Yooka-Re-Playlee Review: Second Time's The Charm

Yooka-Re-Playlee is an improvement in almost every way. I remember being initially excited by Yooka-Laylee as I’m a huge fan of Banjo-Kazooie, so to have a spiritual successor take the reins and deliver a compelling and modern collectathon experience was truly exciting.

Unfortunately Yooka-Laylee failed to impress as while it wasn’t inherently bad it was held back by several design issues, all of which have been fixed in this remastered version.

My time in the game was on the Nintendo Switch 2 and while I was expecting some performance dips I’m happy to say nothing was out of the ordinary. Loading times would have obviously been faster on Xbox Series X/S or PlayStation 5 but aside from the odd stutter here and there it all ran like clockwork.

After a brief tutorial you’re given all of Yooka and Laylee’s powers right off the bat, meaning there’s no delay in getting stuck in and collecting.

I’ve played through around four worlds so far with each one presenting its own gimmicks and challenges, and like Banjo-Kazooie you can easily jump out of a world and return to it later if you find yourself getting bored.

No matter how much I played though boredom never came, and I actually lost track of time playing the first level and almost found 100% of it collectable before I caught myself and decided to move on.

While Yooka-Laylee was held back from a gameplay standpoint I never found an issue with its visuals, sound and world-design and of course that’s largely unchanged in Yooka-Re-Playlee. It gets a boost from the more advanced hardware so prettier graphics and smoother framerates can be expected, and while writing this review the game was updated with button re-mapping.

Some tweaks and changes have also been made to streamline your platforming experience. Fast-travel points are now available for quick and easy transportation within levels, and some of the challenges you’ll encounter have been adapted in various ways. Some feel easier, some feel harder, it ultimately comes down to your personal experience with platformers. So far nothing has jumped out at me as being overly difficult so I can only commend the balancing changes that have been implemented.

One change I’m particularly fond of is a tracker that lets you know what’s left to do in the world, and collectibles can be marked on your map so you can come back to them later.

Playtonic Games

However, while a lot has been improved, Yooka-Re-Playlee isn’t perfect. During my playthrough I’ve been halted by a few bugs and glitches. One drastic encounter had my camera locked in an over-the-shoulder perspective as if I was shooting projectiles, but I still had access to all of the default controls. I couldn’t get out of this no matter what I tried and the only solution was to find the nearer platform edge and fall to my doom. These can of course be ironed out with patches so I don’t want to be too harsh, but they have been an issue and one I’ve seen other players struggle with too.

The other criticism I have involves the camera controls. While they’ve been tweaked to be less frustrating than they were in Yooka-Laylee I don’t think they’ve been improved enough. When you’re wandering around the world it’s not as noticeable but when you’re doing intense platforming segments it doesn't feel like the camera was keeping up with the direction I was facing. It was frustrating and having to redirect the camera myself during these segments wasn’t ideal either. I feel like 3D platformers live or die by their camera controls and while Yooka-Re-Playlee does them better it’s not without flaws.

Ultimately though I think Yooka-Re-Playlee more than proves itself to be the definitive version of the game, and I hope it can find enough success for a sequel. It captures and reinterprets the vibes of old-school platformers well and really is the closest we’ve gotten to a Banjo-Kazooie successor, at least in my opinion.

While it’s not perfect it’s definitely worth your time, whether you played the original version or not.

Pros: Tweaked and improved level design, better pacing, visual overhaul, excellent vibes

Cons: Still got some bugs to iron out, camera controls are frustrating at times

For fans of: Banjo-Kazooie, Super Mario Odyssey, Donkey Kong Bananza

8/10: Excellent

Yooka-Re-Playlee is out now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2 (version tested). A review code was provided by the publisher. Read a guide to our review scores here.