One of the most legendary video game developers of all time has to be Rare, most commonly referred to by many gamers as RareWare. Founded in 1985 by the Stamper brothers, Tim and Chris, RareWare started off small. They developed a few licensed video games and were at the time trying to compete in the video game market. Their first breakthrough video game was Battletoads on the Nintendo Entertainment System, a side scrolling beat ‘em up starring cartoonish muscular toads similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. What made Battletoads stand out amongst other games was it’s variety in gameplay. It wasn’t just a usual beat ‘em up. It had platforming, bike sequences, and levels where you dangled from ropes and fought enemies while moving downward. It was also a very f*cking hard game. If you thought Dark Souls was insanely difficult then you should check out the original Battletoads. It had children back in the day screaming their heads off and tossing their controllers across the living room.
Battletoads was ported to various consoles helping RareWare gain more fame, but eventually they were offered a deal by Nintendo. Nintendo tasked RareWare to develop a game that would test the technical capabilities of their new console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. RareWare decided to accept the offer, but the problem was they didn’t know what game to make. They asked Nintendo about their first game Donkey Kong, and Nintendo was like, ”Oh yeah. You guys can definitely use it”. RareWare was given the ability to revive a character Nintendo hasn’t used for years and eventually an idea sparked in their heads. RareWare ended up developing Donkey Kong Country, a two side scroller where Donkey Kong traveled across an island alongside his companion Diddy Kong to defeat the evil King K. Rool. The original Donkey Kong Country had this look where everything looked 3D, but really it was still made out of pixels and it took place on a 2D plane. Its graphics helped the game stand out with the SNES and luckily the game was praised for many other aspects. It’s soundtrack, environments, challenging platforming, animation at the time, and many other splendid aspects. All of this made Donkey Kong Country a unique platformer that outrivaled others on the same system. It ended up becoming a trilogy, all three titles being great.
The Nintendo 64 was the next generation of consoles, having the ability to display 3D environments and objects. This was when RareWare struck gold, because they now had the tools to create bigger more imaginative projects. Donkey Kong 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Perfect Dark, Goldeneye 007, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but one of their greatest games on the N64 was Banjo-Kazooie. It seemed like another ordinary 3D platformer targeted towards a younger audience, but there was something that made Banjo-Kazooie resonate among other 3D platformers. The colorful cartoonish look, the humorous writing, the environments, level design, soundtrack, and how the game was a joy to play thanks to it’s positive vibes. Banjo-Kazooie was RareWare at it’s best and it’s considered by many to be one of the greatest games ever made. RareWare followed it up with a sequel Banjo-Tooie, and while it wasn’t as great as the original it was still a spectacular game that served as a serviceable sequel. RareWare was at the top of the video game mountain, nothing could pull them down... then something happened.
RareWare was bought out by Microsoft for $375 million dollars. They were no longer able to work for Nintendo. Now they were working under the eyes of Bill Gates. You think it wouldn’t be that bad since RareWare now had more funding for their games. Well they didn’t have the creative freedom like they used to with Nintendo. They ended up making games they didn’t want to, were eventually forced to make crappy kinect games, and they lost the heart and soul their older games had. Many gamers lost hope in RareWare and some workers ended up leaving the company. RareWare now lied in the dirt, but some of the workers who quit ended up starting their own company.
A small indie team named PlaytonicGames was founded and they started a Kickstarter for a game named Yooka-Laylee, a spiritual successor to the original Banjo-Kazooie. Gamers were hyped, dollars were donated, and the Kickstarter ended up gaining over two million dollars within a couple of months. Yooka-Laylee was shaping up to be awesome and the most anticipated indie game in recent memory, but when the game finally came out many backers of the project were disappointed. Levels were confusing, controls were sloppy, and it lacked the variety and creative ideas that Banjo-Kazooie had. It was not the game Playtonic wanted to make, so they went back to the drawing board. This time PlaytonicGames wanted to develop a spiritual successor to Donkey Kong Country and use the preexisting characters they made for this spinoff.
They came up with Yooka-Laylee & The Impossible Lair. You would expect this game to be a flop since the original Yooka-Laylee was mediocre at best, but surprisingly this new entry was pretty good. Gamers praised the design, the progression, gameplay, and how it captured the charm Playtonic wanted this whole time. I for one think that Playtonic have redeemed themselves. Yooka Laylee & The Impossible Lair was a joy to play. Even though it got challenging at times it was still a rewarding platforming experience from beginning to end. Today we’ll be talking about why I love Yooka-Laylee & The Impossible Lair and why it deserves your attention. So grab a best bud and prepare to journey into the treacherous, bone crushing, skin melting, bottomless pout dropping, wall smashing, and transforming halls of the Impossible Lair.
Story
We play as a clever duo named Yooka-Laylee and they are the heroes of this faithful story. Yooka being an agile lizard and Laylee being a bat that helps Yooka reach new heights. See? It’s just like Banjo-Kazooie but they look more scaly and much f*cking weirder. In their last adventure they stopped the evil Capital B, an evil bee who is the CEO of Hivory Towers Corporation, from stealing every book in the land so he could resell them for a huge profit. In some I feel like Capital B is supposed to be a representation of Microsoft on how they capitalize on okay-ish products or find a way to make money off of something that really isn’t innovative or aims to do anything new or interesting. Now Capital B has his eyes set on a new destination, the Royal Stingdom home to the famous Queen Bee and her kingdom of bees. Capital B creates a device known as the Hivemind to control every bee in the Royal Stingdom to do his bidding.
Yooka & Laylee make it just in time to meet up with the leader of the Royal Stingdom, Queen Bee. Queen Bee decides to give Yooka & Laylee control of the Beetallion, a shield of bees that will help them stand a chance against Capital B. They forgot however that Capital B has the Hivemind and he uses it to capture the Beetallion and lock them up in several cages. Yooka & Laylee chase after Capital B into his fortress, The Impossible Lair, and are killed within minutes since they are too weak to face any of the challenges. Queen Bee drags Yooka & Laylee out of the book they used to get to the Stingdom, because books are used as gateways in this colorful cartoonish world, and they realize it’s impossible to get through The Impossible Lair without the Beetallion acting as a defense. Queen Bee tries to drag several other books from within the Stingdom that contain the members of the Beetallion, but fails and launches the books all around the world. Yooka & Laylee now embark on a quest to gather each member of the Beetallion and stop Capital B from taking over the Royal Stingdom.
Gameplay
This game plays exactly like Donkey Kong Country, which is it’s main influencer and is trying to serve as a spiritual successor, and I’m not saying that is a bad thing. The goal of each level is very simple: platform across multiple hazards, collect items, and reach the Beetallion member at the end which is basically the end goal. First thing I do want to mention is Yooka & Laylee’s controls are crisp. Their jumps aren’t floaty, they stop when you let go of the joystick, snap towards the direction you point at, and they never feel like they're walking on ice. They have multiple moves to get around each level.
They can roll into a spinning ball to knock out waves of enemies or traverse long distances. Just be careful if you don’t stop a roll in time you may end up rolling into your own grave. You can spin in midair to gain some extra time in the air or float across a large gap. Ground pound onto boxes and certain surfaces to reveal hidden passageways or items. And pick up objects and shoot ‘em back at enemies using Yooka’s long sticky lizard tongue. If you take damage from a hazard or enemy, Laylee will begin flying around the screen wildy and Yooka has a few seconds to catch her before she flies away. If Laylee does fly away, Yooka will lose a good chunk of his abilities. He can’t ground pound or spin in midair, and he’s heavily vulnerable to enemy attacks. You can recall Laylee by hitting bat-winged bells, but if you take damage as Yooka alone you die and are sent back to your last checkpoint. You also lose any feathers and T.W.I.T coins you have collected up until that point. Feathers and T.W.I.T coins are the currency of this game. Feathers are used to buy tonics which unlock Yooka & Laylee perks that can either make a level easier or harder on the player. T.W.I.T coins are used to open Trowzer’s Paywalls, which are scattered throughout the overworld and open up sections that contain new levels with Battalion members. So unlike Donkey Kong Country where by finding puzzle pieces you unlock artwork, the T.W.I.T coins are needed to progress. So the game does reward exploration.
You may notice that there are certain objects you can interact with in the world that affect a level’s entry book. What do these changes do? Well they change up the level's theme making it so that you have to navigate them differently, and they allow you to find a second Beetallion member that you couldn’t access the first time through. Yes, you have to play each level two times differently if you want to find every Beetallion member. For example one level could be a water level, but by freezing it in the overworld the level is now an icy snowland with slippery platforming sections. One level is completely normal and then it has extreme winds that can blow the player back by activating some fans in the overworld. One level is traversed normally, but then by activating a machine that pours fanged enemies into the level it becomes a chase sequence. Think creatively when exploring the world, because some of the secondary versions of levels can be easily missed or are difficult getting into.
Another one of the major mechanics in this game is in the title, The Impossible Lair. It’s technically the final level in the game and it can be attempted at any time throughout your playthrough. The Beetallion members you collect from the other levels will act as extra hit points, allowing your journey through the Impossible Lair to be less difficult. Once all of the Battalion members are gone it’s just Yooka and Laylee. There are only a few checkpoints in the level and there aren’t any bells to call Laylee back. Meaning you have to traverse it carefully and come well prepared. It is the hardest level in the game with the most traps, so you want to collect as many Beetallion members as possible to make it bearable. Within enough time you should be able to take down Capital B.
Thoughts
Yooka-Laylee & The Impossible Lair perfectly recaptures the RareWare magic that was lost long ago when Microsoft purchased the company. I heard the environments in the original Yooka-Laylee lacked variety, were poorly set up, and were completely empty compared to Banjo-Kazooie and other 3D platformers like Super Mario 64. While levels are more cramped since everything is now in a 2D space, there is more variety and PlaytonicGames managed to stuff as much as they could into each level. Every level has a consistent theme and nothing feels like it was put to waste. There were loads of secrets to uncover, different perks to experiment with heading into levels, and 100% completion is encouraged. It’s not mandatory, but the rewards are plentiful.
I was expecting this game to be much easier than Donkey Kong Country since it was coming from an indie studio who wanted to play their cards safe with this title, but The Impossible Lair is much more challenging that the DK Country series. I died a lot while playing this game, but none of it was due to bad game design. Most of my deaths were from me running into problems without being careful or continuing making the same mistakes without learning. It's tough, but at least the game is fair towards the player. The soundtrack is downright lovely, being composed by two legendary video game musicians who worked on past RareWare games. David Wise, who made the soundtrack for the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy. Then there is Grant Kirkhope, who made the soundtrack for Banjo-Kazooie and recently Yooka-Laylee.
I love the idea of being able to visit the final level immediately at any time. It means if the player wants to end their run early or see if they can conquer it with what they have available then they can. It’ll just be really f*cking hard. It’s like running straight towards Hyrule Castle in Breath of The Wild without having done all the four Divine Beasts. It’ll be more challenging since you don’t have the proper gear and you’ll have to fight four additional bosses, but it is still possible to do with a lot of patience and skill. The graphics are pretty nice being an indie game with a low budget, the artstyle is silly in a way where it’s appealing, and there is just a lot of positivity in this game.
Yooka-Laylee & The Impossible Lair is a pretty well designed platformer, but is it an excellent game? No, I do have a few problems with it. When Laylee starts flying around the screen it does get annoying, because sometimes you end up dying trying to catch her due to how unpredictable her flying pattern is. When Laylee does fly away you're practically dead, because platforming is much harder without the spin move and some gaps aren’t even passable. Some enemies should have just been traps, because you can’t damage them whatsoever. Specifically the helicopter enemies with spikes on them. The final level, The Impossible Lair, while having a clever design choice behind it, is probably the most frustrating platformer level I’ve gone through recently. It throws every single randomized idea at the player, like a muscular athlete chucking bowling balls at you without even letting you know ahead of time. I know it’s the final level in the game and it tests the player’s skills and reflexes, but it was purposefully made hard and random just to be hard and random. Final complaint is that the physics aren'ts always great. Some jumps weren't made, because these two didn't build up enough speed to make the gap or they gravitated towards the ground like a boulder.
As a whole The Impossible Lair is great and I can recommend it to any Donkey Kong Country fans especially since the last game came out in 2014, but honestly I would still choose Tropical Freeze over this. The levels in that game evolved and turned into catastrophic joyrides as you progressed through them whereas in The Impossible Lair they only evolve or change when you apply an effect to them in the hub world. In the end I am giving Yooka-Laylee & The Impossible Lair an 8/10 for being pretty good.
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