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[Def Jukie]

I think the problem for me is that this game looks more like Banjo-Tooie than Banjo-Kazooie. I really liked BK but found BT to be very boring. The levels were too big and they added in things for varieties sake that I didn't find to be fun. I could never bring myself to finish BT but I've played BK multiple times. Shovel Knight was successful because it took the things you remember about NES games and improved upon them. SK is so much more than a reskin. I'm just not seeing that with YL. It doesn't appear to be doing anything new or interesting. I'm hoping for the best but I'm afraid this is just going to remind me of the worst aspects of 3D platformers.

 

[Yoshi]

I personally fall in the second category of the game being too similar in that I did ask for a Banjo-Kazooie successor, a game that evokes the same feeling I had then but not by literally being Banjo. For example like how Mario Galaxy feels like the true successor to Super Mario 64, without actually being Super Mario 64 and instead introduces new ideas and innovates the formula. I'm looking forward to the game, but I'm not super excited for it.

But Mario Galaxy is not an evolution of the Mario 64 formula, it is a completely different game - not unlike what Banjo did in N&B, though staying true to the base genre. It went from an open collectathon style platformer to a linear 3D platformer with some mild collectathon elements. This kind of change would not be OK for Yooka-Laylee, because it was specifically promised as a collectathon style game. Having played the Toybox and having seen all trailers, it does not seem like a level pack either, it really feels like a more purely platforming-oriented interpretation of the Banjo-Tooie formula. I would have preferred a Kazooie-style game with smaller levels, but I don't think it's fair to call Yooka-Laylee a mere retreat.

 

[Bladelaw]

Sounds like folks who wanted a new Banjo-esque game will get what they wanted. This article has me pretty pumped. I'm hoping Price's note of "if the mechanics are fun people will instinctively learn them instead of being told what to do" actually bears out. That's the kind of thing I feel like some games totally miss.

Banjo's main drive was three-fold:
- Get Music Notes
- Get Jinjos
- Get Jiggy (with it)

I'm hoping YL is a bit looser, and given Price's comment that they aren't forcing a 99% collect rate I'm feeling confident that you can get through the game and still have plenty left to do when you're done. Mario 64 did that brilliantly so I hope they looked into that.

 

[Astral Dog]

Zelda is praised and it has no handholding do im not sure why people keep saying that is the only problem here

 

[DarkConfidant]

ITT: Drive-by confirmation bias.


I hope the game is good, as I plan on buying it, but I completely understand where the critic is coming from, and definitely think that the game can fail by using the same 90's design that made us want the game in the first place.

 

[TenCentCoast]

I'm kind of laughing at some of the rhetoric in this thread. I haven't seen this kind of reaction to criticism about a game in a while, lmao.

 

[wazoo]

The switch version will be amazing to play in bed.

 

[MrCunningham]

But Mario Galaxy is not an evolution of the Mario 64 formula, it is a completely different game - not unlike what Banjo did in N&B, though staying true to the base genre. It went from an open collectathon style platformer to a linear 3D platformer with some mild collectathon elements. This kind of change would not be OK for Yooka-Laylee, because it was specifically promised as a collectathon style game. Having played the Toybox and having seen all trailers, it does not seem like a level pack either, it really feels like a more purely platforming-oriented interpretation of the Banjo-Tooie formula. I would have preferred a Kazooie-style game with smaller levels, but I don't think it's fair to call Yooka-Laylee a mere retreat.

GameXplain has a nice hands on playthrough from a couple days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxm7iFywWsQ

The game is faithful to the BK formula, but this preview also points out that Yooka-Laylee will also be a little more open ended and less linear than B-K. The player will have a little more freedom to play through the areas in any order they like, but the game still seems to be rooted in the classic Rare style.

The only real notable downside in this preview is that there are a few mini games that apparently feel forced and break up the flow of the game. But everything else seems positive.

I actually am looking forward to this one. To be honest.

 

[Camjo-Z]

But how many people will it draw outside of the backers? The writer of the article is an example. Here's a guy that clearly feels indifferent at best when it comes to Rare's old 3D platformers, and obviously something like YL isn't going to do it for him, since it's so unabashedly similar to those games.

The writer of the article sounds less like he has a legitimate problem with the game and more like he just has no clue what he's doing. His complaints don't even involve anything specific to the genre.

You can simply charge around its bright landscapes, leaping and rolling, dashing and bashing, and you'll have a good time—but without direction, it can all seem a bit weightless, meaningless in regard to a grander scheme. I want to know that I'm making significant progress in those 20-minute sit-downs, and with so many potential objectives open to you at any time, it's confusing what is going to matter the most, in order to maximize that play time.

I've seen the first few minutes of the game. They devote a significant amount of dialogue to telling you that Pagies are important, you get them by completing various tasks, and they unlock new worlds. So how hard is it to piece together that if you're working toward getting Pagies, you're making progress?

There was something said about finding golden pages, and opening books to dive into, but, oh, here's a talking cloud that needs me to do something for them-

No, stop right there. They told you in no uncertain terms "GET PAGIES TO OPEN MORE BOOKS AND BEAT THE GAME". That talking cloud that needs you to do something for him (presumably the one that races you since he's quite close to the start of the world)? He gives you a straight yes or no question on whether you want to race him, and when you beat him you're given a Pagie! Congratulations, you should now understand how the game works and what denotes progress. The rest of the article is fundamentally shit because he seems to think this extremely difficult sequence of events doesn't "fit in the gaming landscape of 2017".

 

[Platy]

Out of time indeed

 

[ScientificPizza]

Well, he can just choose something? Tasks in most games are not mutually exclusive, I really don't get this problem at all

Yeah, but he didn't know what to choose. He's saying he felt overwhelmed. I don't see how that's a hard thing to see

 

[ArjanN]

I'm not sure if it's really out of time, or more that the writer wouldn't have been into this specfic type of 3D platformer back then either.

It's a fairly specific subgenre that not everyone is going to be into.

 

[Yoshi]

Yeah, but he didn't know what to choose. He's saying he felt overwhelmed. I don't see how that's a hard thing to see

I could offer him a set of dices if he lacks the capability of choosing himself.