We’ve been looking forward to the release of Yooka-Replaylee and have now had a chance to play through the main game to bring you our thoughts. For anyone who hasn’t played the original game, this is a remaster of 2017’s excellent 3D platformer Yooka-Laylee. It’s out now on PC (reviewed here), PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch, priced at around $30 depending on which platform. It’s worth noting that there is a first-week-of-release sale currently running on most platforms. Also, those hoping to keep it truly retro may wish to wait for the physical release of the game in December.
The game pays homage to all the classic retro 3D platformers of old, especially Banjo-Kazooie, where the influence is most felt. Yooka-Replaylee isn’t just a copy of those old N64 favourites, though; it brings many new ideas of its own, and builds on the great platforming tropes that have gone before. As you would expect, there is a silly story with equally silly characters to portray proceedings as they happen. The dynamic duo of Yooka and Laylee are best buddies on a quest to reclaim all the lost pages of a powerful book. An evil corporation is trying to get its hands on the pages to make record profits and is using Looka and Laylee to its own ends.
As with many other games in this genre, a hub world connects the entirety of Yooka-Replaylee. The hub world is brilliantly put together and acts as its own level with lots of secrets, puzzles, and challenges to overcome. To open up new areas and gain access to the main levels, you’ll need to find individual pages of the lost book. Most of the pages are found by performing a task, such as helping one of the in-game characters or reaching hard-to-reach places. Although most of the levels in Yooka-Replaylee have the same kind of challenges, these are varied and cleverly implemented, so you feel satisfaction when you work out a puzzle or beat a tricky platforming section.
Each level has hundreds of items to collect, at least 50 different pages to find, and a boss battle to contend with. There is also a great homage paid to the classic, or should that be dreaded, mine cart sections from Donkey Kong Country. What makes Yooka-Replaylee such a winner of a 3D platformer is the perfect balance between providing the gameplay tropes that made the classics so good, alongside adapting its own ideas so seamlessly. This all adds up to a nostalgic romp of excellent quality for us older gamers who enjoyed the N64 platformers, and a slick, fun experience for younger ones who enjoy colorful characters and engaging environments.
There is always something to do in Yooka-Replaylee, and at no point during our playthrough did we feel lost or have a sense of just running about aimlessly. Of course, there is the odd challenge that isn’t immediately obvious to solve, but none of these hold up your progress if you decide to move on to another level. There are enough pages spread about that are quick and easy to pick up that even the most casual players of the platforming genre should be able to reach all the levels without much issue. To counter that, perfectionists will drool at the number of things that must be found and completed; there are hours upon hours of things to finish.
It’s not just the vast and varied challenges on offer; each level and area of Yooka-Replaylee has a distinct feel. There are different enemies, different characters, and even different surfaces to contend with. This keeps the collect-a-thon nature of Yooka-Replaylee fresh at every turn, and the experience just keeps ramping up every step of the way. The entire game is a delight, filled with funny cutscenes between levels, and so much to discover, items to unlock, including a nifty wardrobe for both Yooka and Laylee. To mix up the gameplay further, purchasing items, known as tonics, changes your abilities in subtle ways. Depending on what you want out of it, you can make the game harder or easier.
Most of the game is as it was when first released in 2017, but quite a bit has been remixed, and several new types of challenges have been added that create a better flow overall. The biggest jump is, of course, the new 4K resolution and improved soundtrack that includes some legends, such as Banjo-Kazooie composer Grant Kirkhope. There are also brand new areas and about double the amount of things to do, plus the story has been reworked to be told from a different perspective, which feels a lot better. The final enhancement is with the controls and camera, which feel smooth, slick, and fast. Yooka-Replaylee looks fantastic, sounds amazing, and plays beautifully.
We’ve lavished Yooka-Replaylee with lots of praise so far, but it isn’t perfect. During our playthrough, we had a few moments of odd collision detection, although this didn’t spoil the gameplay. The other factor that may put veterans off is how easy this game is. Even adding all the tonics that have a negative effect doesn’t stop the platforming and combat from being simple overall. Also, while there is a lot to do, very few of the challenges took more than a couple of tries. Whether this is a positive or a negative will depend on what kind of experience you want as a player and how much time you wish to spend on a game like this.
The only other negative aspect of Yooka-Replaylee is how you can fully complete the first two main levels and find some pages on the hub to a total that allows access to the final boss showdown. This feels like a mistake that players can simply skip a whole bunch of levels to see the credits. It may be that a patch can increase the number of pages needed to open up the hub entrances to solve this. That said, it does mean that you can spend a short amount of time playing through just the story without spending many hours on levels. Again, this leans into what we discussed above about the low difficulty of the overall game.
This is one of the better games we’ve played this year, and this remaster feels almost like a complete remake at times. This is a testament to an already great game being shown further love by developers who clearly care about the genre and understand what the fans want. Other developers may be taking notes from Playtonic here. Yooka-Replaylee is a brilliant blend of updating a classic without spoiling what made it good, alongside adding enough new content and improvements to make it a worthwhile purchase for those who’ve already played. Anyone with fond memories of the N64 platformers will simply love the nostalgic nods and gameplay of this wonderfully crafted game.
