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2 hours ago, Kaepora_Gaebora said:

 I just hope they actually make that BK successor this time! :p

I think the reality is that whatever they try to do to capture the old Banjo-Kazooie crowd, myself included, it's just not going to compare favourably.

For me, Rare's second best platformer on the N64 was Conker's Bad Fur Day when they went in a different direction to deliver something fresh and fun. I feel like Playtonic may be best to create something different with its own unique vibe next time rather than yet another crack at resurrecting their peak days on Nintendo 64!

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11 hours ago, nekunando said:

I'm not entirely sure I agree! With Banjo-Kazooie, absolutely everything came together in such a magical way be it the characters, the worlds, the music, the graphics or whatever else. Those guys have never came anywhere close to matching the quality of it sense.

Bigger certainly doesn't mean better so Playtonic would be wise to scale everything down to a more manageable size with more of an emphasis on a tighter and more compact experience with less roadblocks throughout and less unnecessary traversal.

I'm not saying they won't make a better game next time around but I don't really have any faith in them producing a truly great game..

I agree it was too big in terms of world size. Although you are so hard to please I don't think anything other than BK again would suffice. :p ha ha. 

But I totally agree with you. I expected more considering it was heralded as a spiritual successor. :)

I do think they could improve on it greatly though! 

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Finally defeated Capital B last night, having gained the minimum 100 Pagies needed, after pretty much 20 hours of play time...

Mixed feelings on the game overall to be honest. 64 era games are probably my favourite so when this was announced, even though I didn't back it, I couldnt wait.

The first world Tribal Tropics I really enjoyed and felt like "here we go!"...but the quality declined steadily as the game got further along, with the Casino level in particular being a shocker.

It definitely had its moments and I did enjoy it, but my overall feeling is they advertised a "spiritual successor to Banjo Kazooie" but instead gave us one to DK64 and BT; while I personally did enjoy both of those games, they weren't a pacth on BK and for the size of the team at Playtonics they should have been focussing on smaller worlds with more quality than these larger ones with just empty spaces and a lack of soul.

Never thought I'd say this in a million years before I'd played them, but Super Lucky's Tale on the Xbox was a much better game.

Still, got this one finished before DK comes out on Friday, whether or not I try to 100% it I'm not sure as of yet!

I think I was even more critical of it than you. I just didn't think it was a very good game.

 

Even what was there felt glitchy and not very fun to play. The charm factor was also very much missing, and generally the platforming felt weak. Mini games often felt frustrating and the moveset and feel of the character movement was a disappointment. What was up with the flying controls? Why does rolling have a stamina bar? The camera?! The game felt undercooked and I wouldn't be rushing to buy their next game in a hurry.

 

For me this wasn't so much a case of not living up to nostalgia, but it generally just not being a good game in its own right.

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Yeah that alone made it worth it to sit through their crappy presentation. :laughing:

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There is a 25 % discount on Switch eShop for this. May pick it up then.

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Bought this while the discount lasted and have put in about 4 hours, I guess. Initially, I wasn't impressed. The duo feels clunky, it's hard to navigate in jumps and collecting stuff (I can't see when I'm in a good position to grab a quill for instance), and well, it didn't seem very fun. After a while, and after setting the camera to manual, I have started to enjoy it a bit more. I didn't expand world 1 (yet) but have found about 25 Pagies in total after "expanding" world 2. I'll see if I can enter world 3 yet, otherwise I may have to expand world 1, even though I think it seems large enough. I would perhaps have preferred it if they had added a couple of smaller worlds more rather than relying on expanding the existing ones.

I think I'll just go to the boss instead of getting everything, though. It could be fun to see if I would actually enjoy Banjo Kazooie nowadays or if I would feel the same towards that game - I loved it as a kid.

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I bought it on the eShop sale for Switch as well. I'm loving the nostalgic feelings I'm getting whilst playing this. The larger worlds are great for me and are what I feel were missing from Super Mario Odyssey (the aztec kingdom was my favourite there). I've just expanded the first world, seen Shovel Knight and beaten the boss. It's well worth buying on Switch if you can still get it on sale. Looking forward to playing the rest! Thanks to MindFreak for the tip about manual camera mode.

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Finally completed the game now with 102 Pagies with a playtime of 16 hours 19 minutes. Won't be bothering with the rest of those Pagies.

The final boss was frustrating mainly because of bad camera controls making it impossible to aim properly (stage 2 of the fight), and escaping those missiles in the end was difficult. Took about 10 tries, I think, before I got him down. 

Overall, the game is charming but in the end not really a good game. It just lacks something, and only few moments and sections were actually good fun. The controls took a little getting used to but worked fine. The camera didn't work well. The combat was just a pain. The level design is not so good but not that bad either. The soundtrack was good. 

Overall, it's just pretty average, basically the definition of 5/10. 

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36 minutes ago, MindFreak said:

Finally completed the game now with 102 Pagies with a playtime of 16 hours 19 minutes. Won't be bothering with the rest of those Pagies.

The final boss was frustrating mainly because of bad camera controls making it impossible to aim properly (stage 2 of the fight), and escaping those missiles in the end was difficult. Took about 10 tries, I think, before I got him down. 

Overall, the game is charming but in the end not really a good game. It just lacks something, and only few moments and sections were actually good fun. The controls took a little getting used to but worked fine. The camera didn't work well. The combat was just a pain. The level design is not so good but not that bad either. The soundtrack was good. 

Overall, it's just pretty average, basically the definition of 5/10. 

I've definitely wavered a little on that 6/10 I gave the game in my review. Sometimes I think I was uncharacteristically generous :indeed:

 

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Bit of a shame that it doesn't include low-poly character models; doesn't really look like an N64 game...

Still it's neat anyway. Hopefully they can now move onto something new and that they have better luck with their next game.

I do truly believe that Playtonic have it in them to make something great; but Yooka Laylee was clearly too ambitious a project for such a small team. There was no way that they could ever have made it into the full-scale Banjo Kazooie successor that they wanted it to be.

For their next game, they need to either partner up with a much bigger studio (hint hint Nintendo!), or work on a much more focused game of smaller scope.

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