Yooka-Laylee

Did I buy a visual novel or 3D platformer? There is so much boring dialogue you have to go through and no skip button so by the time you get to finally play the game your hands will probably hurt from smashing the spacebar. The maps feel kinda empty but the graphics look nice at the very least.
Considering this game has been bundled to hell and many people got it for a pocket change this way, giving it a negative review doesn't feel right. I mean it's not great but there are worse platformers out there.

This is a very strange game. I played it years ago and didn't like it. I've lately been trying to go back and re-play games that I never finished. Having re-played it, it's complicated to decide if it is good or bad.
This game leans very heavily on nostalgia, but it executes the imitation of a 90's era collect-a-thon very well. The visual style is very nice, the characters can be charming at times, and there are some fun themes to explore in the settings of the levels. However, when the game starts, it is very bad. The game wants you to unlock moves, per the style of the game it's imitating, but it doesn't give you enough options at the beginning. The lack of moves and options for the first half the game makes it just not fun. Additionally, the levels are too large. I don't mean that there is too much to do; rather, I literally mean that there is too much space. All the content is spread out, so the enjoyment is low-density in each map. They should have reduced the area of each level by 4X and spent a lot more time adding clearly visible landmarks through the levels for orientation (especially in the first level).
As the game goes on, you get more movement and combat options, making it more fun to play. The later stages (level 4 and 5) are also much much better the first three stages. This led to a strange experience of hating the game at first, to merely not enjoying, to feeling neutral, and to eventually really enjoying it by the time I got to last 10% of the game. Obviously, this is way too late and you can't expect the player to get through 90% of a sub-par game to get to the good stuff. When you get there, it is good stuff though! I feel conflicted because I genuinely had a great time at the end, but if you asked what I thought, most of the time I would have ripped the game apart.
All these things considered, I'm not fully sure how I feel about the game. I do believe it is a good game. It just takes way too long to become good. It tried too hard to emulate games of the past without understand exactly what made them tick, and that dedication to the past caused problems in the early parts of the game. If you like 3D platformer collection games, this is one of the better choices if you can get to the end of the game! If you are uncertain at all about this game, it's most likely a pass for you. But if you think you'll really like it, then try to stick with it a while so that you can get to the good stuff.

Wtf is with the hate against this game? From actual Banjo-Kazooie fans too, yikes. Game is great! Has the same feel and magic as the original Banjo games, not as many worlds but you can EXPAND each of the worlds, so they became like as big as 2 worlds back in the old games. So it cancels that issue out lol. Characters are funny, graphics are actually pretty nice, and music is from the same composer. Honestly, what's not to love? Game doesn't have THAT bad reviews, but it deserves even more positive ones, so here's mine.

I think the game is definitely worth considering in its own right 80% is about right on score, but enjoyment is definitely higher. It captures some of the magic from Banjo Kazooie: music, character designs, jokes, puzzles, maneuvers, etc....as the original developers of that game worked on this game too. If you enjoyed that series you will probably enjoy this series. I'm really glad they brought this to PC, instead of heading over to the console only route. Game runs well and looks good overall. The 'Cashino' is hands down the best book world in the game!
The remake is coming in the near future and based on all the Dev commentary it is shaping up to be a pretty good expanded and revised game. I appreciated their candor and responsibility when talking about some of the issues this game has...so I was kind of aware of some of that before buying.
Cons: camera angles/lack of control, lack of custom keybindings, swimming and flying mechanics are bad, not having skills will block game progression quite a bit as a limited number of worlds total does not give player anywhere else to go to try their luck if they end up stuck on a challenge. Not enough environmental variety (these are still very large worlds to their credit...but if you don't like swamps you might have to deal with it for a bit lol. Quizzes block game progression (no quiz = no access to the next world), quills lose their purpose once you have all skills (with a small quota exception at the end), Scale of game is sizable but is not fully filled with challenges, collectibles, etc. sometimes you really feel like the devs wanted to put something at a location but decided not to...perhaps in favor of time or focus elsewhere...example: there is an entire water area that you will move through in the ice book world that has next to nothing going on save for some alien jelly fish and a few access points to special areas...exploration feels a bit fruitless in those situations...but you know I still feel like doing it anyway lol.
Altogether I understand why the Developers want a second crack at the game, and I wanted to support that development. I am confident they will have an excellent remake this time around. Mind you, I still enjoyed the game for what it was, cheers! Whether you wait for the remake or not is up to you.

Having fun with this game so far. Cute little collect-a-thon platformer (obviously inspired by Banjo-Kazooie and other games like that from the late 1990s / early 2000s). I have to say though, the character voice acting is annoying as all hell... I get that it is trying to recreate the style from the classic games, but it's way too much. Definitely turn the voices down / off.

100% this game twice now... Still holds up well. If you're thinking about trying this game, I'd recommend waiting for the remake.

Extremely underrated platformer, with very slippery controls, which take some getting used to, but after getting a few powerups the game opens up a lot. It feels like it could have done with a bit more polish with the controls, as games like super lucky's tale do it much better, and the camera seems to have a mind of it's own, but the gameplay is really fun, especially later on in the game, as i'm near the end at the time of this review.