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

[Agie]

Well, the local Family Video has it listed as an upcoming game, so I'm gonna rent it first. See if I enjoy it and all, and then decide whether or not it's worth buying.

[Lady Soniko]

The more I see of this game, the more I'm turned off from it, it looks clunky, bland and just not as polished and contained as say Banjo Kazooie, it's soundtrack can't even salvage it either since it's all just melodic ambientness. Watched a few reviews and listened to Gamexplains talk on it and it just seems like frustrating mess.

[JezMM]

On 08/04/2017 at 3:22 PM, Maxtiis said:

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.

The negative reviews are simply saying these trends aren't as fun as they were back in the day.  A new property cannot present itself in the exact same way as an old game and expect to have the same effect that old game had as a fresh property.  For example, the voice mumbling in B-K was considered novel and artistic due to it being a clever response to the problem of voice acting being difficult to put onto cartridge games.  The voice mumbling in Y-L is just doing it because B-K did it.  It's going to be a little more divisive this time around.

Also I don't recall Polygon's review saying it was too difficult, just that they found the majority of tasks tedious.

[Meta77]

If anything this game will serve as a lesson going forward for them

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

Personally, an issue I have is with the people who expected this to evolve the game style. This is this teams first return to this style of game since 2000. It takes iterations to evolve a format. Yooka Laylee has every right to be a slight improvement on the Banjo formula with a much better coat of paint. Now the game that follows will truly benefit. But hey that's my viewpoint, but it looks like something I'll enjoy.... when it makes it to Switch XD

[Maxtiis]

5 hours ago, JezMM said:

The negative reviews are simply saying these trends aren't as fun as they were back in the day.  A new property cannot present itself in the exact same way as an old game and expect to have the same effect that old game had as a fresh property.  For example, the voice mumbling in B-K was considered novel and artistic due to it being a clever response to the problem of voice acting being difficult to put onto cartridge games.  The voice mumbling in Y-L is just doing it because B-K did it.  It's going to be a little more divisive this time around.

Also I don't recall Polygon's review saying it was too difficult, just that they found the majority of tasks tedious.

I can understand that, but there are still plenty of gaming franchises that play pretty similar to how they did 20 years ago without drastically altering their formula (see just about every Nintendo franchise), and considering how long its been since the industry's had what we consider a 3-D collectathon platformer it's probably wiser to keep the formula familiar and meet the expectations of fans than try to redefine a genre. Who even knows what modern gaming standards would fit into the mold of a game like Banjo-Kazooie? Even if this game isn't a masterpiece it'll still make a good stepping stone to understand what does and doesn't still work today.

And please excuse the straw-man here but nobody I've seen faults Shovel Knight for following and meeting all the expectations of an NES-era platformer (besides gillythekid in SomecallmeJohnny's review) all without providing innovation (removing extra lives isn't exactly innovative) besides being a solid game, so I feel there's a bit of a double-standard to expect innovation and new genre defining mechanics from Yooka-Laylee when it never promised any, although I'm sure most of the success of Shovel Knight is due to the mechanics of 2-D games just being more fundamentally simple and less susceptible to aging poorly compared to 3-D games.

Playtonic probably could have gone the way of Conker's Bad Fur Day and done fully voiced characters instead of gibberish, but this game was banking more off the nostalgia of BK anyway so it was expected from the beginning that'd they speak like this, but this ultimately seems like a non-issue towards the game's overall quality due to its high subjectivity.

When I get the chance to play the game for myself I'll probably make a follow-up to my previous post; I actually find this conversation pretty interesting.

 

[Blue Wisp]

Eh. Normally I don't get myself involved with stuff like this but whatever. Stuff like this is why I don't like hyping up games and rather prefer the "Wait and see" approach with any type of game or media. The people involved with the game will absolutely try to sell you its product any way possible, and sometimes that only leads to disappointment when the final product arrives because it doesn't live up to its hype. Hype is what sells a game, but it's also what can bring a game down. I'm not saying it can DESTROY the game and everything surrounding it, but it damages the game in a way that it's very hard to get out of. 

I'll still pick up the game, eventually, once I get the funds. (Games are expensive down here). But hyping up a game like this hoping that it's the return of 3D collect-a-thon platformers isn't the best way to handle it. There's a reason games like these didn't gain much traction in modern times and a single game can't possibly bring out a whole genre out of hiatus for the non-fans of the genre. Sadly. Banjo-Kazooie was a masterpiece.      

[JaidynReiman]

18 minutes ago, Ariel Wisp said:

Eh. Normally I don't get myself involved with stuff like this but whatever. Stuff like this is why I don't like hyping up games and rather prefer the "Wait and see" approach with any type of game or media. The people involved with the game will absolutely try to sell you its product any way possible, and sometimes that only leads to disappointment when the final product arrives because it doesn't live up to its hype. Hype is what sells a game, but it's also what can bring a game down. I'm not saying it can DESTROY the game and everything surrounding it, but it damages the game in a way that it's very hard to get out of. 

I'll still pick up the game, eventually, once I get the funds. (Games are expensive down here). But hyping up a game like this hoping that it's the return of 3D collect-a-thon platformers isn't the best way to handle it. There's a reason games like these didn't gain much traction in modern times and a single game can't possibly bring out a whole genre out of hiatus for the non-fans of the genre. Sadly. Banjo-Kazooie was a masterpiece.      

This is why I want a 3D DK that has basically a fully open world style DK Island. A Collectathon 3D platformer that's well polished by a AAA company. It could stand out from Mario while still doing its own thing in the process.

[Soniman]

So.....guess its no longer worth a buy then if everyone is turning against it lol, ah well. ill probably still play it when its cheaper at least

[Kuzu]

9 hours ago, Maxtiis said:

I can understand that, but there are still plenty of gaming franchises that play pretty similar to how they did 20 years ago without drastically altering their formula (see just about every Nintendo franchise), and considering how long its been since the industry's had what we consider a 3-D collectathon platformer it's probably wiser to keep the formula familiar and meet the expectations of fans than try to redefine a genre. Who even knows what modern gaming standards would fit into the mold of a game like Banjo-Kazooie? Even if this game isn't a masterpiece it'll still make a good stepping stone to understand what does and doesn't still work today.

And please excuse the straw-man here but nobody I've seen faults Shovel Knight for following and meeting all the expectations of an NES-era platformer (besides gillythekid in SomecallmeJohnny's review) all without providing innovation (removing extra lives isn't exactly innovative) besides being a solid game, so I feel there's a bit of a double-standard to expect innovation and new genre defining mechanics from Yooka-Laylee when it never promised any, although I'm sure most of the success of Shovel Knight is due to the mechanics of 2-D games just being more fundamentally simple and less susceptible to aging poorly compared to 3-D games.

Playtonic probably could have gone the way of Conker's Bad Fur Day and done fully voiced characters instead of gibberish, but this game was banking more off the nostalgia of BK anyway so it was expected from the beginning that'd they speak like this, but this ultimately seems like a non-issue towards the game's overall quality due to its high subjectivity.

When I get the chance to play the game for myself I'll probably make a follow-up to my previous post; I actually find this conversation pretty interesting.

 

It's just like you said, 2D games are lot simpler to make and were not plagued by the problems of early 3D games like Yooka-Laylee is trying to emulate. This is why games like Shovel Knight and Shantae were far better received, it'd be hard to mess up that formula (Ya know, like Mighty No 9).

And Collecathon 3D platformers have steadily been criticized as the years pass; nobody said anything back in the day because it was considered a fresh and new idea, but hindsight allowed people to go back and reevaluate their opinion and some realized how tedious and boring the whole ordeal was. Some genres and games age more poorly than others. It's a fact of life as technology moves on.

I know it's disappointing for people who wanted this game to do well get criticized a lot, but I don't really think it's fair to say that the reviewers "Don't get it" and that "they're not the target audience." simply because their views don't align with your own.

[JezMM]

10 hours ago, Maxtiis said:

I can understand that, but there are still plenty of gaming franchises that play pretty similar to how they did 20 years ago without drastically altering their formula (see just about every Nintendo franchise), and considering how long its been since the industry's had what we consider a 3-D collectathon platformer it's probably wiser to keep the formula familiar and meet the expectations of fans than try to redefine a genre. Who even knows what modern gaming standards would fit into the mold of a game like Banjo-Kazooie? Even if this game isn't a masterpiece it'll still make a good stepping stone to understand what does and doesn't still work today.

And please excuse the straw-man here but nobody I've seen faults Shovel Knight for following and meeting all the expectations of an NES-era platformer (besides gillythekid in SomecallmeJohnny's review) all without providing innovation (removing extra lives isn't exactly innovative) besides being a solid game, so I feel there's a bit of a double-standard to expect innovation and new genre defining mechanics from Yooka-Laylee when it never promised any, although I'm sure most of the success of Shovel Knight is due to the mechanics of 2-D games just being more fundamentally simple and less susceptible to aging poorly compared to 3-D games.

Playtonic probably could have gone the way of Conker's Bad Fur Day and done fully voiced characters instead of gibberish, but this game was banking more off the nostalgia of BK anyway so it was expected from the beginning that'd they speak like this, but this ultimately seems like a non-issue towards the game's overall quality due to its high subjectivity.

When I get the chance to play the game for myself I'll probably make a follow-up to my previous post; I actually find this conversation pretty interesting.

 

Agree with Kuzu's response above, but in addition, I have to disagree seriously with your claim that most Nintendo franchises have barely changed in 20 years.  3D Mario has become more streamlined and focus on the core platforming concepts with better camera.  Zelda has embraced a dynamic open-world style.  Star Fox totally changed up the expectations of the player and dynamicness of each stage by seperating movement and aiming controls.  Metroid and F-Zero have taken the bold direction of not making any games!  That last one is a bit too artsy for me but definitely different to 20 years ago.  Anyone who is a close fan of any of these franchises could likely tell you a myraid of ways they've innovated their formulas that make going back to earlier games a bit more difficult.

I agree that not using gibberish would've been sacriledge, I was just saying it IS an aesthetic touch that if a reviewer finds annoying to the point it affects their play experience, they have every right to.  I'm sure I read a review somewhere where someone said the gibberish isn't as charming as B-K's, they found it more repetitive in the sounds you hear or something - or maybe that the repetition was fine in B-K but should've been more nuanced in this day and age...  That might've been my own opinion actually I remember finding the dialogue in the toybox demo just missing that certain something but haven't played it since it came out lol.

 

It IS worth mentioning that Shovel Knight, while retraux in aesthetic, does all sorts of things that wouldn't be possible on a NES.  I'm pretty sure the soundtrack is the only thing that could be reproduced on NES hardware, and even then of course they cheat by the fact that sfx don't make instruments cut out like they would've on real hardware.  Also this is a nitpick but reducing the death system down to "you don't have lives" does a disservice to it and how it reduces challenge for novice players while optionally increasing it for veterans.

 

 

Oh well, I too am defending the game from an observer's perspective at the moment.  Hopefully we aren't waiting too much longer for the Switch port.

[Maxtiis]

I know my posts probably sound like I'm whining about the scores critics have given the game (considering we're Sonic fans we should be used to this), but I'd like to at least clear the water and say I'm much more interested in discussing the points they bring to the table than saying their opinions about a game I haven't played are wrong. 

Obviously I don't agree with some of what's been said about YK but I'm still speaking from ignorance (only basing most of my opinions on prior experience with similar games to YK and footage of the game itself) and see these posts as more of a setup to a much bigger discussion to take place when the game is available to us. This is a very unique opportunity to discuss a gaming genre that hasn't seen activity since at least the N64 at its peak (not discounting the very few that I'm sure released on 6th gen consoles) so how about we come back to this after we all play the game and see how it compares to what we've already discussed.

[Graystripe2000]

Digital Foundry took Yooka-Laylee for a spin on PS4, Xbox One and PC. Says they all run fine. 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-yooka-laylee-performance-analysis 

[Conando]

Bringing up that old JonTron controversy again, but I figured people would be interested to know this is what he actually contributed before being removed.

 

People were all upset about it, when all he voiced was someone straining to take a shit in an outhouse.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

19 minutes ago, Conando said:

Bringing up that old JonTron controversy again, but I figured people would be interested to know this is what he actually contributed before being removed.

 

People were all upset about it, when all he voiced was someone straining to take a shit in an outhouse.

Huh, what a shitty role.

[8ther]

So has anyone here tried the game? Is it as bad as the reviews say?

[Graystripe2000]

From what I've seen of the final product, it's not that bad. 

[Balding Spider]

So far I'm liking the game granted im only on the first world but I did see a problem mentioned in reviews. Before expanding the world I decided to explore Hivory Towers a bit and triggered the quiz game by mistake. It wasn't particularly hard, but one question did throw me for a loop, Quack asked me a question I'd had no way of knowing about unless I'd expanded the world. Which I hadn't. This may be a larger issue in the future.

[Graystripe2000]

87% of steam reviews are positive. 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/360830/

[Soniman]

4 hours ago, CD Sanic said:

So has anyone here tried the game? Is it as bad as the reviews say?

I didn't realize 6-7/10 average was considered bad lol. 

I mean I get what you meant but dang 

[Dejimon11]

1 minute ago, Soniman said:

I didn't realize 6-7/10 average was considered bad lol. 

I mean I get what you meant but dang 

Because if a game doesn't get at least an 8 it's not considered to be worth's anybody's time.

[Balding Spider]

The Kartos Mini-game, dear lord what the hell was that shit?

[Graystripe2000]

Oh wow. 

https://www.twitter.com/frostman007/status/851896343786160128

[Teoskaven]

And the higher ups at Gamestop are still wondering why their stores are bankrupting and falling like flies.

[Badnik Mechanic]

So my partner has downloaded this and is playing it next to me as I type...
This is Banjo Kazooie in all but name.

If you like the original games, this is your third game.