I was hyped when the teaser for this game released. Mascot platformers in the way of Banjo Kazooie, Hat in Time, or Mario Odyssey are my favorite genre of all time- so much so that I can even enjoy Yooka Laylee despite its many, many flaws. Unfortunately, this game fails at practically every level in terms of creating a fun game.

Somehow this game is both infuriatingly simple and infuriatingly cryptic. Each costume has exactly one function with almost no room for creativity or experimentation, and yet there are odd mechanics and challenges that are so unintuitive that you're likely only going to discover them by chance. This makes the game feel stilted and overall just very closed-off.

The level design doesn't help anything. It's mediocre at its best, bland or frustrating at its worst. Furthering the annoying design is that many Trophies (the main collectable) are locked behind certain powers that don't appear in the level, meaning you need to exit the level, change costumes, and go back in to get them. Issue is, taking a single hit with that costume active makes you lose the power with no way to get it back, forcing you to go back and re-equip it if that happens. This isn't backtracking with a new power you have, it's just busywork.

Overall it's a messy game that I'm finishing purely out of a need for closure. I bought it on sale for about $5, and even that feels like too much. Again, this is coming from someone who enjoys Yooka Laylee, so that should tell you just how awful this game really is. It's just bad.

[h1]A Game I Wanted To Love, A Game I Can't Hate[/h1] I was hyped when the teaser for this game released. Mascot platformers in the way of Banjo Kazooie, Hat in Time, or Mario Odyssey are my favorite genre of all time- so much so that I can even enjoy Yooka Laylee despite its many, many flaws. Unfortunately, this game fails at practically every level in terms of creating a fun game. Somehow this game is both infuriatingly simple and infuriatingly cryptic. Each costume has exactly one function with almost no room for creativity or experimentation, and yet there are odd mechanics and challenges that are so unintuitive that you're likely only going to discover them by chance. This makes the game feel stilted and overall just very closed-off. The level design doesn't help anything. It's mediocre at its best, bland or frustrating at its worst. Furthering the annoying design is that many Trophies (the main collectable) are locked behind certain powers that don't appear in the level, meaning you need to exit the level, change costumes, and go back in to get them. Issue is, taking a single hit with that costume active makes you lose the power with no way to get it back, forcing you to go back and re-equip it if that happens. This isn't backtracking with a new power you have, it's just busywork. Overall it's a messy game that I'm finishing purely out of a need for closure. I bought it on sale for about $5, and even that feels like too much. Again, this is coming from someone who enjoys Yooka Laylee, so that should tell you just how awful this game really is. It's just bad.