Quick Look: Yooka-Laylee

As someone who always preferred Banjo Tooie over Banjo Kazooie; I wonder if i'd enjoy this game more than most?
A lot of the people i've heard/ read who dislike this game have been people who either preferred Kazooie and thought Tooie was inferior, or people who never really liked either Banjo game in favor of your Marios.
I have no basis for this theory, just curious. I never see much love for Banjo Tooie :(
It was like a big 3D adventure game!

@ripelivejam: I don't immediately blame the game for being poorly designed. My first thought is usually "what am i doing wrong?"

Vinny picks up the controller and immediately does what Dan never thought to do, so i don't see how it's a communication problem. Dan just made assumptions.

The roll is just talon trot from Banjo Kazooie. It's made for moving on slopes.

What's worse is how they always hand wave their poor play by saying things like "we're not experts here" and "don't come here looking for pro level play." We should at least expect competent play. When they play poorly they make games look way worse than they are.

Banjo Kazoo-3

I THINK you might be able to clear those logs if you jump at an angle instead of straight on? Also, the old tutorial standby of "if you hold A longer, you jump higher!".

Edit: Oh. Okay. That was easy. XD

Eh, this seems like a fine game, definitely in line with Banjo-Kazooie except more polished. Thing is, I never really liked any of those Rare collectathons, so I might get it on a sale.

@genericbrotagonist: Wait, you seem to think this is worse than the old games? Are the controls and camera actually any clunkier than the older titles? Because those N64 cameras were baaad by today's standards. Can't really comment on level design.

1) Holy crap they really made it sooooo B&K....
2) Looks exactly like B&K quirky control annoyances at all.
3) I kind of suspected that he would have to slow down to jump over those logs but i was really hoping it wasn't something that silly
4) I love Dan's extreme hatred for that boss but Vinny and Alex making him go back and do it over and over. Made me laugh a lot

@johnseminario: I see what you did there....... :'(

@tomac: first they didn't immediately blame the game. at worst they eventually said maybe that boss battle wasn't well designed. you could see the first thing they thought of is "what am i doing wrong?" two the only reason vinny *sort of* figured it out is because he had a fresh prespective and by all accounts that spin/jump move looked ostensibly like an all or nothing affair, and still squirrely as fuck. it was a combination of finicky game mechanics, wrong approaches, and who the fuck cares they only got stuck on it for a few minutes it's not the end of the world.

N64 had great 3D platformers, Conker's Bad Fur Day being the ultimate. Glad to see RARE made another game in the spirit of those platformers.

Kudos to Alex for being the instigator, pushing this quick look through to a completion.

I would pay real money to see a series that parodies strategy videos where Dan is forced to actually beat every boss in this game.

I'm not as far into this game as Dan and I haven't watched the part everyone is raging about, but the control on that roll move can be really awkward, and thus far, I haven't seen them say anything about being able to slow it down either. The game has some significant camera and control issues, I really hope they're planning to massage that stuff in an update. It's pretty rough right now.

One of the last tonics you can unlock is called "Pants" -- the game hides the description on that one but I'm confident your issue can be addressed.

PRO TIP: Have Vinny and Alex by your side. Also don't fail John Cena

This looks very fun. Will definitely pick it up.

Love how Vinny figured out how to get up the ramp after one try.

@paulunga: At least on the big games like Mario and Banjo they were perfectly functional, if restricted due to the buttons instead of a stick. None of the weird finicky stuff we see here like the sudden snap in and out of the boss fight.

I was bored, so made this.

@brad: I backed the game (at a relatively low tier) so I'm keen to play it in a matter of hours, and as such the Toybox demo is my only experience with the controls so I'll take your word for it. I never expected it to be perfect overall though, and my money was already spent a long time ago so my mindset is "well, here it is". Two things though:

a) It was called horseshit within minutes of it starting. Even if it was explained that "it's my kind of horseshit", it's quite a strong phrase that sticks in the head and may cause people to stop watching early in the video at the expense of the developer. From what I saw there didn't seem to be any awful (if admittedly comic) bugs, see SQUAD, Assassin's Creed, ME: A.

b) The tutorial popups were dismissed as being annoying. Presumably in the interest of keeping things moving, but I have to wonder if they would help.

This looks delightful. I'll give it a shot!

PS: I didn't see any glaring problems with either the controls or the camera in this QL.. the struggles experienced were simply with the ineptitude of the Crew. It looks fantastic, runs smooth, and I like difficult platformers anyhow, so even if it got more challenging, it's right up my alley!

I'm not really sure what else one would expect from a self-proclaimed Banjo-Kazooie clone...

@rahr012: you know what's *really* old? Using "retard" as a pejorative. And whining about Dan having the nerve to not know everything but be curious enough to ask. That's gotten old too.

The game appears to be drenched in charm, from the British Humor to that soundtrack (Much like Banjo-Kazooie). However, judging from this quick look, its pretty rough in its current state and hopefully Playtonic can address the camera/technical issues in a patch. I think they have a patch planned but we'll see.

Also, Laylee is a girl bat.

What happened to Dan could happen to anybody who hadn't been challenged to actually slow himself down during that roll until that point. Well, and then was put on camera trying to figure it out. The rest of us would have probably just tried whatever we could think of on the controller until we found the thing we were supposed to do. I'd normally be more upset with the crew for not taking the time to figure out the controls but this was a logic issue more than not understanding how the game worked (I would not have assumed the roll could be slowed down even if I probably would have figured out through trial and error).

That's not the way I remember them, I've played most platformers from that time including Mario 64 (hell, I replayed that game like 2 years ago) and all the Rare games.

Yeah, I just looked up some gameplay videos of Banjo-Kazooie. There were some annoying forced camera perspectives and snagging on walls/getting stuck between the player and an obstacle. Nothing too bad (mostly functional I'd say ;) ), but in any case not better than this game that came out 20 years later.

@vikingdeath1:

I agree with you, man. I always thought Tooie was the perfect sequel: bigger and better in every way. Not only do you start Tooie with all the abilities you have at the end of Kazooie you learn many new ones on top of them. The worlds this time around are much grander with more to do; the amount of jiggies in each is the same (I think?) but instead of tripping over a jiggy every 30 seconds you actually need to put some work into acquiring each one. In B-K many are just lying about, especially in early worlds.

I also love Kazooie a lot and can appreciate people who like a more compact experience but I always thought Tooie was also a great big adventure instead of just a platformer which made it feel better. It seems crazy to me how many people think Kazooie is clearly better. Like sure I can understand some feeling that way but most people and by a wide margin? Crazy!

Also I think based on this I will enjoy this game more than those who prefer Kazooie considering the one complaint I see a lot is "there's a lot of space" and "feels a bit empty" because they didn't make the level design compact.

Dan needs to chill out and Play. The. Game.

I hope there's a new mario maker level with SLURP STATE spelled out in coins.

Watching Dan struggle on such easy stuff has this mix of hilarity and frustration.

"I've tried everything!"

LIES.

Poor Rampo :(

After this video we should get a GBE Playdate with @danryckert playing Super Mario Galaxy. He always talks it up but I don't think we've ever seen him play.

This seems like the perfect podcast game.

That sound you might hear echoing out in the distance is gbeast fans across the globe face-palming in unison mere minutes after Vinny takes the controls.

Vinny "Esports" Caravella

@vinny The last several PC Quick Looks have been back to limited HDMI levels. I hate to keep harping on this, but this is something that sticks out to me immediately; I'm actually surprised no one else has mentioned it.

Watch out for Nvidia driver updates!

This game looks like a 90's 3D platformer in all the worst ways. The UI and sound design is particular... icky? I heard on Waypoint Radio that this game was kind of lackluster, but eesh... I don't see anything that's appealing.

I just can't stand that character design personally. Like, something about that style (same with the other rare games) is really revolting. I'm not sure why that is. Something about the eyes.

That snake in pants is kind of clever though.

I can't wait to play this

Not since God of War has there been a more obnoxious "uphill" puzzle in a modern game.

You're welcome, Dan Ryckert.

@zoofame said:

This is pretty much what I was thinking too. Classic Dan...

It's official! Vinny is better than Dan at video games.

... was that a dana carvey impression?

Wow I can't believe they put in 15 minute+ epic boss battles in this game. That's incredible!

The best thing about this site is knowing the personalities of the people behind the views and reviews. It means you can understand where people are coming from if they love a game but also you can disregard certain opinions too...

@theothrpianoman: They should play Sunshine. He loves Galaxy but everyone agrees with him on that. Sunshine is the one he has to prove.

This is the best bad quick look I've seen in a while.

A snake names Trouser, huh? A trouser snake...

Well, I thought this Quick Look was pretty damn funny and the game looks better than what I've read or seen from other outlets. Seems like a fun thing to mess around with.

I dunno this looks...serviceable I guess. I'm with Vinny in that I like the character design and animation, but I probably won't put this at the top of my list.

Maybe when I eventually get a Switch and it's on sale or something.

@d_w: I disagree completely, I think this game looks and sounds perfect. The only bad thing I saw was the floaty rolling mechanic. I think the voices are pretty funny.

Further exemplifying the genius that is Super Mario 64. Still the Original & Best.