Yooka-Laylee

Yooka-Laylee is a platform game developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17 for Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. It is a spiritual successor of the Banjo-Kazooie series that was developed by a group of several former key personnel from Rare. Playtonic Games initiated a Kickstarter campaign that attracted significant media coverage and raised a record-breaking sum of over GB£2 million.

Plot
Yooka and his friend Laylee have found a magical golden book they plan to sell for lots of money, when suddenly it flies away towards a nearby building. Trowzer the pants-wearing snake informs the two that thousands of books are being stolen by Hivory Towers, which is owned by the corporate bee Capital B. Yooka and Laylee venture into Hivory Tower hoping to find the magical book, there they find that the book's golden pages, which are sentient and call themselves "Pagies" escaped from the book to prevent Capital B. and his assistant Dr. Quack from getting the book's power.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Amazing top-notch yet cartoony and colorful graphics.
 * 2) It genuinely feels like a Banjo-Kazooie game. From the classic 3D collect-a-thon gameplay, to its soundtrack, to its characters, etc.
 * 3) Almost every character from the classic Banjo-Kazooie games has a counterpart that fills their roles very faithfully:
 * 4) * Banjo - Yooka.
 * 5) * Kazooie - Laylee.
 * 6) * Bottles - Trowzer.
 * 7) * Mumbo Jumbo - Dr. Puzz.
 * 8) * Gruntilda - Capital B.
 * 9) * Jiggies - Pagies.
 * 10) *Notes - Quills
 * 11) * Jinjos - Ghost Writers.
 * 12) * Klungo - Dr. Qwack.
 * 13) Laylee inherits Kazooie's snarky attitude almost perfectly while Yooka inherits Banjo's laidback yet friendly nature as well.
 * 14) Smooth gameplay with little to no framerate issues.
 * 15) The gibberish sound effects from Banjo Kazooie return as well. If you find the gibberish annoying, you can disable it in the options menu.
 * 16) World 2 has a giant Ice key unlock a door, another homage to the Stop n' Swop feature that the original Banjo Kazooie tried to implement but couldn't due to limitations of the Nintendo 64.
 * 17) Goofy cartoony soundtrack composed by both Grant Kirkhope and David Wise.
 * 18) Performing certain actions unlocks special Tonics. You can equip one at a time to get special perks.
 * 19) A lot of collectibles to find.
 * 20) Colorful and likable characters.
 * 21) Every world has a minecart minigame as a tribute to Donkey Kong Country.
 * 22) Awesome levels, which are huge and offer tons of objectives and puzzles.
 * 23) Quills, the equivalent of notes from Banjo-Kazooie, are used to buy new moves from Trowzer.
 * 24) The game has a expansion system, where you can expand the game's worlds to make them even bigger than they were before therefore unlock more objectives.
 * 25) One of the bosses is a giant Kinect called I.N.E.P.T. that can't accurately track any movement.
 * 26) Shovel Knight makes a guest appearance.
 * 27) *Shovel Knight's character model was made by the creators of Shovel Knight.
 * 28) An intentionally cheesy rap song was made as a homage to Donkey Kong 64.
 * 29) The Nintendo Switch version has several improvements and a better camera.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) In being an accurate representation of the old Banjo Kazooie games, Yooka-Laylee repeats some of the flaws those Banjo games also have, including:
 * 2) *Camera issues like all early 3D games.
 * 3) *Just like Banjo-Tooie, the game worlds are too big, which causes massive amounts of backtracking. Unlike Banjo-Tooie however, there are no fast travel warp pads.
 * 4) *Some of the objectives are very cryptic.
 * 5) *The last few collectibles can be hard to find due to the size of the worlds, even when using the special Tonic that tracks collectibles.
 * 6) *Unnecessarily lengthy loading transitions.
 * 7) *Stiff N64-like animations.
 * 8) Some of the jokes that poke fun at modern gaming occasionally fall flat.
 * 9) You have to play the Rextro minigames twice each if you want to 100% complete the game and some of them can be quite frustrating.
 * 10) There are only five worlds. While these can be expanded, the asthetic themes of the worlds remain the same after being expanded.

Reception
The game received mixed to positive reviews from critics upon its release, with many remarking the game´s faithful return to a classic 3D platforming experience, which offered a lot of nostalgia and felt accurate to the classic Banjo-Kazooie games. The graphics, level design and the amount of collectibles were also heavily praised. Negative reviews, however, were pointed towards the game repeating some flaws inherent of early 3D platformers for the sake of being a representation of Banjo-Kazooie.

Despite the somewhat mixed reviews, the game still got a following. In 2019, a sequel was released which received significantly better reception with many claiming that as "Playtonic learned from the mistakes of the first game".

Triva

 * Jon Jafari, better known as JonTron, originally had a role in this game. However, after some controversial statements he said in early 2017, he was removed in a patch.

Game Tips

 * 1) Keep in mind you only need 100 Pagies to reach the final boss so don't worry too much if there's an objective you can't complete. You can skip 45 objectives and still beat the game.
 * 2) When you get enough Pagies to unlock a new world, you should stay in the current one to get a few more Pagies than needed just in case.
 * 3) When looking for a Mollycool or Play Coin, remember that they're usually not too far from Dr. Puzz or Rextro respectively.
 * 4) Even after expanding each world, there will be some objectives you can't clear without new moves you'll get later on, so you shouldn't revisit worlds until you have all of Trowzer's moves.
 * 5) Equip the Hunter Tonic when hunting for the last few collectibles in each World. When that Tonic is equipped you'll hear a whistling sound whenever you're near a hidden item, which will make it significantly easier to find those last collectibles. The Hunter Tonic also works for the last 30 Quills and Casino Tokens.
 * 6) Use the Baller Tonic for objectives that require rolling, as it makes the roll move consume less energy.
 * 7) When fighting the final boss against Captial B make sure you equip the tonic that recharges your energy bar quicker, as otherwise you'll often run out of energy and take damage during the final phase of the fight.

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