Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair (XB1) Review

QUITE POSSIBLY THE BEST PLATFORMER OF THE YEAR

I was one of the backers of the original Yooka-Laylee. While the goal of creating a modern 3D collectathon platformer was met, there were a few design choices that felt wrong to me. So when I saw that Playtonic was creating a follow up that was going to be a side scrolling platformer I was a bit upset.

I am a dumb, foolish man.

This game is fantastic. The platforming feels great. Yooka and Laylee’s move set feels both familiar and unique, with a lot of inspiration clearly coming from the Donkey Kong Country games in both gameplay and level design. After taking a hit, Laylee will fall off Yooka’s head and Yooka either has to catch Laylee before she disappears or hit a Laylee Bell to get her to return or risk dying in one hit. While Laylee is absent Yooka’s move set gets diminished slightly as well. It’s an interesting take on Yoshi’s Island’s Baby Mario mechanic (which I know a lot of people found annoying). Luckily Laylee doesn’t cry and dying doesn’t cost any lives or set the player back too far.

PLATFORMS: PS4, XB1, SWITCH, PC
MSRP: $29.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $29.99

What really shines though is the overworld. Platforming levels are broken up by a large top down map that has the player solving puzzles to unlock new levels as well as finding tonics (I’ll get to those later). Puzzles also lead to one of the neatest aspects of The Impossible Lair: remixed stages. Sometimes that involves flooding the level entrance with water which then floods the stage. Other times it’s freezing a level. The best example though was a level that became sticky, which changed how I had to play the game entirely. It’s an ingenious way to get the most out of reusing assets on the development side of things and shaking up gameplay for the player. Each time a new way to remix a level occurred I found myself saying “Okay, that’s awesome.” The main world also has to be expanded at times with Pagies, who have a challenge that has to be beat before they will do anything. Some of these challenges were straight combat while others were puzzles and platforming challenges that all revolved around the idea of beating every enemy.

The aforementioned tonics are a returning feature from Yooka-Laylee. This time tonics are completely optional modifiers that can change visual filters and difficulty in the platforming stages. While visual effects don’t do anything but change how the game looks, modifiers that make the game easier will reduce the amount of quills earned at the end of the stage while those that make the game harder with increase the amount of quills earned. Quills are required for hints in the overworld area, unlocking tonics (after finding them) and a few other overworld activities and are by far the most common of collectables. None of this is required to beat the game though.

Technically nothing is required though as the player can jump straight to the final level right at the beginning of the game. The Impossible Lair is a level that the game starts in, but after being unceremoniously thrown out the player can either choose to redo the level right away or go and save a bunch of bees, which will form a shield to make the level easier. I chose the latter because like Zelda: Breath of the Wild I want to experience as much of the game as possible.

To do that however I needed T.W.I.T. Coins which can be found in each platforming level. At five per stage, they can be extremely hard to get at times but luckily with the amount of stages available most players should be able to get through most of the game with grabbing only a few per stage. These are traded to Trowzer (the snake) to remove his Paywalls. This is the sense of humor that runs through Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair and I appreciate it all. At the end of every level is a bee to add to the total amount of hits for the bee shield. All those collectables make the game feel a lot like its collectathon predecessor in the most unobtrusive way.

I love this game. Playtonic definitely made something special here. It’s going to be hard to look at other platformers without wondering why they didn’t ape more of the concepts from The Impossible Lair. Not to mention the soundtrack by Grant Kirkhope and David Wise – which is probably one of my favorite soundtracks of the year. While I hope they give the 3D platformer another fair shake, I will be more than happy if Playtonic does more sidescrolling platformers in the future because The Impossible Lair is impossibly good.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Platforming feels great
  • Overworld sections are a great change of pace
  • Puzzles are well thought out
  • Lots of humor
  • Amazing music
  • GameBoy filter and resolution mode
Bad
  • Impossible to play in GameBoy mode
10
Classic
Written by
Anthony is the resident Canadian. He enjoys his chicken wings hot and drinks way too much Coca-Cola. His first game experience was on his father's Master System and he is a loyal SEGA fanboy at heart.