Grunt Speaking
When Banjo-Kazooie first released in 1998 audio technology had not reached the advanced state that it is today. To compensate for the lack of having actual voiced dialogue, developer Rare opted to have their characters grunt, groan, and make generally weird noises to convey the concept of speaking. At this time is was charming and made sense for the period in which the game was created. Flash forward to 2017 and the newest 3D platformer Yooka-Laylee decided to carry this tradition over but sadly it did not age well.
In an industry that is full of talented voice actors that can convey and breathe life into the various characters, having lines reduced to nothing more than grunts is annoying. While the actual dialogue is cute and funny enough, this idea is undermined by the obnoxious sounds that every person makes in Yooka-Laylee. It’s not an especially nostalgic idea and when one reminisces on what made 90s platformers so much fun, this is surely not the first thing to come to mind. Where games like Ratchet and Clank provide solid performances for the entire cast, Yooka-Laylee clings to the past and offers nothing more than guttural sounds attempting to convey some semblance of emotion.
Quiz Sections
One of the most puzzling additions implemented in Yooka-Laylee is the quiz based progression areas that require the player to answer several questions in order to progress to the next area. While this seems like a fun idea, the issues begin to arise when the actual questions are based on superficial knowledge that a player might forget. Questions like what was your first Pagie or where this random photograph was taken force players to try and remember as much arbitrary information as possible. It’s not a fun mechanic and makes the idea of advancing stages a headache since you are only allowed to get three questions wrong before starting over from the beginning.
It slows the pace down of the gameplay dramatically and since you only have ten seconds to answer each question you won’t have a lot of time to remember the needed info. What becomes even more puzzling is that given this game is aimed for a younger audience, PlayTonic is relying on them to remember random, throwaway knowledge that one would never think to retain. While some of the questions are easy, it’s an addition that should have never made it through development, as the quiz section was just as annoying in the original Banjo-Kazooie.
Overly Simplistic Combat
For those who either grew up during the late 90s or indulge in the games of that era then you have surely come across titles that require players to just spin attack pretty much everyone you run into. In most cases this was the only way to kill an enemy and it lacked any real sense of challenge, so why it carried over to Yooka-Laylee is beyond us. While there are a few enemies that can only be defeated by other means, most of your issues can be solved by mashing the attack button and have our dynamic duo twirl into them. It’s mind-numbingly simplistic which is frustrating given all the cool powers you acquire that could craft interesting combat scenarios.
This is only enhanced by Yooka-Laylee’s poor hit detection and lack of interesting enemies to actually do battle with. Most are variants of different Corplets that pretty much just charge at you haphazardly without a thought. What’s worse is titles like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64 actually offer interesting foes to fight that require different approaches. Yet, Yooka-Laylee is content on delivering a more minimalist experience that is only made more annoying with how unruly the two can be when you actually use the attack button. While this game is aimed for children, that shouldn’t be an excuse to reduce the combat to nothing more than a single button.
As it stands Yooka-Laylee is a mixed bag, with many ideas such as the colorful worlds and collecting based gameplay offering up the right amount nostalgia. However, not everything aged well and if PlayTonic aims to make a second title under this name some ideas are better left in the past.
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