There was a time when Rare was king of the 3D platformer collect-a-thon. Even today, they are fondly remembered for the Banjo-Kazooie games, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, the utterly elephantine Donkey Kong 64, and the criminally underrated Star Fox Adventures. They were all pretty great, and sometimes Rare would experiment with genre mixing, resulting in some truly unconventional platformers that Nintendo would never dare to do.
When Rare got bought up by Microsoft, everyone’s imaginations ran wild with what kinds of new and awesome games they’d make unshackled by Nintendo’s hardware limitations. Regrettably, Rare’s output under Microsoft was tepid at best and continued to decline with every release.
Titles like Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Kameo failed to impress. Their big ace-in-the-hole was going to be the long-awaited third Banjo-Kazooie for the Xbox 360. Then Microsoft and Rare played a huge prank on the world, releasing Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Everyone laughed, but then it turned out it wasn’t a joke. Eventually, key members left Rare and sought to crowdfund a spiritual successor to the kinds of animal buddy-duo, 3D platformer collect-a-thons that made gamers so giddy with joy.
After raising 3.2 million dollars and two years later, Yooka-Laylee was released to mild enthusiasm. Something wasn’t quite right with the game. Between the myriad of camera issues, iffy controls, and subpar game design, Yooka-Laylee didn’t feel like it was the Banjo successor it could be. Around eight years later, the boys at Playtonic have cracked the code of where it went wrong. Does this mulligan finally deliver the “Banjo-Threeie” we never got? Find out in our Yooka-Replaylee review!
Yooka-Replaylee
Developer: Playtonic Games
Publisher: PM Studios, Playtonic Friends
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed)
Release Date: October 9, 2025
Price: $29.99
The original Yooke-Laylee was deeply flawed, but you could still have a fun time with it with tempered expectations. It captured the essence of ’90s 3D platformers with expansive worlds, quirky characters, and puzzle-solving gameplay, but with graphics that emulated CG prerenders.
Its main issues came down to playability, which felt floaty, and an unwieldy camera, which often hindered players and always tried to get behind Yooka, as if it were a burly prison inmate.
The differences between vanilla Yooka and Replaylee are evident the moment the game begins. The story is presented more coherently with better introductions to the characters and stakes.
Yooka feels less like a generic do-gooder and is more like a naive child who has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. Laylee’s characterization is the same as ever; she’s still a snarky purple bat with a penchant for punishing puns.
Replaylee has the same setup as the original release, where the duo must stop the villainous corporate bee Capital B, who’s scheming to digitize and hoard all the world’s books using a massive vacuum.
The main difference in the remake is that The One Book’s importance is emphasized, and its power to create worlds within its pages is elaborated, establishing higher stakes. The One Book is more of a character now and not just a plot device… though it still technically is.
Capital B benefited even more in this revamp; a comically villainous, nightmarishly obese corporate bee who serves as the CEO of Hivory Towers, a satirical, greedy Microsoftian conglomerate.
His relationship with his assistant, Dr. Quack, is further fleshed out as the two are like a dysfunctional married couple, with Quack being more conniving and scheming than ever toward his oafish and boorish boss.
Another key difference in the story is that Capital B manipulates the heroes into collecting the paiges for him. The original game had 145 to collect, but Replaylee expands this to a whopping 300 in total. While some of the old ones are still acquired the same way, most of them require new objectives and gimmicks.
The original game was big, and the remake is even bigger, with new areas stuffed with mechanics. It’s not on the same scale as Donkey Kong Bananza, but it’s still impressive and generous for a $30 game.
Yooka and Laylee are granted all of their moves at the start. You don’t need to buy them; the game doesn’t waste your time like that because there is so much to see and do.
The economy of quills and quids is directed at tonics, stat upgrades, and cheeky cosmetic outfits for the duo. It fuels a collect-a-thon loop, keeping gamers hooked, as if Platonic is a dopamine dealer injecting it straight into their veins.
The vanilla Yooka-Laylee didn’t feel great to play. It felt floaty, delayed, and the spin-attack didn’t feel like it connected. Having the same enemies everywhere was disappointing, and quills were seemingly randomly dropped all over the worlds with no thought. Replaylee overhauls everything and fine-tunes the gameplay, adding palpable cartoony spring and crunch to how the duo interacts with the world.
Animations have been dramatically improved, with more care put into the sound design, which punctuates the impact of whether Yooka is jumping, rolling, or using Laylee to slap the broadside of a Corplet’s sack seam. All worlds are fully built when entering them, and having all moves available fosters more exploration without feeling limited. While it does limit the use of paigies to only opening the worlds, a part of me misses the feeling of a familiar setting expanding.
The overall layout of every world is more or less the same, but with added gimmicks, some new nooks and crannies. There are new areas, and some questionable challenges or puzzles have been replaced with more intuitive concepts. You won’t be reflecting light at an ice cube anymore, like in the isometric palace, and the few difficult challenges that remain can be skipped since there are more than double the amount of paigies.
Replaylee is a much easier game to get through than the original, but that’s ok because the light-hearted and easy-going cartoony ambiance should be reflected in breezy gameplay. With more paigies to collect, most of them will be easier to collect. For the most part, there is some thought put into earning them; it isn’t like Super Mario Odyssey, where a majority of them are patronizing.
Getting 120 paigies to fight the final boss isn’t a long or tedious task. Replaylee is dense with variety and different challenges. The theming in each world is unique, keeping things fresh. The Cashino is especially distinct from other worlds for being somewhat accurate to a real casino layout and because the duo has to collect tokens in exchange for paigies, which changes the dynamic for challenges and exploration.
The Vendi’s tonics and Trowzer’s upgrades can make the game even easier. Some of the earliest tonics allow the heroes to kill Corplets in one hit, and they already don’t take fall damage or need air to survive underwater. The only punishment when dying is losing some change… which can be negated by equipping a tonic that’s available at the start.
The original Yooka-Laylee wasn’t an ugly game by any means, but you could tell that it was made during the early days of Unity. Replaylee looks incredible, even on Nintendo Switch 2. The draw distance is far, and Croplets have different designs depending on what level they live in. The visual style evokes classic ’90s CG prerenders, and the jaunty music is redone to be easier on the ears.
Everything just feels “right” in Replaylee. It makes the vanilla game look like a rough draft and like this was the game they intended to make the first time. It took a long time, but it’s finally here; this is the “Banjo-Threeie” fans have been hoping for.
Yooka-Replaylee was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2 using a code provided by PM Studios. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Yooka-Replaylee is now available for Windows PC (via STEAM), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
