Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair Reviews
Check out Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair Review Scores from trusted Critics below. With 15 reviews on CriticDB, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair has a score of:
Playtonic has absolutely smashed it with Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. It builds on the team’s experience with platformers and manages to improve on its predecessor in every way. One of the best platformers I’ve played in years.
Read Full Review
Even with plenty of superb 2D platformers releasing in recent years, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair easily belongs alongside the best the generation has to offer thanks to excellent level design and platforming that is evocative of past classics from the genre.
Read Full Review
Playtonic Games' debut title, Yooka-Laylee, paid loving homage to formula of 3D platformers of the ‘90s. That makes sense, considering several team members originally worked on Banjo-Kazooie – but sequel takes a much more surprising approach. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair flips the script, abandoning 3D to deliver a focused, well-paced side-scrolling platformer that feels like a successor to Donkey Kong Country (another game members of Playtonic worked on). However, rather than relying too heavily on trappings of the past, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair modernizes the 2D platforming formula in all the right ways to deliver a fun and...
Read Full Review
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a game for those who adore the genre and want something bright, colourful and full of self-referential puns to end a long day at work. However, you have to be able to overlook some game design and quality-of-life flaws that can make the game frustratingly hard.
Read Full Review
It’s funny how a Yooka-Laylee game can find more success based on a change of perspective. I won’t shoot down what the first game tried to accomplish, but I can honestly say I had more fun playing Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. The controls are more accurate, and the levels give you a better opportunity to find things, rather than running into a particular challenge you couldn’t overcome. Plus, the visuals are astounding, and the sound department does its job admirably. Everythin...
Read Full Review
Playtonic tightens up its nostalgic take on platforming and turns its eyes to the future.
Read Full Review
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair neatly captures the essence of Yooka-Laylee and reimagines it as a new type of game. It’s a distillation and a simplification, but it’s effective. Then, as its grand finale — a necessary conclusion that looms over the whole game — it turns uncharacteristically punitive. It’s rewarding, that much is undeniable. But it also leaves you feeling like all those hours spent beekeeping never really prepared you for the final challenge. Those bees just afford more leeway over the course of a very long struggle. It’s kind of a buzzkill.
Read Full Review
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is an excellent 2D platformer full of surprises and delights for fans nostalgic for the glory days of the genre. With some clever approaches to the final boss fight, the overworld map, and refreshing levels for repeat playthroughs, this one sits in the top tier of platformers just below the likes of modern classics like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.
Read Full Review
I’ve had a lot of fun with Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. It’s challenging, humorous, beautifully designed and offers a surprising amount of variety. However you feel about the insurmountable challenge of its final level, there’s still plenty to enjoy outside of that. If you enjoy platforming games, you’ll find a lot to love here. And did I mention how cute Yooka and Laylee are?
Read Full Review
Maybe it's for those reasons that the team behind Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair wanted to avoid the eventual juxtapositions, but despite these criticisms, Playtonic and Team17 should be quite happy and proud of building a game that is at least worthy of comparison to some of the quality character platformers we've had as of late. Those games are few and far in between, and enthusiasts of that subgenre should find plenty to enjoy here. But for casual players, I recommend spacing out your play sessions and resist the urge to chuck your controller into your screen.
Read Full Review
Yooka-Laylee is a marquee example of misguided nostalgia as the Kickstarted throwback ended up being a boring, dated 3D platformer that couldn’t hang with the current genre stars. To combat that tepid reception, Playtonic squished the series down into 2.5D and more closely chased after Donkey Kong Country over Banjo-Kazooie with its latest game, YOOKA-LAYLEE AND THE IMPOSSIBLE LAIR. Losing half of a dimension was a wise choice in many regards as it builds a better game around that style but it lacks some of the precise controls needed to fully bring it into the modern platformer era.
Read Full Review
Thanks to its tough-but-fair challenge, Playtonic has made a very rewarding game. There are moments where I had the realization I was having full-on fun, smiling all the way, and that never happens. Its writing might be obnoxious at times and the overworld can be superfluous, but its foundation is so well constructed that it doesn’t distract from the game proper. It might take awhile for it to click. But when it does, you’re gonna have an enthralling time. Hell, I’m going to go play mor...
Read Full Review
Playtonic's highly underrated 3D platformer now has a 2D sequel so let's get batty and see if it offers as much lighthearted fun.
Read Full Review
Yooka-Laylee was one of my favorite games of 2017. I don’t care that critics lambasted it or that a lot of people said it was too similar to other 3D platformers from the Nintendo 64 era. In fact, that was exactly what I was hoping it was going to be. It filled me with such nostalgic happiness in a way that only the reveal of Banjo for the Super Smash Bros Ultimate roster could rival. I wasn’t expecting for developer Playtonic to release a brand new game so soon, as they took quite a bit ...
Read Full Review