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 game made me cry like an Anime Fan on Prom Night.
This is the Banjo Three we never received…I'm still seeing my therapist after the last BK "game".
I can't even describe how happy this game made me. I think a single tear rolled down my cheek while playing this. It's beautiful. I miss Banjo and this will do.
Hello Banjo-Threeie!!!
"Banjo Kazooie", "Conkers Bad Fur Day" and "Donkey Kong Country", if you liked any of those games, from the good old times when you were still young and had no arthritis, then this might be for you. Also perfect for the Steam Deck.
I wish I was still 10 years old again while playing this beautiful game. I remember playing B&K alongside my dad, DK and Banjo tooie. It was amazing, and I will treasure this successor of Banjo Kazooie in that same manner in memory of my father who showed me how much fun video games could be. It's better then it's ancestors in every meaningful way aside from the lack of a direct connection to peoples memories of their childhood.
Honestly, I think people were too harsh on this game. I enjoyed it a lot. Solid collect-a-thon full of 90's nostalgia. It's not the Banjo-successor we dreamed of, but it's the one we needed, warts and all. It gave me all the Banjo-Kazooie vibes I needed without actually playing that game for the 100th time. The game is great and hated on only for being the game that we, Banjo fans asked for. I know it’s flawed, but even a game with problems can still be a fun time, and that nostalgia hit really makes me happy!
This game is Banjo-Kazooie on a budget, and I mean that in the best possible way.
You have to really, really appreciate old school collectathons. If you love Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie to this day, Yooka Laylee is quite fun because it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect, warts and all. The worlds you visit and play in are kinda large though once they’re fully opened up to you and can be a bit of a bother but, as has been acknowledged... warts and all.
Nearly all the challenges are well-constructed and fair, and mostly really fun to tackle as well. Controls are good, collecting is satisfying and the difficulty is balanced, for the most part. All of its flaws stem from the fact that this game simply doesn't have the high production value of Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie. The challenges are a smidge less tightly designed, there is less variation in the world and the challenges, and there's a little less polish overall. All of these issues can be traced back to the fact that this was made by less people, in less time.
The less polished parts are mostly the Rextro and Kartos minigames. The second boss feels a bit boring as well, it just floats around and shoot stuff at you. The only actually BAD parts I encountered are the slide near the end of Hivory Towers (the hub world of the game), and a move used by the fourth boss, that tricks you into believing he's gonna ram you, but then he isn't and then he rams you anyway (and you can't see this coming). Despite the minor issues I loved it because it's so reminiscent of Banjo Kazooie. I know the game has flaws I’ll admit it, but every game has flaws even if small ones, one of my favorite games Sonic Adventure 2 has some stupid stuff I don’t like but despite that I can enjoy it, same goes for Yooka Laylee. I found controlling the duo quite fun and finding ways to move about worlds, collecting quills and pagies, gaining new moves, using tonics and just exploring and discovering was really fun.
I guess I’ll really never understand the problems people have with this game. People were screaming"I want a new Banjo Kazooie! I want a new Banjo Kazooie!" So they make one using the guys who worked on the previous ones with new characters and all people could say about it was "it's just a bad rip off Banjo Kazooie." It's exactly what people asked for; a throwback to the golden days of platforming with big 3D levels, loads of special moves and collectibles and even the same faults like a dodgy camera. This game was fantastic, faults and all and it makes me genuinely sad when I hear people trash it.
After coming back to BK as an adult I was able to see a lot of weakness in level design, including unnecessarily open spaces, particularly in the hub world. There's a lot to love about BK, but there's a lot of nostalgia blindness surrounding this game too. Especially because the final boss was one of the worst in any game I've ever played. I think if you love BK there's no way anything can touch it, because you'll never be that age playing a similar game for the first time again. But I think those expectations give Yooka a worse rap than it deserves. 
Overall, Banjo trumps this game on all fronts, but that says more about Banjo than it says about this game. On its own, Yooka-Laylee is great, and I heavily recommend you pick it up if you have the patience to explore large worlds and collect stuff through beating cool challenges like we did in the old days. It’s an 8/10, but the way I see it, Diet Banjo-Kazooie (this game) is still Banjo-Kazooie gameplay, and that’ll always be a 10 for me.
10/10

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.

If you play the game on mute but you can still hear Banjo-Kazooie sounds, you aren't crazy. You're just getting old.

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.

Super charming and fun. I really enjoyed it. I spent like 3 hours on attempts at beating the last boss, but it's really not that bad, after you get dialed in. Sucks to get all the way to the final phase, and then die though, but that's the retro platformer way. I love that this game does justice to the Collectathon genre, without trying to reinvent it for a "modern" age, or something. More often than not, I want a game that's just gonna do something really well, rather than attempt to shake up why the genre is loved to begin with. I don't always want roguelite elements, or procedural generation, or randomization of what's to be expected. Sometimes I just want a game full of levels to explore, and a solid character to explore them with. That's what this game delivers.

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.