YOOKA-LAYLEE
Crowdfunded hit will drive you batty – in good ways and bad
The two-and-a-bit-millionpound question: is YookaLaylee a joyous echo of the past, or a reminder that games have moved on since the late ’90s? Predictably, it’s a little bit of both. Playtonic’s spirited debut certainly owes a debt to the past of its many ex-Rare staff, but in successfully evoking the feel of those early 3D platformers, it brings with it a few unwelcome holdovers and some rough edges besides. That isn’t to say Playtonic has treated the genre’s history with undue reverence, nor that it hasn’t attempted to modernise the old-school 3D platformer. And the benefits of revisiting the genre with current tech are soon obvious. It’s there in the early moments of the hub world, as you move from the home of the titular twosome (a laid-back chameleon and a sarcastic bat respectively) to Hivory Towers, the home of antagonist Capital B. But it’s most apparent when you plunge inside a thick tome and emerge into Tribalstack Tropics, a vast jungle world. Boasting finer detailing, smoother animation and sumptuous lighting, these are environments of a scale and scope that wouldn’t have been possible in the N64 era, even if there are technically superior games on PS4. But with a smart HUD that retreats from sight when you’re exploring, you can take in gorgeous views completely unhindered, from a snow palace that could have been ripped from Frozen concept art to a space harbour with purple skies and laser-blue seas.
TWO LOVE
However, it’s the two leads that are YookaLaylee’s biggest triumph. They’re mascots with real character, and not just in their pun- and dad-joke-laden dialogue. Leave them idle and they’ll interact with one another in a variety of delightful ways I’m loath to spoil. Or you can
use the D-pad to prompt them into a celebratory dance when you complete an objective, or even an angry stomp when you fluff your lines.
Playtonic gets the fundamentals of movement pretty much spot-on, too. The duo’s moveset expands as you progress: Yooka can briefly become invisible to avoid detection and refract light beams, while Laylee can produce a localised sonar blast and a protective shield. But simply bowling about in those early moments is a treat. Yooka seems lighter on his feet than I recall from the preview build, but whether you’re strolling or rolling around – or grabbing Laylee’s legs as she strains her wings to carry you across long gaps – the two feel good under the thumbs.
That’s half the battle for any game where you spend a lot of time exploring, and you will, since Playtonic leaves you to roam the world without guidance. The camera will occasionally provide a flyover of a level, or a specific objective, but when Yooka and Laylee are centre-stage, there’s little else to show you where to go. Mini-map? Not here. Objective markers? Nuh-uh. Custom waypoints? Nope. Here’s a big old playground, it says. Run free in it.
LOST IN SPACE
For a while, it’s a wonderfully liberating feeling, and you’ll often blunder into miniquests on your travels by happy accident. Your primary goal is to collect Pagies, the game’s central currency, which can be used to unlock new worlds or embiggen existing ones. The expansions vary greatly. In the first world, you get a monolithic structure that is probably equivalent to the existing explorable area in size. The casino of the fourth world – decorated with Trumpian extravagance – gains a disco, a host of one-armed bandits and a giant wall-bound pachinko machine. The fifth world’s sparsely populated seas suddenly teem with life, as a new jetty is built, a huge boss arrives on the scene, and a space warrior asks you to get her past some energy barriers so she can help you beam up to a large craft hovering overhead.
It’s not a game that wants for variety, then. But as a result, it sometimes strays too far from the things it’s best at for the sake of giving you something different to do. One section reminded us of those infuriating handheld water games where you try to nudge coloured rings around hooks. A hurdling arcade mini-game is not only blighted by skittish lane-changing controls but seems to last an eternity. And the less said about the mine cart moments, the better.
At other times, it offers only the illusion of range. Each world, for example, boasts a unique transformation for Yooka and Laylee via a ray that rearranges their molecular structure. The designs are cute and funny, from a snow plough to a shoal of hungry piranha, but essentially they’re ways to remove obstacles to
“THE MOVESET EXPANDS AS YOU PROGRESS: YOOKA CAN BRIEFLY BECOME INVISIBLE.”
Pagies. The final two are almost identical in function, if not form. In the fourth world you fly a helicopter around blowing things up; in the fifth you sail a ship around blowing things up.
STAGE FRIGHTS
Steadily, minor irritations begin to take their toll. While Playtonic trusts you to find your own fun, the camera is much more reluctant to cede control, acting like a pushy parent throughout. The autotargeting for Yooka’s stretchy tongue is inconsistent, while an over-the-shoulder perspective designed for fine aiming is poorly implemented. There’s no reason to doubt Playtonic’s claim that it wanted to hold back later stages to maintain an element of surprise for backers. But at the same time, it’s telling that the worlds it has shown feel like they’ve had much more love and attention lavished upon them. The third level’s gloomy swamp setting suffers most: it might as well be called Dark Green World.
Some flaws are acknowledged in a self-aware script that sees Laylee in particular mocking certain hoary design choices. But if her carping is sometimes justified, the game’s puppyish enthusiasm and a knockout soundtrack from Rare stalwarts Grant Kirkhope, Steve Burke and David Wise lifts your spirits whenever frustration threatens to set in. If time and budget constraints hold YookaLaylee back from greatness, it’s a game that seems destined to be remembered fondly after the fact: when you recall the fun you had getting lost rather than the occasions you muttered similar under your breath.
VERDICT
By turns infectious and infuriating, this is a glorious throwback for the most part, but its inconsistencies hold it back from greatness. Likeable, but flawed. Chris Schilling