Topic: Yooka-Replaylee

@Mariotag to me it didn't but I also don't like having to unlock movement abilities in a platformer so maybe I'm not the best person to ask

@Sylamp I felt like it was part of the identity of the genre.

Well, to each their own.

Now that I've had a handful of play sessions with the game - including a solid five hours straight last night, here's a few thoughts ...

As a fan of Banjo-Kazooie since 1998 - and as someone who felt pretty cheated out of a proper, mainline third home console installment of the game - I feel like this is almost everything Banjo-Threeie should and would have been. It's the closest we're ever going to get to it - only now, it's a lot easier to cop given we have Replaylee.

The original left a bit of a sour taste - we wait nearly 20 years for something, and it missed the mark on so many levels. The worlds barren with so much free space, tedious expansion of worlds and backtracking (this isn't always a bad thing, but Laylee made it so) and moves that felt like a chore.

It all feels fantastic now and kudos to them for more or less remaking the game. To me, it's an instant classic and it's kept me hooked for hours on end.

My only criticisms are: I would've preferred at least one or two new worlds in addition to the existing five, and some of the Pagies feel pretty cheap and easy to get, similar to what we might see in Odyssey.

But overall, bravo Playtonic, and thank you!

@Tendo64
Speak on it.

This is looking like it'll end up one the most underrated games of the generation, as many refuse to pay it any attention after the mediocre reception of the original. But the few who do are discovering a masterful platformer.

@Tendo64 I'm curious, how does having all the moves from the start impact game progression?

It felt like part of the identity of the classics of the genre.

I finished the PS5 version yesterday and it was an absolute delight. It's drastically improved over the original which was a huge disappointment. I'm really hoping it can find more of an audience as it feels largely forgotten.

They've also just dropped a demo for anyone still on the fence about picking it up.

I played the demo. It felt weirdly nostalgic and made me want to play the original. Maybe I will try and then remember that it was scuffed 😆

I’ve had mine preordered on Amazon since August. Just got a shipping notification for December 22nd. I’m excited!

I liked the original to an extent, but some of the camera issues, graphics issues on Switch, and control wonkiness kept it from being truly enjoyable. Like, I could tell it really wanted to be a good game, but it had so many issues that made it frustrating to play.

Sounds worth trying then.

Just finished the game - didn't 100% it, though - collected a little over 200 pagies of the possible 300. You need 120 to fight Capital B.

Simple summary: A MUCH better game than the original, but still with its (sometimes charming) hiccups. And a note for physical cartridge people: I played the game completely off the cartridge without downloading any patches, and I did experience about half a dozen crashes/glitches across 10ish hours.

Pros:

• The biggest improvement is the feel of controlling Yooka. Movement of all sorts is smoother: walking, rolling, flying - everything just feels better to control, and the camera does a better job of being where it should. All of the movement feels tighter, not as floaty as the original. In the original I would get so aggravated with the challenges that required tight rolling control or flying control, but this time around I had zero issues.
• The graphics are much improved. It's not the prettiest game in the world, but now it's at least pretty nice to look at (see what I did there? ha!). The framerate is 30, I think. It doesn't feel buttery enough to be 60. But it was consistent 99% of the time, making it feel smooth.
• I played the original a couple times over the years, so I can say that they really did make improvements to the flow of the game with altering/adding/removing some of the pagies and challenges. And some of that comes from the fact that they give you MOST of your moves from the very start of the game, and they relegated flying and Laylee's sonar bubble to powerups that you have to consume at certain areas. At first that may seem limiting that you can't just fly whenever you want, but it's actually quite nice in practice and helps to focus the challenges.
  -Oh, and attacking/defeating enemies feels SOOOOOOOOO much better - like, I can't understate how much better this part of the game feels. People who played the original know what I'm talking about. Even the common enemies could be so annoying because Yooka's tail whip was just a quick, small area around himself and was easy to misjudge and not hit the enemy. But now you can keep tapping the attack button to essentially turn into a whirlwind and just plow into the enemies without taking damage. It feels very satisfying!
• Capital Cashino wasn't as much of a slog this time around. Yay!

Cons:

• Playing 100% off the cartridge did produce some crashes and glitches, as I mentioned in the summary. If you don't mind downloading the patch(es?), though, I assume they help with that.
• Some of the boss fights still feel kind of stiff and janky.
• I still get that feeling of a game that's not quite what it should be. Sort of like... an apple that looks awesome, but when you bite in, it's slightly mealy. Not terrible, not inedible by any stretch, just ever so shy of what you were expecting. I'm not getting the "I HAVE to go back and get everything!" itch from it, which is always a tell-tale sign for me, but it was still a (mostly) enjoyable romp for about a dozen hours.

I'm a Banjo-Kazooie fan (though I still haven't finished it, and I haven't even started Tooie because the joystick on my N64 controllers broke years ago), but I played Yooka-Laylee on Steam (unfortunately, it wasn't released on my country's eShop). Now that Replaylee has been released physically, I couldn't be happier, BUT at a stratospheric price of $60 (60,000 pesos in my country), while the digital version is half price.
The worst part is that Requiem is coming out next month, and I don't know what to do.
Any advice?

@Johnny_Arthur
It’s a good game. I like it. Maaaaybe I would even go back to it in the future to get 100% even though I didn’t feel the need right away.

But that said, it’s not an excellent game. If the price is too high, I would classify it as a game that can be skipped for now.