Overly Simplistic Combat
For those who either grew up during the late 90s or indulge in the games of that era then you have surely come across titles that require players to just spin attack pretty much everyone you run into. In most cases this was the only way to kill an enemy and it lacked any real sense of challenge, so why it carried over to Yooka-Laylee is beyond us. While there are a few enemies that can only be defeated by other means, most of your issues can be solved by mashing the attack button and have our dynamic duo twirl into them. It’s mind-numbingly simplistic which is frustrating given all the cool powers you acquire that could craft interesting combat scenarios.
This is only enhanced by Yooka-Laylee’s poor hit detection and lack of interesting enemies to actually do battle with. Most are variants of different Corplets that pretty much just charge at you haphazardly without a thought. What’s worse is titles like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64 actually offer interesting foes to fight that require different approaches. Yet, Yooka-Laylee is content on delivering a more minimalist experience that is only made more annoying with how unruly the two can be when you actually use the attack button. While this game is aimed for children, that shouldn’t be an excuse to reduce the combat to nothing more than a single button.
As it stands Yooka-Laylee is a mixed bag, with many ideas such as the colorful worlds and collecting based gameplay offering up the right amount nostalgia. However, not everything aged well and if PlayTonic aims to make a second title under this name some ideas are better left in the past.
