Wasn't expecting to write this today, but here's my hopefully brief review of Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. Spoilers ahead, so be warned!
TL;DR: This game is a mostly great love letter to the DKC series, with some Banjo-Kazooie flair weaved in as well.
First off, lets talk mechanics. This is a 2D platformer at the core. You have Yooka and Laylee to start, and they work best as a team. Moves are simple, jump, roll, stationary tail attack, and tongue grab to pick up and throw items. The DKC mechanics are here, including the roll jumps past ledges you often see used in speed running. When the duo are together, you can also do a better roll, a twirl move that extends jumps, and a ground pound attack that can open secret areas. Taking damage will cause Laylee to detach and fly around wildly. You have a short window to recover her before she flies off. You can call her back with bells placed throughout the level. This mechanic is neat, but I often found instances where Laylee would go somewhere where it was impossible to grab her.
Within the levels, you collect coins and quills, and the end goal of saving a bee. Coins are used for hub world progression, and quills are used to purchase tonics (more on these later). There are 5 coins on each level, and aren't all required, but do unlock a nice upgrade if you get them all. There are special quills within the level, colored red, blue, green. purple, and yellow. Reds are a jump challenge, where you have to jump on each one to unlock a quill bonus. Blue are a targeted quill challenge, where quills will appear in a small area, and you have a short time to collect them all. Green are a speed challenge, where the quill will fly off and leave a trail of normal quills to follow, reaching the quill will award a bonus. Purple spew out a bunch of quills that disappear quickly, usually in a difficult or dangerous area, before exploding into more quills. Finally, yellow quills drop normal quils as it navigates around an area before leaving the level. Collect the quills before it leaves for the bonus. These are pretty fun to complete, and some of them drop coins as their reward instead of quills.
As far as levels go, there are 20 "chapters" and a hub world. I say chapters because each book that you find in the hub world has an alternate version. Unlocking the alternate version is usually a small puzzle on the hub world. Some are as simple as flipping a switch, others more involved. Changes to the level are varied and probably my favorite part of this game. Stuff like the level is on fire, has more enemies, iced over, flooded, mechanical features on/off, etc. all show up here, and add a lot of variety. The hub world itself should be considered a level, as there is a lot to explore here and you can find 10 bees throughout. Some come from finding a secret exit in certain levels, others come from exploration. There are also several gates in the game blocked by our shifty snake friend Trowzer. You have to pay coins to unlock these.
The hub world is also where you find and unlock Tonics. Tonics are modifiers you can add when you play a level. You can have up to 3 per level, and the all coins bonus I mentioned earlier is a 4th slot. There are 62 to collect, and they have a wide range of uses. Some make the game easier/harder, which adds a multiplier to the quils you earned in each level. Others are purely aesthetic, and add various filters to the game, like sepia, black and white, retro graphics, and many more. Once unlocked, you have to purchase the Tonic with quills if you want to be able to use it. I liked this part, as it gives use to the quills you collect in each level. With all the quills I got getting the rest of the collectibles, unlocking all tonics only required me to grind the first level a couple times to get the small amount I was missing.
I talked about the Impossible Lair in some earlier posts, so I won't go into it too much here. What I don't think I mentioned was that you start the game here, with no bees to protect you. Obviously you're not supposed to succeed, but it is possible, and unlocks the final Tonic. I did not go for this, the Lair was tricky enough as is. You can also challenge the Lair any time you want, but it's much easier if you save all the bees first.
I did have a few complaints about the game. While it controls well overall, I had some odd issues, particularly in the later stages. I had a few bugs where I would hold jump and Yooka would do the shortest hop possible, leading to some unintentional damage and deaths. Hit boxes can sometimes be a bit wonky as well. Finally, the one that really got my blood boiling a couple times was the climbing mechanic. Basically, you can climb around on certain netting and vines, and a couple levels use this extensively. My issue here is the physics when jumping. If you try to jump sideways, I had a lot of issues with short vs. long hops. They seemed to trigger really inconsistently, causing me to either fall short, or way overshoot my target.
Finally, I want to mention the music. David Wise and Grant Kirkhope, two of my favorite composers, as well as Matt Griffin and David Murdoch lend their talents to this game. The soundtrack is fantastic, and has a surprising amount of tracks. If I remember correctly, every level and variant level have their own songs, and the hub world has several. Really great listen that compliments the whole game.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game, and am looking forward to whatever they decide to do for a sequel. A few minor complaints here and there, but otherwise smooth, fun gameplay overall, all the charm you've come to love from the people who developed it, and plenty of challenge.
