Review for Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. Game for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 08/10/2019
With the arrival of Banjo and Kazooie on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, longtime fans were moved while younger fans were at least intrigued. Those who experienced the adventures of Banjo-Kazooie at the time of its release, will almost certainly have contributed, a few years ago, to the development of Yooka-Laylee, spiritual successor of the N64 title. The developers of Playtonic, strong in their passion for the original game, have therefore given the world a love letter to the bear and the bird, generating as new protagonists a funny chameleon in the company of a bat. Although Yooka-Laylee was perfectly in line with her muse, she did not get much critical praise due to her excessive fidelity to the time of Banjo, without considering the generational change.
This time Playtonic seems to want to tell the world that Yooka-Laylee's IP is not, in its entirety, a successor to Banjo-Kazooie, but that each game in the saga is a reminder of a title from the past. In fact, the second chapter, called Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, is this time a clear reference to the Donkey Kong Country series, from many points of view.
Let's start from the end
The evil Capital B. is back, and as always, he doesn't seem willing to do anything good. He has indeed brainwashed Queen Bee Phoebee's servants, but Yooka and Laylee are there to stop him. Or at least groped to stop him, given that the forces of Capital B. seem very numerous and unbeatable, while our duo no longer possesses any special abilities.
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair begins directly in the “Impossible Lair” described in the title, which would then be the final level. This den is impossible in name and in fact: unless you are joypad wizards and manage to finish the stage without any upgrades or abilities (we can't wait to find out the first one who will succeed on Youtube or Twitch), defeat is assured. Once we have been smashed like flies, we will find ourselves crashed down in the game's overworld, with a top view like the Zelda of the past and completely explorable. From here we can start the real game and choose which stages to go to face, with the aim of recovering as many upgrades as possible and then returning to challenge the Impossible Lair once again and take our revenge.
I've seen those barrels somewhere before
As we mentioned in the introduction, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair draws heavily on the gameplay of the Donkey Kong Country series. We are in a platform in 2.5 dimensions, where the style of play is not dissimilar in any way from the aforementioned series: we will be able to roll to attack enemies, enter barrels that will shoot us around, and take our partner Laylee with us as a kind of “Extra life” as Diddy was in his time. The main difference is in the control, which is far from being the precise one of the ape game, but is instead cumbersome and "heavy" as we remember it in titles like Little Big Planet. This will result in some frustration when we have to deal with some rather difficult platform sections: the controls are simple to learn, but they never give the feeling we would like.
Controls aside, there are a lot of different enemies, and this will force us to behave differently depending on which opponent we are facing. When an enemy hits us Yooka will "detach" from us, and we will have a few seconds to get it back before it flies away in a panic, thus giving us the possibility to recover our extra life indefinitely, in a mechanic that is very reminiscent of Yoshi's Island.
Each level will see, in its ending, the rescue of one of the queen's bees. However, they are not the only collectible in the game: each stage contains 5 coins, very well hidden, which can be exchanged to unlock new areas of the map. This not only serves to find new levels, but by obtaining some powers it is also possible to interact with some elements on the overworld, which will actually go to modify in some way the levels already completed, offering a completely new version.
We draw conclusions
Graphically Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is very pleasant. It's definitely not something of an incredible technicality, but it does its cartoon job beautifully and the settings are all beautifully done, with lights and colors full of life. The soundtrack is something remarkable, created by Grant Kirkhope and David Wise, who have composed a lot of music that really seems to come out of a possible new Donkey Kong Country. Longevity is also quite high, reaching a dozen hours to pass within just under fifty levels.
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair proves to be a great game, but a weird sequel. From the completely changed gameplay and structure compared to the first chapter, everything could seem almost a "step back" when it is actually the clear message that the Yooka and Laylee saga is a love letter to many different titles of the past. After Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country, we wonder which game will be honored when a third game by the strange duo comes out.
► Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a Platform-type game developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team 17 for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 08/10/2019
