Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair - Easy Allies Review 

No hit speedruns of the Impossible Lair are gonna be tight

"By borrowing a page or two" should have been "by borrowing a Pagie or two"

Playtonic actually listened to the criticism about the Impossible Lair level and they rolled out a free update which adds checkpoints to the Impossible Lair at each Capital B fight. The checkpoints save your best remaining bee shield score when you reach them. In my opinion they make the Impossible Lair's difficulty spike way less punishing without making the Lair too easy, and it really balanced it out perfectly. Plus anyone who misses the old challenge without checkpoints can just choose to start the Impossible Lair from the beginning each time they go in for the original challenge. This same update also made it less tedious to obtain the Golden Try tonic, as you no longer have to create a new save and play the tutorial on each attempt, so even the most hardcore players will probably enjoy the update.

Woah! A plat former with an 8.5 by Damiani? Gotta try it

Hope they make another 3D game. I really enjoyed the first one and thought with a few lessons learned a sequel could be just the stuff.

I love that Impossible Lair concept, reminds me of Breath of the Wild’s format where you can beat the final boss as soon as the game starts, as long as you’re good enough

I see playtonic channeling their good old: BATTETOADS days with the final impossible lair

Takes me back to gametrailers. Thank you to all the team for still doing this. Please, do top 10's !!

It sounds like it did stick the landing. It really not clear what exactly is the problem with final level for mike

Just the idea of how they approached the genre differently feels tighter in execution. Good stuff!

Definitely on my wishlist. Man, you know... this got me thinking. Can somebody PLEASE pick Tomba up and do something with him? Klonoa too for good measure!

The Impossible Lair is actually the best level in the game. It's sufficiently challenging in so far that you DON't feel overpowered, even after 40 or so bees. Very refreshing after Breath of Wilds auto-win animation after collecting the Divine Beasts.

The Impossible Lair portion, and the ability to try it from the beginning, is SUPER attractive to me. I may be in due to that alone...

Rare Ex-Employees - "Kept you waiting, huh?"

Wow, the Level-affecing changes look awesome!

One thing to note is that load times on the Switch version are pretty severe. Not an aspect of Tropical Freeze I wanted them to copy.

A great and detailed review Damiani; I am pretty hyped for the game now. I wasn't sure what to make of it back during the previews as it looked like it might be quite dull without a challenge. I 'look forward' to the final level...

Thanks, Michael. You've sold me on this game.

Thank you Damiani, Ian, and Jones!

I just bought the first Yooka Layla (finally) and I’m enjoying the heck out of it. I’m sad it apparently had some technical issues out of the gate but, right now, it’s a blast and exactly what I would think a proper Banjo Kazooie sequel would be.

Damn, The Easy Allies have this review out *directly* after Nintendo and Sony put out their game release trailers. Either they have the embargo time down to a T or someone was ready around 4am lol

Very surprising, I had written this off almost immediately. Will keep an eye on it now, thanks Damiani and Co.

Am I the only one who thought this game was, like, only DLC for the first? It sorta came outta nowhere!

Playtonic stated that this is a side game to the main line 3D series, though the review regards it as the "way forward for the series" but that isn't what's happening.

Well damn, that was unexpected. Guess I need to add this to the wishlist. Nice review Damiani 👍

This reminds me of games of yesteryear that were joystick snapper's because of the difficulty level,what a breath of "the wild" fresh air it's stunning in every dependent, haven't put it down since purchasing, full of new and old idea's this for me is one of the best games of the year,and its on budget price what a steal.

This is one of the best platformers I've played.

I can tell just looking at the gameplay this is better than their first one.

The last level took me 9 tries. It was a much harder challenge than I expected. Good for me I had 42 bees though. Still need to find the remaining ones. Curious to see if anyone can beat it with no extra help

Wait so just so I’m clear, the final level is STILL hours of trying even if you get all the health? Want to know what I’m in for

Aw. Shame on you Damiani for not mentioning Matt Griffin and Dan Murdoch when you mentioned the soundtrack. They have some tracks that stand toe to toe with Wise and Kirkhope. Edit: Wow, I just looked it up because the soundtrack was just released: Matt Griffin did 28 of the 56 pieces in the game. David Wise did 13 Dan Murdoch did 11 Grant Kirkhope only did the overworld themes (4). Kudos to Griffin!

This game is freaking great holy guacamole

Money well spent I did not expect it to be this good. Dont judge it off the first chapter cause it's easy thats just the start. You ain't seen nothing yet, this game is challenging not something you can complete in 5 mins. And I absloutely love it!!!

hot take, this looks more a spiritual successor to donkey kong country than the current donkey kong games.

I had no idea this game was a thing.

I think it's a hard thing to nail down a final level where you can tackle at anytime. BotW was very easy after beating the divine beasts and considering the speedrun times it might be easy in general. I suppose what they should do is having a dynamic difficulty, maybe make it harder so as one can't beat the game easily, but as you get abilities some things get harder and some easier acknowledging the upgrades you have.

Definitely a step in the right direction. Now give us a proper Banjo-Kazooie game on the Switch.

How can i fly if it's possible?

Looks way more interesting to me than the original.

I kind of see what you're saying about the end, as I have yet to complete it either and I'm starting to lose interest because of how little progress I'm making. Just opening the game to take a crack at the impossible lair and then dying and playing something else. HOWEVER, the final boss should be hard. You get 48 hits. It saves your progress and the amount of hits you have after completing each "stage" of the final level and you can skip right to that stage. So yes its hard, but not unfair. This is an amazing game

I don't want to start a game that I can't beat.. is it really that hard?

Looks very cool

Great review

"Solid controls"...yet one more thing the Banjo Kazooie universe had over Crash Bandicoot.

Yooka-Laylee? I hardly knew her!

this game looks fun

So much charm!

What happened to the co-op? That’s a miss in my mind

Perfect timing 👍

love this game

nice review

so they goofed the spirtual banjo so now they're reusing their assets in a spiritual DKC. even got the same freeze frame animation when hit

I'm sold μαλακα μου!!

Pretty confused by those last words there Damiani

6:46 "...if it only stuck the landing." Really? You're gonna dock it points because a level called The Impossible Lair in a game called The Impossible Lair is harder than your usual piss easy endgame level? Give me a fucking break.

They did call it a day. The franchise went from B-K to DKC. Because the gaming landscape were in such dire need for more 2D platformers...

Looks ok.

Two nostalgic collectathon games have been released closse to each other! "Yooka-Laylee" and "A Hat in Time". The first got all of the attention because it had the guy who was making coffies for the Banjo Kazooie team or something. Needless to say, it ended up being Shit! The second was an awesome little game that was a blast to play and a perfect homage and nostalgia trip to those games. People barely know of it. Life is not fair!

I wasn't really interested in this game until I saw the review. Reminds me of the Rayman games to some degree!

I would rather have a 3D Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie Like game as the main series, rather then this 2D Plattforming kinda game. We had so many Metroidvanias and 2D Plattformer over the years that its kinda annoying tbh. The first one was not great, but it wasnt that bad either. Ending kinda blew (Cause it took so long and there were absolutly no checkpoints) and there were not that many levels, but it started as a decent jump and run. Hope the second one delivers a better experience like the good'ol Banjo Games.

“Could have been better if it stuck the landing”... I’m not sure I understand what that means

If you're choosing between this and MediEvil, I recommend the latter. I get a lower-quality vibe from this game of the two, in spite of the clever level-change mechanic.

this game is hard lol...

No way. The first Yooka laylee was much better. How does 2D capture the nostalgia they're going for of the Banjo, Donkey Kong & Conker's games??

I'll wait till it is heavily marked down on eshop.

Охуенно!

Really don't like the headline sentence for this review. Comes off as a backhanded compliment.

20 stages sounds not enough

"This new addition is superior to the predecessor" Translation: Donkey Kong Country was superior to Banjo Kazooie. BOOMERS UNITE.

The soundtrack is a tad overrated from what's show. I get the musicians are masters, but this feels like a dull-middle-of-the-road, inoffensive ost, not what a 2D platformer needs.

Where is the Borderlands review?

Ok so Damiani sucks at platformer = impossible lair is too hard, remove a point....sure... that's why I stopped following those halfwits.

-Rare joins MS -People are pissed when they dont make Banjo 3, but instead, Nuts & Bolts -Ex Rare people say we will make Banjo 3 ourselves! -Turns out it sucked -They then decide to make a 2.5d platformer hmmm

i think that landing/ end part of the game is what is going to bring it for people lol