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Moving on to the downsides unfortunately there are some areas where a combination of the lustre of gameplay past fading and some shortcomings with the camera can’t be ignored. The level design among the 5 worlds is a bit of a mixed bag with some high points, some that drop to not being too great, and more vanilla than I would have hoped. In particular the fourth world feels a bit like the designers ran out of steam, but in general perhaps too many aspects of the game design feel like an homage to a time that more modern gamers have passed by. An injection of some additional riffs on what made that gameplay work without so much mimicking it may have helped the game from feeling a bit stale at times. It’s also worth noting that though the majority of the time I didn’t have a particular issue with the camera there were enough spots where I had to struggle with it a bit that I can’t give it a pass either. With Yooka-Laylee I think there are two distinct audiences that need to be spoken to for the summary. For major fans of the classic Rare look and feel there are a lot of joyful notes that Yooka-Laylee hits and as long as you don’t set your expectations too high you should enjoy it. For people who are less familiar or enamored with classic collect-a-thons it’s a bit harder to recommend, especially now that the long shadow of Mario Odyssey is hard to ignore. Even if it may not be everything I was hoping for Yooka-Laylee is an earnest title that shows a lot of love and reverence for the classic Rare titles that have obviously inspired it, I just wish it had done more to additionally forge out its own path.
Justin Nation, Score:Good [7.0]