Nostalgia is a tough thing. During the 3D platform Yooka-Laylee I fell to the lizards and bats of the 90s who came to today’s platform. I enjoyed most of the time spent in the game, but it was a shame to me to start it while other people beside me. Namely, Yooka-Laylee is a picture and a picture of what videogames represented at the end of the 90s – an unhappy fun without a real story or something else that would keep you in permanent memory. This game works only as a fierce dose of nostalgia for 3D platformers that are no longer produced today.

Once upon a time the games were considered to be a shuffle that did not expect much, and it was mostly fun for such a party. Today is no longer the case, so when I want to show some of the video games, I’m going to praise Portal 2, Ratchet & Clank remaster, Ori and the Blind Forest and similar titles. Yooka-Laylee is something that personally carries me just because I once played Sypro, Crash and Gex. If I’m trying to explain it out of context, I’d probably be ridiculously funny.

Yooka-Laylee is a game in which the lizard and the bat are looking for books, scribbled feathers and ghost writers because … I honestly do not know. There is a story there, with the fact that this is a fable at the level of “go to the store in the store”. It is not that a story about a 3D platformer is needed, but as soon as you have characters and at least a trace note, you can not escape the story that will follow you through the game, whether you want it or not. Yooka-Laylee actually has more of its characters than some sort of action, provided you accept the one-dimensionality of these characters. Do you know when someone constantly tells you one and the same kind of jokes? Well, those are you guys in Yooka-Laylee. They’re nice until they get tired.

„Do you know when someone is constantly telling you the same kind of jokes? Well, those are you guys in Yooka-Laylee.“

The game is striving to be humorous, even at its own expense. For example, the debt loading of justice, as today’s gaming devices do not use cassettes. There are a bunch of references to automatic energy regeneration in games, microprocessing, subscribing to reviewers, etc. Such a humor function works with a short-term effect but is lacking in visuals. All characters are mostly static, ie they never move from their place, and the game does not have any animated plays. Priorities have obviously been set elsewhere since this is a Kickstarter project, but you definitely need to know in advance – Yooka-Laylee is not a game where something is happening around you.

The presentation of the game has nothing to complain about because Yooka-Laylee looks even better than one game with a $ 5 million budget should theoretically look like. The veteran studies of the Rare have made rare and surpassed themselves. It is evident that Yooka-Laylee is a product of love and the best possible intentions, primarily on music that reminds of the best days of the 90s. But it is also apparent that the budget has to save somewhere, and unfortunately, to the diversity of the enemy. While you will see a bunch of different types of opponents during the game, most of them just look different while their behavior is recycled through all five worlds.

Yooka-Laylee sells for a price of 40 euros, which is risky for such a game, but I have to admit it is somewhat justified. The main campaign can be stretched for about 20 hours, and the unlocking feature has it. However, since those twenty or so hours at least one hour goes to wandering, because it does not tell you anything that you can continue or where you need to go to do it. Mana is a design game from the nineties – the time when the game was less and when the pace of life was somewhat slower than today.

In the 1990s, I would not be ashamed to say that Yooka-Laylee had fun with me. Today I can not argue, but at the same time I know that games have since made progress that this game simply neglects. It is true when we say that such games are no longer produced, just as it is true that there is a good reason for it. Is there a reason why you should be nostalgic for the past times? And you have to answer it yourself.