over the game.  

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, Daisy-Fan said:

Well, here's the thing, a lot of games are actually as good you think, metacritic/reviews shouldn't be a matter if you're interested over the game.  

Of course it's a only a matter of opinion. No need to be pedantic about it. 

I might play it and think it's the finest piece of art ever created. But you know that what I'm getting at is the general reception. Metacritic averages and other professional reviews give you an insight into opinions at large, and it's unfortunate that Yooka Laylee hasn't gotten the response that everyone wanted to give it. Everyone wanted this game to be really, really good and few people feel that it has achieved that.

[Graystripe2000]

Pre-release patch.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-04-05-yooka-laylee-xbox-one-ps4-and-pc-patch-targets-camera-issues-and-performance

[TheOcelot]

You might find this interesting:

 

[Agie]

Of course, by checking it out, I remembered I have a Family Video near my workplace, and they let you rent games. I think I might do it that way if they have it to rent.

But if not, I can still nab a copy and then decide.

[PC the Hedgehog]

As much as I'm sure I would have enjoyed a Tee Lopes soundtrack, to not have Grant Kirkhope at the helm would've just felt...wrong.

[Stritix]

On 04/04/2017 at 9:36 PM, Blue Blood said:

This game really deserved to be good, considering it was the fruit of real passion. I'm disappointed that the criticisms are what they are, because the game shouldn't feel nostalgic and retro at the cost of being outdated. 

This. I thought the game was going to be a modern evolution of the old collect-a-thon platform genre. That's what it should've been.

Hopefully Yooka-Laylee sells well enough to warrant a sequel which addresses the criticism the game has received.

[Meta77]

I'm not seeing this being a high seller. Will it sell good? I'm sure but I'm doubting it's going to a talked about game.  sort of like how shantae while fun has a niche fan base unlike say persona.  though I love my belly dancer.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I think if anything, Yooka-Laylee could end up being a infamous title. Considering this was meant to be the game that highlights Rare's ability to get back on top of their game, and bring back the platforming genre. Even the mixed reviews could be considered rather disappointing because of how much hype went behind this game. To be honest, I see Yooka-Laylee being another one of those titles that ends up harming Kickstarter's name, because assuming a lot of the flaws highlighted in the reviews are true, then it's another example of a game that was meant to be a glorious second coming of a iconic character's gameplay style, only to end up falling into the exact same pittraps as before, being reluctant to change the design of the game itself to be more in-line with common modern design, and it ends up seriously harming things.

At this point, I'm really hoping for Bloodstained to be a success, just to prove that these hyped up spiritual sequels can be done well, and update a gameplay style people still love. As a person who loves platformers, it's a massive shame that this is just another one that was too stuck in it's time and ended up being negatively harmed by it. At the very least, Shantae Half-Genie Hero lived up to it's hype.

[Meta77]

Speaking of kickstart it must be slow

 When's the last big game been talked about from their?

[Boomer]

2 hours ago, Meta77 said:

sort of like how shantae while fun has a niche fan base unlike say persona.  

Eeeeeh I'd say Persona is just as niche as Shantae is, if not moreso, honestly.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

Eh, everything sounds like YL acomplished what it set out to do: Do a new solid 3D platformer. they never said they were necessarily going to update, more of make a love letter to Banjo fans. Which means it's just not going to float everyones boat, which is true of the entire genre

[Blue Blood]

6 minutes ago, Mando-Whirl-Wind said:

Eh, everything sounds like YL acomplished what it set out to do: Do a new solid 3D platformer. they never said they were necessarily going to update, more of make a love letter to Banjo fans. Which means it's just not going to float everyones boat, which is true of the entire genre

A lot of the reviewers that aren't totally satisfied with it are the very fans that you're talking about. 

[Lady Soniko]

6 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Speaking of kickstart it must be slow

 When's the last big game been talked about from their?

Indivisible, Shenmue 3, Hat in Time and wasn't SkullGirls kick started? Or it was on IndieGoGo.

[Meta77]

56 minutes ago, Lady Soniko said:

Indivisible, Shenmue 3, Hat in Time and wasn't SkullGirls kick started? Or it was on IndieGoGo.

No no I meant recently it's been awhile for all those. Indivisible was moved to indiegogo

[Lady Soniko]

The most recent one was Bloodstained I think, I think after Mighty No.9 people took a step back and are more cautious with kickstarting games now, however Shantae half genie hero was kickstarted and that was amazing.

[JezMM]

Yeah Shantae was pretty mainstream talked about and recieved positive response.  The ONLY catch with Shantae is it was an already-established studio who had numerous successes under their belt AS that studio to back up their talent.  I can't think of an example yet in which a newly formed studio - even if it is formed by old masters - has produced an ideal first game as that studio, which was funded by kickstarter.

I guess Undertale is the biggest kickstarter success and technically should be considered to meet the above criteria but some part of it mostly being done by one person with some external help rather than being a big production values game from a studio makes me want to say that no it doesn't count.

[Teoskaven]

7 hours ago, Meta77 said:

No no I meant recently it's been awhile for all those. Indivisible was moved to indiegogo

Bud Spencer & Terence Hill: Slaps & Beans, Prey for the Gods and Banner Saga 3 are the first recent examples that come to my mind. All of them got fully financed quickly and reached quite a bunch of their stretch goals.

Even so there are still games on Kickstarter popping up regularly and a good chunk of them are getting financed. The will is still there so far, it just doesn't get a lot of coverage from the media at this point.

[Graystripe2000]

Patch footage. 

 

[JaidynReiman]

On 4/6/2017 at 3:27 PM, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I think if anything, Yooka-Laylee could end up being a infamous title. Considering this was meant to be the game that highlights Rare's ability to get back on top of their game, and bring back the platforming genre. Even the mixed reviews could be considered rather disappointing because of how much hype went behind this game. To be honest, I see Yooka-Laylee being another one of those titles that ends up harming Kickstarter's name, because assuming a lot of the flaws highlighted in the reviews are true, then it's another example of a game that was meant to be a glorious second coming of a iconic character's gameplay style, only to end up falling into the exact same pittraps as before, being reluctant to change the design of the game itself to be more in-line with common modern design, and it ends up seriously harming things.

At this point, I'm really hoping for Bloodstained to be a success, just to prove that these hyped up spiritual sequels can be done well, and update a gameplay style people still love. As a person who loves platformers, it's a massive shame that this is just another one that was too stuck in it's time and ended up being negatively harmed by it. At the very least, Shantae Half-Genie Hero lived up to it's hype.

Honestly, Bloodstained I have huge doubts about. Based on what we're hearing it sounds like its got extremely troubled development. Yooka-Laylee isn't nearly the travesty that Mighty No. 9 was. Not even close.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, JaidynReiman said:

Honestly, Bloodstained I have huge doubts about. Based on what we're hearing it sounds like its got extremely troubled development. Yooka-Laylee isn't nearly the travesty that Mighty No. 9 was. Not even close.

I never said it's as bad as Mighty No. 9. That's a special level of terrible that is near impossible to top. But it doesn't change the fact this game seems to have fallen into the exact same pitfalls and has ended up in the same area as Mighty No. 9, only with a slightly more mixed reception.

[PC the Hedgehog]

12 hours ago, JezMM said:

Yeah Shantae was pretty mainstream talked about and recieved positive response.  The ONLY catch with Shantae is it was an already-established studio who had numerous successes under their belt AS that studio to back up their talent.  I can't think of an example yet in which a newly formed studio - even if it is formed by old masters - has produced an ideal first game as that studio, which was funded by kickstarter.

...Shovel Knight?

[Sean]

Hyper Light Drifter was an extremely solid first endeavor by Heart Machine.

[Maxtiis]

I'm honestly curious if any of the reviewers that reviewed the game as being mediocre or worse even fit into the target audience of this game as many of the reviews I've seen in this category appear to be reaching for reasons to complain about it, when all the game appears to do is follow standard platformer conventions, which is fine for me at least as long as the game is ultimately fun to play.

Like the one from Jim Sterling where he ultimately gave the game a score of 2/10 (later removing the score because he claims the game was so unbearable to play) when most other publications are giving it above average recommendations I feel it's worth exclaiming "What the hell? What game did you play that the other reviewers didn't?" He cites control issues as being his biggest gripe (aside from mentioning Laylee as being racist....okay then) and compares the control to Mario 64 and Crash (which I always thought have aged well from a gameplay perspective), without being very specific as to what exactly the problems with it are aside from Yooka taking wide turns which sounds ultimately more like a subjective observation than a notable issue, especially when you consider that you can correct any platforming mishaps with Laylee like you could with Kazooie. 

Polygon's review sounds like the author is just complaining that the game was too difficult for her which is a fair criticism but personally I wouldn't fault a game for being difficult when the aim of video games is to stimulate the player with a challenge, and I don't suspect the game is any more difficult than its predecessors. Although, this is also from the same publication that posted that horrible gameplay footage of Doom 2016 so I'm not so sure I can trust Polygon's critics in regards to game difficulty. Then you get articles like the one published by Forbes of all things which just complains about the character voices being annoying and the camera which is sounds like click-bait when 1) The characters use the exact same manner of speaking as in Banjo-Kazooie and I've never heard any complaints about it there and 2) From all the footage I've seen of the game the camera doesn't appear any different from the other free floating camera controls seen in other 3-D platformers like Super Mario Sunshine and Psychonauts.

I'm sure the game has its share of problems I've yet to see, but considering I've always been highly skeptical about "professional" video game reviews I'm going to withhold forming an opinion based off what critics have said about it. Maybe I'm being a bit too lax about the game, but when I critique a game for myself I tend to look at it in the context it was created in so I can at least understand why the game is in the state it's in. Ultimately I'm going to support the game because I enjoy 3-D platformers, but it's also in the hope that eventually Playtonic can have a much larger budget at their disposal because $2,000,000 is pretty minuscule compared to what usually goes into making a 3-D video game, especially these days, and could likely be the catalyst behind whatever problems this game may have.