This was an appointment I don’t know why I made at Summer Game Fest, as I very well could’ve done without it.
Let me come clean. I was one of the backers of the original release of Yooka-Laylee having been a huge fan of Banjo-Kazooie, and I just didn’t like it. The controls felt disjointed, and I felt that the worlds were too big for their own good–which is actually the main issue I have with both Banjo-Tooie and Donkey Kong 64, though I thought they were both good to great games.
As you can tell with this late preview, I kept it. Not only that, but I also really liked what I played.
For what it’s worth, I never beat the original game. That’s how much I didn’t like it. With that much said, I don’t recognize much about what I experienced in the demo either. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was a tutorial stage built specifically for the demo, and if that was the case, it was pretty well put together.
It was one of those timed demos, so I didn’t really have much time to waste on things like cutscenes, but I definitely felt right at home with the garbled speech and cheeky dialog. Right off the bat, I can tell you that the controls felt better and the camera felt responsive–this is huge because these two things were the dealbreakers in the original. It also felt like the entire moveset for the duo was all there, versus having them drip fed. I don’t know if this is something limited to the demo, but I personally thought it was a fine touch. At the end of the day, most good 3D platformers copy plenty of things from one another, so as long as you played a platformer there definitely wasn’t anything overwhelming.
The collect-a-thon vibes are still here. Topping the hierarchy of shiny items are the Pagies, which are used for the magic book. I was able to get around a couple in my demo, which isn’t bad for 15-20 minutes of play. One was earned because I killed a bunch of easy enemies in a valley arena, and I got the other after I helped Shovel Knight grab a treasure from the top of a mountain. This is where I point out that while the camera was functional, I still had some issues with it, particularly when getting to the end of the summit and mistiming my jump too many times to admit. Is it a user error or a problem with the game? You be the judge. Still, it was pretty cool seeing Shovel Knight as well as the protagonist chameleon and bat (that will never roll off the tongue like “bear and bird”) in all their 4K glory.
Yooka-Replayee is set to release this year on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2, and I can’t believe I’ve been fooled into saying this again: I’m looking forward to it.
This was an appointment I don’t know why I made at Summer Game Fest, as I very well could’ve done without it. Let me come clean. I was one of the backers of the original release of Yooka-Laylee having been…
This was an appointment I don’t know why I made at Summer Game Fest, as I very well could’ve done without it.
Let me come clean. I was one of the backers of the original release of Yooka-Laylee having been a huge fan of Banjo-Kazooie, and I just didn’t like it. The controls felt disjointed, and I felt that the worlds were too big for their own good–which is actually the main issue I have with both Banjo-Tooie and Donkey Kong 64, though I thought they were both good to great games.
As you can tell with this late preview, I kept it. Not only that, but I also really liked what I played.
For what it’s worth, I never beat the original game. That’s how much I didn’t like it. With that much said, I don’t recognize much about what I experienced in the demo either. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was a tutorial stage built specifically for the demo, and if that was the case, it was pretty well put together.
It was one of those timed demos, so I didn’t really have much time to waste on things like cutscenes, but I definitely felt right at home with the garbled speech and cheeky dialog. Right off the bat, I can tell you that the controls felt better and the camera felt responsive–this is huge because these two things were the dealbreakers in the original. It also felt like the entire moveset for the duo was all there, versus having them drip fed. I don’t know if this is something limited to the demo, but I personally thought it was a fine touch. At the end of the day, most good 3D platformers copy plenty of things from one another, so as long as you played a platformer there definitely wasn’t anything overwhelming.
The collect-a-thon vibes are still here. Topping the hierarchy of shiny items are the Pagies, which are used for the magic book. I was able to get around a couple in my demo, which isn’t bad for 15-20 minutes of play. One was earned because I killed a bunch of easy enemies in a valley arena, and I got the other after I helped Shovel Knight grab a treasure from the top of a mountain. This is where I point out that while the camera was functional, I still had some issues with it, particularly when getting to the end of the summit and mistiming my jump too many times to admit. Is it a user error or a problem with the game? You be the judge. Still, it was pretty cool seeing Shovel Knight as well as the protagonist chameleon and bat (that will never roll off the tongue like “bear and bird”) in all their 4K glory.
Yooka-Replayee is set to release this year on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2, and I can’t believe I’ve been fooled into saying this again: I’m looking forward to it.
by Danreb Victorio
