Switch I’ve been playing Yooka Laylee a lot lately. I’ve even skipped Mario up to this point...

[Evan Marks]

I’ve been playing Yooka Laylee a lot lately. I’ve even skipped Mario up to this point (I’ll go back, I promise!) because my hype for Yooka Laylee has built for nearly three years. So far I love it. Everything about it feels good, and I’ve yet to encounter a bug with the camera. The charm rocks muh sock, and Capital B is a hilarious baddie.

I feel like in my conversations about this game many criticism extend from its comparison to Banjo - as it’s spiritual predecessor. Or worse a comparison to Mario!

On the flip side Zelda has been praised (justly so) for its improvements on the Zelda franchise.

So my question is how much should a game’s context dictate your feelings on a game? Can we ruin games with meticulous coverage? Would Yooka Laylee have been received better if it had been a pleasant surprise like Poi? Does Zelda stand up straighter as a Zelda game? Or would it be better as a new ip?

 

[Marco Maltese]

And Rime?

 

[Jason Smyth-Chandler]

I think any new game in a series (be it Mario, Zelda, etc.) are held to a certain expectation simply because it's supposed to either continue or improve upon the legacy of the games before it.
New IPs I think have it a little better because even though it can be compared to a different game, it still has to be new, fresh, and have its own identity, but doesn't have a legacy to uphold.

 

[Jonathan Jurczak]

Just bought Rime myself. Haven't unwrapped it yet. I think I can tolerate the framerate issues, as I hear the overall game is rewarding and pretty.

I'll just have faith that the devs will patch it in the future. I still wish to support their efforts.

 

[Jamie R Stone]

Oh there's definitely bugs with Yooka-Laylee's camera. The part where you go up to the 2nd level in that temple to get to the mollycool, when you step on the platform to go up, the camera fidgets out of control when you reach the 2nd level. Plenty of other examples in the game, but the game in general feels a bit choppy, and the game design is strange at times. Not a bad looking game, feels okay, but it definitely doesn't feel finished... And I was looking forward to it for at least as long as you were.

 

[Mario Rex Ferrara]

Think the problem with Yooka Laylee is people say they want that past experience of Banjo but getting just that feels stale. What makes Odyssey, BotW and even Sonic Mania this year so special is they build on something nostalgic while still making it feel new.

 

[Jamie R Stone]

It feels clunkier than Banjo-Kazooie even. You know you can stop short in BK and BT, Banjo makes a little "skid" on the floor when you hit the control stick in the opposite direction. There's none of that nuance in YL.

 

[James Kettler]

look at hairy Mario!!!...lol

 

[Andrew Ferguson]

Yooka is so terrible.

 

[Dustin Peña]

Yooka Laylee was so bland and boring, I don’t need to look at it through fresh eyes. It could be called Chocolate Tits and the Honey Sack and it would still be boring. The coat of paint has nothing to do with the gameplay.

 

[Jamie R Stone]

It is very bland and rarely goes outside of what you would expect from this type of game. You want to play a game and be surprised by it, but honestly there was no evolution that I could sense in this game that would make me hold it to a standard of being called a "Banjo-Kazooie successor." More like a bad Banjo-Kazooie clone... I mean look at Tooie compared to Kazooie. Now look at this game. Where's the evolution?

 

[Jaxson Earle]

yooka laylee is awful, especially in comparison to one of the best games this year.

 

[Evan Carson]

When did Mario get chest hair and a necklace from Jersey Shore?

 

[Michael Hawthorne]

That chest hair suits Mario

 

[Maurizio Mauci Masserini]

The only thing that I'm not comfortable with, are some dialogues that can't be skipped, with that useless and annoying speech sound. I would prefer just subtitles without whiney noises.

 

[Neeko Cuz]

Chest hair Mario