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Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

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11clock
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Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Post by 11clock »

I started to play this game, hearing that it was made by the devs of the DKC classic trilogy. While I have only played DKC1 so far, I thought that the game was fantastic and went into this game with high expectations.

Holy s*** the game delivers. It may actually be my new favorite game of all time. Fantastic level design, great soundtrack, and I absolutely love the overworld and how it can directly impact how levels play out! Also, the collectibles actually do stuff beyond putting stickers on your save file and jacking up a meaningless number!

I highly, HIGHLY recommend Impossible Lair. The game is incredible. I can't think of a single flaw with the game, not even nitpicks.

Also the Tonics system is pretty neat and I love how they just let you make the game as terrible as possible for some of them if you actually want to. It's like they designed this system for challenge run YouTube channels with Tonics like reversed controls, upsidedown screen, 144p screen resolution, and so on. Of course there are plenty of helpful ones as well like extended invincibility frames and whatnot.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Post by Bean »

I haven't played it yet, but I'm surprised at how this one turned out since they did a really good job at doing a 2D Donkey Kong-like game more than the 3D Banjo-like one they tried previously. Seeing it action, this one plays real well.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

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Cyril wrote: 4 years ago Nah I concur, the levels are bland and uncreative, the lack of a "restart from checkpoint" feature is baffling with the number of one-way points & mean ways coins are hidden, feathers aren't incentivized enough for me to do dangerous stuff to try and get more, the lack of any real death penalty besides "go back to the last checkpoint" makes it hard for me to want to try much (despite this system working just fine for rayman origins/legends?), being able to try and get your extra hit back almost seems to make the game harder if anything considering how laylee likes to spazz about

The controls feel solid but the game doesn't take advantage of that much & most of the level design is gimmick-centric rather than platforming-centric, there's a lot of random stuff strewn about in levels such that you never know if like, a plant or bomb you can pick up is needed for a secret or not, or if the tough spot you're trying to get to is actually just for more feathers

I do like the overworld exploration, there's some clever puzzle stuff there at least though it feels a bit... small, almost. Most of the game is still the unimpressive and dated 2D platforming. I definitely had more fun with the original despite its problems.
I stand by this pretty much, though there were a few levels in the back half of the overworld I thought were pretty solid.

It's not the worst game ever or anything but I am finding it very difficult to have fun with it.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Post by konaa »

Oh my gosh I just started this game yesterday after being (hot take) disappointed by dkc tropical freeze. I bring up tropical freeze because I'm a HUGE fan of the dkc trilogy and it's got some of my favourite level design of all time, yes that includes the gimmicks of 3. Tropical freeze and dkc returns are fine platformers (I don't like the way donkey kong controls, but whatever) but the level design never clicked with me and they don't really have much in common with the original trilogy.

Impossible Lair, on the other hand feels like a natural expansion of 1, 2, and 3. I played it for a few hours today and yesterday and couldn't stop thinking to myself "wow, I am really playing donkey kong country 4 aren't I?". I adore the level design, overworld, and especially the music. My only disappointment is that the game (imo) looks extremely ugly lol. I'm sad that this game will probably be overlooked because of the milquetoast effort that was the original yooka laylee.
Cyril wrote: 4 years ago Nah I concur, the levels are bland and uncreative, the lack of a "restart from checkpoint" feature is baffling with the number of one-way points & mean ways coins are hidden, feathers aren't incentivized enough for me to do dangerous stuff to try and get more, the lack of any real death penalty besides "go back to the last checkpoint" makes it hard for me to want to try much (despite this system working just fine for rayman origins/legends?), being able to try and get your extra hit back almost seems to make the game harder if anything considering how laylee likes to spazz about

The controls feel solid but the game doesn't take advantage of that much & most of the level design is gimmick-centric rather than platforming-centric, there's a lot of random stuff strewn about in levels such that you never know if like, a plant or bomb you can pick up is needed for a secret or not, or if the tough spot you're trying to get to is actually just for more feathers

I do like the overworld exploration, there's some clever puzzle stuff there at least though it feels a bit... small, almost. Most of the game is still the unimpressive and dated 2D platforming. I definitely had more fun with the original despite its problems.
I don't disagree that the levels don't bring much new to the table, but I mostly just enjoy them for really solid and interesting setups with obstacles and enemies. They're thoughtful enough that I've been constantly engaged, which is more than I can say for a lot of recent 2d platformers. I don't mind the lack of a death penalty. I've been part of the "abolish lives" crew for a while now. I CAN see it becoming a little irritating if I were trying to 100% though, with the points of no return in levels. It's not a deal breaker for me because I dealt with that stuff in the dkc trilogy, but at the same time the dkc trilogy is 25 years old and it'd be nice to improve a little on design philosophy that was laid out a quarter-century ago.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

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konaa wrote: 4 years ago Oh my gosh I just started this game yesterday after being (hot take) disappointed by dkc tropical freeze. I bring up tropical freeze because I'm a HUGE fan of the dkc trilogy and it's got some of my favourite level design of all time, yes that includes the gimmicks of 3. Tropical freeze and dkc returns are fine platformers (I don't like the way donkey kong controls, but whatever) but the level design never clicked with me and they don't really have much in common with the original trilogy.

Impossible Lair, on the other hand feels like a natural expansion of 1, 2, and 3. I played it for a few hours today and yesterday and couldn't stop thinking to myself "wow, I am really playing donkey kong country 4 aren't I?". I adore the level design, overworld, and especially the music. My only disappointment is that the game (imo) looks extremely ugly lol. I'm sad that this game will probably be overlooked because of the milquetoast effort that was the original yooka laylee.
Cyril wrote: 4 years ago Nah I concur, the levels are bland and uncreative, the lack of a "restart from checkpoint" feature is baffling with the number of one-way points & mean ways coins are hidden, feathers aren't incentivized enough for me to do dangerous stuff to try and get more, the lack of any real death penalty besides "go back to the last checkpoint" makes it hard for me to want to try much (despite this system working just fine for rayman origins/legends?), being able to try and get your extra hit back almost seems to make the game harder if anything considering how laylee likes to spazz about

The controls feel solid but the game doesn't take advantage of that much & most of the level design is gimmick-centric rather than platforming-centric, there's a lot of random stuff strewn about in levels such that you never know if like, a plant or bomb you can pick up is needed for a secret or not, or if the tough spot you're trying to get to is actually just for more feathers

I do like the overworld exploration, there's some clever puzzle stuff there at least though it feels a bit... small, almost. Most of the game is still the unimpressive and dated 2D platforming. I definitely had more fun with the original despite its problems.
I don't disagree that the levels don't bring much new to the table, but I mostly just enjoy them for really solid and interesting setups with obstacles and enemies. They're thoughtful enough that I've been constantly engaged, which is more than I can say for a lot of recent 2d platformers. I don't mind the lack of a death penalty. I've been part of the "abolish lives" crew for a while now. I CAN see it becoming a little irritating if I were trying to 100% though, with the points of no return in levels. It's not a deal breaker for me because I dealt with that stuff in the dkc trilogy, but at the same time the dkc trilogy is 25 years old and it'd be nice to improve a little on design philosophy that was laid out a quarter-century ago.
Yeah there isn't much new to the table in terms of obstacles. Nothing here is stuff you haven't seen before in other platformers. But what makes the levels fun is that they are just tightly designed and fun to play through. And the game brings other new stuff to the table which more than makes up for it imo, like each level being altered by what you do in the overworld (which is my favorite aspect of the game).

Points of no return haven't really bothered me at all. I am not a completionist and only collect stuff as long as it unlocks new content, and you only need 101/200 coins to unlock all levels. So if I miss a coin I just shrug and say, "Meh there are plenty of other coins I can try to go after." Also apparently the 200 coin reward is kind of worthless.

I have a couple of minor gripes with the game. First of all jump height after jumping off of an enemy feels inconsistent. You seem to have to time the button press to get greater height and the more accurate your timing is the higher the boost. I prefer the Mario approach of just holding the jump button.

The other small gripe is that there are way too many useless tonics. I get it, some tonics are just for fun and that is fine, butit results in most tonics I grab end up feeling disappointing. We don't need this many visual filters!

The camera motion also stutters from time to time. This is probably the result of dynamic loading, since it only happens when I am moving and it happens more often when moving fast. Not that noticeable but slightly annoying.

Everything else has been fantastic. Even the Impossible Lair, but I understand why some may not like it. I recommend trying it occasionally over the course of the game to get some practice in. So far I have made it 87% through with 38 bees. I am happy to report that the difficulty dies down a bit after the second section (only got hit like 4 times in section 3 of 4 on my first attempt at this section), so as long as you can make it through section 2 with about 10-15 bees left you should be in the clear. Just don't get careless.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Post by 11clock »

I beat the Impossible Lair level with 11 bees to spare. I feel that its difficulty is way over-exaggerated. I did beat it on my 10th attempt, but I have been occasionally trying the Lair throughout the game, and my 10th attempt was my first one with all 48 bees (my previous one being 38 bees and I made it to the escape sequence before dying).

Here is my Steam Review. https://steamcommunity.com/id/11clock/r ... ed/846870/

To summarize, other than a few bugs and many tonic effects feeling disappointing the game is practically perfect (to my tastes at least).
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Post by 11clock »

I recorded my second winning attempt at the Impossible Lair. I noticed that a lot of people online were struggling with the level and I wanted to beat the level again anyways since I find a lot of the platforming in it super satisfying and fun.



I didn't like the cheap shot Capital B had on me in the first fight, and I had a lot of really close calls, but it went pretty good. I had 10 bees left by the end.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Post by Crow »

yeah the last place i died was around the 20 minute mark, which 1. why is it so long 2. there's still that much left after? god
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

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Cyril wrote: 4 years ago yeah the last place i died was around the 20 minute mark, which 1. why is it so long 2. there's still that much left after? god
Actually the last 7 minutes are the final boss and escape sequence. The 4 folding platforms ride is the final platforming section.

The final boss and escape sequence are pretty easy. If you make it there with like 5 bees left you will live.

Other than Capital B the Lair has an inverse difficulty curve. I think that this was intentional since it is harder to practice the later sections.

I agree with the length of the Lair. It would benefit from a Spelunky style shortcut system. I only really didn’t mind the length since I enjoyed the platforming in the level so much. I usually hate marathon levels. Oh and the fact that I was able to practice the level whenever I wanted throughout the adventure. You really shouldn’t save all of your attempts until the end.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

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went back to try this again after not touching it for a week. the entire second platforming section is such unplayable rubbish that no matter how many bees going into it i always end up with like, 10-12 or so coming out of it. i've gotten into it with like, 38 bees on one attempt. but that entire section is so viciously busted i don't know how to possibly deal with most of the sections in it. i've gotten deep into the final capital b battle and died and it's fine and the third platforming section is mostly pretty find but that second section is so demotivatingly unfun it just makes me not want to play the game ever again.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

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Cyril wrote: 4 years ago went back to try this again after not touching it for a week. the entire second platforming section is such unplayable rubbish that no matter how many bees going into it i always end up with like, 10-12 or so coming out of it. i've gotten into it with like, 38 bees on one attempt. but that entire section is so viciously busted i don't know how to possibly deal with most of the sections in it. i've gotten deep into the final capital b battle and died and it's fine and the third platforming section is mostly pretty find but that second section is so demotivatingly unfun it just makes me not want to play the game ever again.
The second section of the lair is quite easily the hardest of the 3 main sections. Maybe watching how I get through it in the video could help? The elevators are the trickiest bits but I have a method to get through them mostly untouched.

I honestly think that despite how hard the second section is I still enjoy platforming through it. Except the water section. That is the only part of the lair that I legitimately don't like. The water controls are not precise enough for that kind of design. Anything on land I can handle because of how perfect Yooka controls.

For the first parts with the sliding ice it's just a matter of mastering the roll and dive. It's also good to abuse the air twirl, especially in the elevators.

The third section is my favorite part of the Lair, I agree with that.

Not sure if this helps either, but I play with the analog stick as opposed to the d-pad but this could just be a preference thing.

I was thinking more about how the Lair could be made more accessible. Maybe it could have been designed like the Wily stages in Mega Man where you have a gauntlet of small levels as opposed to one big one, and different bees you rescue are designated to different levels? And the 48 bee count would divide quite nicely to 12 per level.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Post by Crow »

i do the same thing you're doing with the elevator sections but it's so easy to skim the massive hitboxes of the chainsaws/enemies
and yeah the water section is basically just 3-4+ bees lost no matter what i do. the ice bits are mostly not the problem, it's any part of the section with ascending movement really, but that's like half the section

the third section is also significantly shorter than the first two which i'm fine with, and the boss fights are... fine, but mostly overlong. the bomb-throwing attack i don't like and he can apparently pull out the godawful missiles in the last fight (this is how i died last time)
i also watched a video of the escape sequence and it looks piss-easy compared to everything else but. i just. don't wanna play this anymore due to how unfun it is (the first two sections mostly - i can reasonably get through the first section but none of it is particularly enjoyable to play, especially like the 7th or 8th time through) and i just have better crap to do
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

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Cyril wrote: 4 years ago i do the same thing you're doing with the elevator sections but it's so easy to skim the massive hitboxes of the chainsaws/enemies
and yeah the water section is basically just 3-4+ bees lost no matter what i do. the ice bits are mostly not the problem, it's any part of the section with ascending movement really, but that's like half the section

the third section is also significantly shorter than the first two which i'm fine with, and the boss fights are... fine, but mostly overlong. the bomb-throwing attack i don't like and he can apparently pull out the godawful missiles in the last fight (this is how i died last time)
i also watched a video of the escape sequence and it looks piss-easy compared to everything else but. i just. don't wanna play this anymore due to how unfun it is (the first two sections mostly - i can reasonably get through the first section but none of it is particularly enjoyable to play, especially like the 7th or 8th time through) and i just have better crap to do
That's fine. As said I liked the level a lot but I can see why it has such mixed reception. I thought I would hate it myself and was surprised on how much I enjoyed myself playing it. Maybe I just really like Yooka's physics and the Lair let me demonstrate my mastery of them. But honestly, the ending isn't worth it. You're better off leaving the game on a semi-ok note instead of ragequitting it.

It kind of says a lot on how much I love this game when my biggest complaint is the not-very-smooth camera. But platformer is a very diverse genre and everyone has wildly different tastes. As said before in another thread, I didn't like Shovel Knight for example.

You said you enjoyed Yooka Laylee 1 I think, so we can at least both agree that the first one is at least not terrible like everyone else? I don't even like open ended collectathons but I still had some fun with YL1.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Post by Crow »

yooka laylee 1 is actually pretty good, but it's not great. a very 7.5/10 type of game

anyways, now that i'm less tired and frustrated
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had like 14 bees to spare i think, and 25-30 seconds still on the clock? basically all that happened was i got lucky enough to get into the third capital b fight with like 28 bees and everything else after that is relatively free compared to the second section. i'd gotten as close as near the end of the last boss phase in the run before it which was awful to die to, but EHH. done and planning to never think about this game again
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

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I just beat my second playthrough. This one was a "No using tonics at all" run, but I still collected all of them but the golden try tonic. Didn't collect all of the coins like before, since I don't enjoy that kind of thing. Unlike my first playthrough on the PC, I played the Switch version on my second run since I was curious on how it performed given that I had some minor issues with the PC version and everyone online was praising how smooth the game ran on the Switch.

Not sure what everyone is smoking. The game CHUGS on the Switch with a lot of stuttering and frame skips. And it made certain sections of the Impossible Lair itself nigh unplayable. Not sure if I am just sensitive to stutters and frame skips or my Switch is dying, I am going crazy or whatever. I still had a great time, in some ways it was even more fun than my first playthrough blazing through the levels with my previously built-up skill, but I m feeling burnout and if I was to return to this game again later I will play the PC version.

I also compared Impossible Lair to Tropical Freeze on my Switch in terms of performance. Tropical Freeze ran perfectly smooth with no hitches. However, Tropical Freeze also looked uglier imo. I could clearly see some polygons.
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Re: Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Post by Crow »

Don't recall facing many issues with that on switch myself, tbh! It may just be your switch, dunno. Were you playing in handheld mode? I only ever played docked.
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