Yooka-Replaylee

Playtonic returns to its ambitious first game, fixing what was wrong and bringing back the fun of 3D platformers with charm, color, and newfound confidence.

Yooka-Replaylee oozes with charm and color, yet much as its visuals endear, its lack of cohesion still can’t match the heights of its 64-bit ancestors. While filled to the gills with collectibles, those nostalgic for Rare’s golden age may well be better off revisiting their classics via Nintendo Switch Online or digging out their old Banjo cartridges.

Way back when it was announced, Playtonic’s Yooka-Laylee attracted a huge amount of excitement and anticipation, promising to bring back the lost art of the collectathon 3D platformer. With ex-Rare devs leading the way, and their former employer subject to the whims of Microsoft’s inner workings, fans were hoping that the lizard and bat combination would resurrect the golden age of Banjo-Kazooie et al. The end result was one of the biggest disappointments in gaming memory. Yooka-Laylee wasn’t a complete disaster but felt unfinished and strangely empty, especially in the later levels. The 2D sp...

Yooka-Replaylee is a massive upgrade on the original that finally lives up to the duo's potential as successors to Banjo-Kazooie.

Yooka-Laylee was one of my favorite games from 2017, and I’m not just saying that to justify the Kickstarter money I invested on it (you won’t hear me say the same for Shenmue III, for instance). Despite featuring some issues, it delivered exactly what I wanted from a game meant to evoque the look, feel and soul of Banjo-Kazooie and, most specifically, Banjo-Tooie. That being said, I get the criticism. I understand that some people didn’t like its excessive complexity, reminiscent of To...

Yooka-Laylee was a platformer I wanted to love, but struggled with because of the controls and camera. Many also hated the backtracking and linear structure. Those issues have been addressed in Yooka Re-Playlee, making it the superior version. I actually really enjoyed unlocking abilities and levels in the original game. And feel like some of the attempts to make it more open, and to have more collectables, don’t work super well. I wish there was a choice to play Yooka Re-Playlee with just the improved visuals, camera, and controls. It would be a dream come true for me if Yooka Re-Playlee offe...

When Yooka-Laylee was released in 2017, it was a fine game. Many came in extremely excited for it but were largely let down overall; it turned out to be pretty middling at best.

Yooka-Replaylee, in most ways, feels like the game that Yooka-Laylee was always meant to be. The core experience has remained the same, but much has been added or tweaked to make for a significantly more confident and streamlined experience. Though the technical issues hold it back a bit, at least on Switch 2 at launch, this is still a clear improvement over the original and a game that no fan of the 3D platforming genre should miss out on. Even if you played the original to completion, I’d say Yooka-Replaylee is still very much worth your time and money.

Playtonic Games’ Yooka-Laylee was one of many Kickstarter successes of its time, in an era in which spiritual successors for classic games were an easy hit. The 2017 original was a clear callback to Banjo-Kazooie, a Nintendo 64 platformer known for its googly eyes, wealth of collectibles, and complex platforming moveset. Nearly a decade later Playtonic has returned to the project with Yooka-Replayee, a “re-imagining” that uses the original almost like a blueprint to make something that feels like an entirely different game. It’s a fascinating approach that feels great to play, but loses some o...

Yooka-Replayee does make some improvements to the 2017 original, but fails to fix the fundamental flaws its predecessor so divisive.

Blow for blow, Yooka-Replaylee is a quality 3D platformer. It does what it needs to do and does so in a way that’s inoffensive and pretty bogstandard. My issues with the game come from its existence as a replacement for a game with genuinely interesting ideas. Replaylee does away with every interesting wrinkle in favour of an experience that, unfortunately, falls far too close to certain other games for me to want to prioritise this one. It’s a bizarre exercise in overcorrection that misses what the original game was literally made for. Is it a better game than the original? Probably. But it's...

Yooka-Replaylee works a little better in this remixed iteration, but introduces all sorts of new wonkiness along the way.