‘Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair’ Is Buzzing With Bee Puns And A Stinging Difficulty
It's clear it's made by the team behind 'Donkey Kong Country', but it's also more than a homage.
Most development houses would kill for the hype that Playtonic Games had around their first release Yooka-Laylee. But most new houses aren’t formed by key figures behind some of the most acclaimed and loved games of your childhood.
Playtonic Games are a small team made up from ex-Rare workers, the brains behind ’90s darlings Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye and Banjo-Kazooie (for starters). Rare’s 2002 buy out by Microsoft is widely viewed as a sliding doors moment for the worse — explaining the groundswell for Playtonic’s Kickstarter for Yooka-Laylee, which hit its US $1 million target in 24 hours.
Billed as a ‘spiritual successor’ to Banjo-Kazooie, the colourful 3D platformer was released in 2017 to warm reception. But its sequel, Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair, isn’t just a rehash — it’s looking elsewhere for inspiration. As a 2.5D platformer, …The Impossible Lair has more in common with Donkey Kong Country than Yooka-Laylee…‘s fellow hyphenate duo.
We sat down to play through the first few levels of …The Impossible Lair and left eager for more. True to its name, its levels proved to be no cake-walk — especially if you’re up for an old-school 100 percent completionist collect-a-thon.
Not Impossible, But Far From Easy
Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair could, hypothetically, take minutes to finish. Its final level — the titular lair — is unlocked on the top-down overworld from the beginning, but good luck with that.
Filled with all of the death traps and precision-needing platforming moments a game could throw at you, the impossible lair is anything but inviting. You’ll need some back-up, which is where the levels come into play; finish one, and you’ll rescue a trapped bee that’ll offer one extra life in the lair. Trust us, you’ll need a fair few.
Like Rare’s best, […The Impossible Lair’s] world is filled with character without being trite. Colours pop, and the score by Grant Kirkhope and David Wise is a real wonder
We won’t get into specifics about the plot, but …The Impossible Liar sees our heroic duo, the chameleon Yooka and the bat Laylee, save a bright, colourful world from the evil Capital B.
Expect a lot of bee puns; in our half-hour demo, we encountered roughly 10 to 15, one or two of which actually made us laugh out loud. Like Rare’s best, the world is filled with character without being trite. Colours pop, and the score by Grant Kirkhope and David Wise is a real wonder.
Puzzles abound in the 2.5D overworld, which contains 20 levels and 40 bees. This might not sound like a heap, but each level has a ‘switch’ that transforms it either with gales of wind or a flood of water.
It’s not as simple as a minor change, either: playing through levels both ways, we found it completely alters both their difficulty and feel. The timing and pace, an essential element in platformers, shifts completely. There’s a sense each level is filled with surprises, the two levels playing with the itch to explore every single inch — you should, too, because you’ll find secret areas collectable quills, reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country‘s KONG letters.
While …Impossible Lair isn’t be marketed as a ‘spiritual successor’ to Donkey Kong Country as the first game was to Banjo-Kazooie, the influence is clear. Yooka-Laylee move left-to-right across worlds, rolling into enemies; in some worlds, you’re shot out of cannons; get hit, and you lose Laylee; get hit again, and you’re gone.
‘Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair”s 2.5D overworld features puzzles that impede moving onto the next levels, and switches that unlock each level’s ‘switched’ version.
We were surprised by just how many times we died while playing, especially on one particularly infuriating swinging rope segment. You won’t be throwing your controller though: a breeze-by mode comes available if you’re really struggling through one section, especially handy for younger gamers.
What’s different? The platforming and level designs feel fresh, for starters. The first Yooka-Laylee was criticised for being a little too much of a re-tread at times, and from what we’ve played, it seems Playtonic have learned their lesson — things never felt too familiar.
Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair has the potential to sit alongside some of Rare’s finest. We’ll find out for sure when it’s released ‘later this year’ on the PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch.