I was excited for Yooka-Laylee and immediately preordered it when I was able to. I even bought the digital deluxe version with the soundtrack. I was very excited. However, it pains me to say that I cannot recommend Yooka-Laylee. While the initial couple of hours show great promise, the rest of the time as you finish off the other 4 worlds is horribly unpolished.

I wish I could sum it up in a couple sentences, but I really can't. There are just so many little problems that show that the development team haven't learned anything from the past 20 years nor do they play their own game.

One of the biggest problems for me is the quizzes. I know this has been beaten to death before, but they really are awful. There's no indicator that you're about to be hit with one, many of them are incredibly pedantic like naming a specific character when the characters rarely say anything interesting, so I found myself skipping the dialog all the time.

Is that my fault? Well, that's up to you to decide. However when you beat the final quiz Laylee makes a "witty" comment about how you won't need to pay attention anymore for the awful quizzes. It's a desperate attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor but when the quizzes themselves aren't enjoyable the joke comes off as insulting rather than amusing.

Ok the quizzes are bad, but is that it? Well, no. The game is also plagued with a variety of minigames in each world. There's one that's supposed to a retro arcade game and another which is the cart one. All of the arcade ones vastly outstay their welcome, especially if you're trying to beat the high score. Prepare to play something you don't want to. The cart one is also unfun. It's novel the first time, but they appear in every game world which means you will be repeating it at least 5 times, perhaps more depending on your skill level.

If they were just unfun that would be one thing, but the game is so poorly designed that it turns what could just be a speedbump into something that will likely frustrate you. You cannot restart these unless you die. That means that if you make a small mistake, you cannot just press start. What happens when you die? You get a loading screen and then annoying dialog asking you why you're awful. Well isn't that just pleasant. Then you click yes and have another loading screen. Thankfully on PC the loading screns are really short, however it's hard not to look at this as just annoying. Both the arcade and the cart ones do NOT let you see what your target goal is on the HUD. You only see your current score. Additionally for the cart one, there are brakes and a boost you can perform. They have a short cooldown timer however there is NO HUD indicator for them. WHY????? Also you can get hurt after you go through the final hoop at the end of the cart track. Even though you cannot move. Good design, Playtonic.

The camera isn't good, but I found myself able to ignore it most of the time. However the places where it's bad, ESPECIALLY in World 2 when you're the truck are where it's REALLY bad. Expect to have a bad time.

The devs claim that there is a patch in the works to help skip the gibberish, which is often in places where you have to retry constantly. Which is as you can imagine very obnoxious. However it was announced May 2nd and here we are at May 28th without a peep.

A lot of these problems, to me, come off as a developer not playing their own game. They seem incredibly obvious to someone who has played 20 hours. They're small issues, but everytime they happen, they chip at your enjoyment of the game.

I was excited for Yooka-Laylee and immediately preordered it when I was able to. I even bought the digital deluxe version with the soundtrack. I was [i]very[/i] excited. However, it pains me to say that I cannot recommend Yooka-Laylee. While the initial couple of hours show great promise, the rest of the time as you finish off the other 4 worlds is horribly unpolished. I wish I could sum it up in a couple sentences, but I really can't. There are just so many little problems that show that the development team haven't learned anything from the past 20 years nor do they play their own game. One of the biggest problems for me is the quizzes. I know this has been beaten to death before, but they really are awful. There's no indicator that you're about to be hit with one, many of them are incredibly pedantic like naming a specific character when the characters rarely say anything interesting, so I found myself skipping the dialog all the time. Is that my fault? Well, that's up to you to decide. However when you beat the final quiz Laylee makes a "witty" comment about how you won't need to pay attention anymore for the awful quizzes. It's a desperate attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor but when the quizzes themselves aren't enjoyable the joke comes off as insulting rather than amusing. Ok the quizzes are bad, but is that it? Well, no. The game is also plagued with a variety of minigames in each world. There's one that's supposed to a retro arcade game and another which is the cart one. All of the arcade ones vastly outstay their welcome, especially if you're trying to beat the high score. Prepare to play something you don't want to. The cart one is also unfun. It's novel the first time, but they appear in every game world which means you will be repeating it at least 5 times, perhaps more depending on your skill level. If they were just unfun that would be one thing, but the game is so poorly designed that it turns what could just be a speedbump into something that will likely frustrate you. You cannot restart these unless you die. That means that if you make a small mistake, you cannot just press start. What happens when you die? You get a loading screen and then annoying dialog asking you why you're awful. Well isn't that just pleasant. Then you click yes and have another loading screen. Thankfully on PC the loading screns are really short, however it's hard not to look at this as just annoying. Both the arcade and the cart ones do NOT let you see what your target goal is on the HUD. You only see your current score. Additionally for the cart one, there are brakes and a boost you can perform. They have a short cooldown timer however there is NO HUD indicator for them. WHY????? Also you can get hurt after you go through the final hoop at the end of the cart track. Even though you cannot move. Good design, Playtonic. The camera isn't good, but I found myself able to ignore it most of the time. However the places where it's bad, ESPECIALLY in World 2 when you're the truck are where it's [i][b]REALLY[/b][/i] bad. Expect to have a bad time. The devs claim that there is a patch in the works to help skip the gibberish, which is often in places where you have to retry constantly. Which is as you can imagine very obnoxious. However it was announced May 2nd and here we are at May 28th without a peep. A lot of these problems, to me, come off as a developer not playing their own game. They seem incredibly obvious to someone who has played 20 hours. They're small issues, but everytime they happen, they chip at your enjoyment of the game.