So for once, backing a game on Kickstarter actually means I got it... at a
lower price than it would have cost if I'd bought it new? That's surprising... but nice! So, it cost 15 UK Pounds to back this at the minimum download-only-copy level, which is what I did. That's a lot less than the $40 the game costs new now. I believe that if you'd paid for a physical copy on the game on Kickstarter it'd cost more than buying that at retail, but I didn't back it at a physical tier. Anyway, with shipping costs and such that's to be expected.
So, I got a code for the game today -- and yes, this means that I actually played a game on its release day, making this one of the very, VERY few times that I have ever done that -- and started playing it. First I played the Toy Box demo from last year, because I hadn't before (didn't have that key either until today...), and after a bit under 90 minutes I got everything in it. I'm glad I did, because you can't save in this demo. It's a fun little demo.
As for the full game, I started playing it as well, and quickly got sucked in; this game is great, just like promised! I'm, still in the first world, but there are only five or six worlds and each is large, so I would hope I was still in the first one. Instead of having more worlds, in Yooka-Laylee you can expand the worlds, which adds new areas in places to the world. I haven't expanded the first world yet, but I've found a lot of the stuff in the un-expanded version of the world. It's a great 3d platformer level with a good layout and plenty to do. The un-expanded version of the first world is good sized, but not too large, and after a bit I was figuring my way around; as I said the one thing I wasn't sure about with this game was if it should have had a map, and that would be nice, but so far I don't think it's necessary.
The controls are great too. With a gamepad, and have one, the game plays very well, the controls are responsive. In the Toy Box version some jumping felt tricky (when you try to land on a small platform), but I think they fixed that up in the final game. As in Rare's N64 platformers, you get new moves in each level, though it takes less time to get them here than it does in DK64, for sure, though level expansions do add to the exploration sort of like the larger number of powerups to buy in that game. At first you can run, attack, and roll, but in the first world you add a power to get time-limited projectiles you can shoot, an echo shot which can enable some things, and a slam attack after jumping. You also can use a first-person view where you can't move, as in the N64 games, and can use Yooka's tongue to grab butterflies or seeds with. For one negative, the game does have a stamina meter unfortunately, so you can't just stay in roll form, where you can move faster but it is harder to turn, as long as you want. There are powerups to help, as these butterfly powerups can either be eaten (with the tongue button) for health, or touched to refill your stamina meter. The game uses this in a race early in the first world for example, to win you'll need to touch the butterflies along the way. Still, stamina is annoying. Ah well.
As for the story and characters, The game definitely has that British sense of humor you saw in Rare games. The story is basic but fine for this genre, and some of the characters are funny. Yooka and Laylee are VERY reminiscent of Banjo and Kazooie, but they are slightly different, and the other characters are original.
Now, you can tell that this game didn't get Nintendo-era Rare levels of polish. The game has some odd audio cut-out issues, the top-down kart-racer minigame has terrible controls (as both your kart is very slow to turn and they chose, for some insane reason, to have camera-relative controls only instead of the usual character-relative controls most games of this style use), the general polish all around isn't AAA quality (though for a Unity-engine game this is one of the best, apparently), and the performance... it's good with good enough hardware. With my new CPU but old graphics card I wasn't sure how this would run, but fortunately it's pretty good. The framerate is definitely not a stable 60fps at the highest graphic setting and full resolution for my monitor (1920x1200), but with only a GeForce 560 I wouldn't expect that... I'm just glad it runs as well as it does. Maybe I'll try the 30fps mode and see if that's smoother, there is an option for that.
But anyway, so far Yooka-Laylee is really good. It deserves a much better reception than it's gotten, this game is great.
Quote:If the reviews of the game are saying that it's worse than Banjo Kazooie, that's one thing. However, if the reviews are saying "I personally hate this genre and think it should stay dead", then I can safely ignore them. Why are there so many reviews of collectathons that seem to despise the genre?
If you look at reviews there is some of both, but a lot of people do seem to lean as much or more towards the latter than the former, yes... and it's sad to see. This isn't just a new phenomenon, though -- as I saw pointed out, if you go look at the review averages for the late '00s Xbox 360 remakes of B-K and B-T, both games got... a lot of scores in the 70s and 80s, much like Y-L is getting, and far below the N64 originals. That even though they are, by all accounts, better than the original games. Now I know, re-releases often score below original titles, but still I think it does perhaps show how fast this genre lost popularity after the early '00s, sadly.
(As for your theory about it being about length, well it is true that Y-L is not a short game, but there has to be more to it than that; Zelda BotW is a much longer game and yet it got extremely high scores, for one example, after all.)