Yooka-Laylee Looks Like the Most Fun Game Ever
If you’re a gamer who’s been living on planet Earth for the past year or so, you’ve likely heard of Yooka-Laylee. But in case you haven’t – it all started in May 2015 as a Kickstarter campaign by Playtonic Games, a dev studio made up of a bunch of team members who worked on legendary games like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country. Since the N64 was basically our best friend during that era, we spent hours upon hours dazzled by the vast open world of Banjo-Kazooie – there really wasn’t much else like it (besides Mario) at the time.
To put it in perspective for the youngins – remember that mind boggling feeling the first time you played Minecraft, how you just knew it was something special and totally different and how it somehow managed to change the face of gaming forever? That’s pretty much what Rare did with Banjo-Kazooie, which is why it’s so exciting that Yooka-Laylee is a thing that is happening.
We’re so excited that Playtonic has come together to create a brand action-packed platformer for an all new generation, inspired by the sassy humor and endless hours of joy that Banjo-Kazooie brought the world back in the olden days of 1998.
As you can see from the trailer, it’s shaping up to be one of the most fun games ever. You play as BFF duo, Yooka (the precious cutieface iguana) and Laylee (the snarky bat), a BFF duo who are built for adventure. They live together on a beach in an old wrecked ship near an institute that’s been taken over by an evil jerk named Capital B (he’s a bee, obviously) who’s stealing all the books.
Using Yooka and Laylee’s abilities like camouflage, sticky tongues, rolling, flying, and fire breath, you’ll need to make your way through each level, collecting the pages of the stolen books. These items are called Pagies, and they’re golden pages scattered all around throughout the game. Collecting them will help you unlock and expand different parts of the huge open world.
In addition to Yooka, Laylee, and Capital B, there’s a whole slew of charming characters in the game. There’s a retro cell phone wielding salesman named Trowzer who’ll sell you additional moves and abilities, an orange dinosaur named Rextro who unlocks retro style arcade games you can play, an adorable cloud named Nimble who’s face you just want to smoosh, and more.
You play the game with Yooka and Laylee piggybacked, meaning even though they’re a duo, you’re only using one character a time. When you need one of their abilities, you’ll switch between them, and then switch back when needed. So if you need to fly to a faraway platform, you’ll switch to Laylee, soar through the sky, and then switch back to Yooka to kick some baddie butt. There’s also a co-op mode where you can add a second player letting you control each character separately, allowing for even more fun. You can plan and strategize by having one player take on enemies while the other collects items or finds where to go next.
The game boasts everything from awesome boss fights, mine cart challenges, quiz shows, 8 multiplayer games, and of course – hundreds of shiny objects to collect! In addition to super fun platforming, Yooka-Laylee is all about collecting hoards and hoards of items. If you’ve ever played Banjo-Kazooie, you know what we’re talking about.
The graphics and character animations are totally gorgeous and charming, the music is super fun and a modernized throwback to the N64 days, and Yooka and Laylee are voiced by Chris Sutherland, the voice of Banjo and Kazooie! Exciting stuff all around.
Unfortunately, a little bad news came along with all this exciting good news – the game has been pushed back from an October 2016 release to early 2017, but it honestly looks like it will be worth the wait. When it’s finally released, you’ll be able to pick it up on WiiU, XBox One, Playstation 4, and Steam.
