Yooka-Replaylee Reviews
It's for all ages, a title that will remind you of the Banjo-Kazooie of the '90s. A must-have in the Xbox catalog that you'll enjoy for many hours.
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Yooka-Replaylee captures the spirit of platforming with various areas to explore and various collectibles. The difficulty is ideal and you utilize every game mechanic. Loading screens take a long time and camera angles aren’t always helpful. This game showcases the highs and lows of platformers and will delight fans of the genre.
Yooka-Replaylee works a little better in this remixed iteration, but introduces all sorts of new wonkiness along the way.
As a collectathon platformer, the goal of Yooka-Replaylee is to hoover up every item in the entire game, from the endless coins to scarcer book pages.
Yooka-Replaylee, in most ways, feels like the game that Yooka-Laylee was always meant to be. The core experience has remained the same, but much has been added or tweaked to make for a significantly more confident and streamlined experience.Though the technical issues hold it back a bit, at least on Switch 2 at launch, this is still a clear improvement over the original and a game that no fan of the 3D platforming genre should miss out on. Even if you played the original to completion, I'd say Yooka-Replaylee is still very much worth your time and money.
Yooka-Replaylee feels like one of the best Nintendo 64-era collect-a-thons ever, but with every bit of shine, polish, and refinement that a 2025 release allows. Each level and character design is gorgeous, the orchestral soundtrack is incredible, and there's a ridiculous amount of activities and challenges jam-packed into every single nook and cranny of the game. The whole thing handles as smooth as butter and is a top-tier platformer experience that's oozing with heart, charm, joy, fun, and humor. My hat is truly off to Playtonic for taking the foundation of their 2017 title and improving upon it tenfold in every conceivable way. This is a banger.
Yooka-Replaylee isn't just the definitive version of the game; it's one of the most enjoyable 3D platformers this side of Nintendo first party titles or Astro Bot. The levels are now packed with things to do, the range of different challenges keeps things interesting, and the upgrades and equippable tonics enable you to customise the difficult to suit your playstyle. All in all, this is now an essential purchase for fans of 3D platformers.
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It would be a dream come true for me if Yooka Re-Playlee offered an in-game choice between an original version and a Replay version. Although flawed, Yooka Re-Playlee is the best version of an excellent N64-style 3D platformer.
Blow for blow, Yooka-Replaylee is a quality 3D platformer. It does what it needs to do and does so in a way that's inoffensive and pretty bogstandard. My issues with the game come from its existence as a replacement for a game with genuinely interesting ideas. Replaylee does away with every interesting wrinkle in favour of an experience that, unfortunately, falls far too close to certain other games for me to want to prioritise this one. It's a bizarre exercise in overcorrection that misses what the original game was literally made for. Is it a better game than the original? Probably. But it's a lesser imitation of its far more modern inspirations.
For all its new flourishes Yooka-Replaylee continues to feel like a game just a touch out of time, true, yet this is largely easy to forgive thanks to how much easier to appreciate this unabashedly slavish 3D platforming throwback it now is. Don’t go in expecting an entirely different experience, but one revamped mostly for the better.
In short, Yooka-Replaylee is a brilliant remake of the original game. It expands and improves upon so many areas that it leaves the original release in the dust. It took a long wait, but Yooka and Laylee finally have a 3D platformer worthy of the Banjo-Kazooie comparisons.
Playtonic Games has reignited those nostalgic feelings with the release of Yooka-Replaylee, paying special attention to players' feedback and delivering a well-polished and entertaining gameplay experience. There are some significant changes made, including improvements to the game's visuals and controls; however, level progression remains a concern.
Yooka-Replaylee demonstrates resoundingly what needed to be fixed with the original game, offering an experience closer to Banjo-Kazooie rather than Banjo-Tooie, and being a better game because of it. Smart quality of life adjustments streamline exploration and progression, sharpening the pacing. Not all changes are equal, however, as Rextro still feels like a bit of a slog, and I still wish there were more worlds to explore. But the overall improvements to the experience are undeniable. With strong performance, great presentation and clever tweaks, Yooka-Replaylee delivers on the promise that Playtonic made so many years ago. It feels like the true successor to Banjo-Kazooie that we always wanted.
As the "definitive" version of its 2017 platformer, Yooka-Replaylee balances smooth controls and stunning visuals with annoying humor, haphazard levels, and underwhelming challenge.
Yooka-Replayee does make some much needed improvements to the 2017 original, but fails to fix the fundamental flaws its predecessor so divisive.
Yooka-Re-Playlee is everything the 2017 version wanted to be and more. It's smoother, funnier, more focused, and bursting with personality. For kids and parents alike, it's an ideal family game. It's approachable, colorful, and loaded with secrets to uncover together. Longtime fans of Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country will appreciate how much Playtonic has learned from its past, while newcomers will find a cheerful, imaginative adventure that celebrates the joy of classic platforming in a modern package. With its generous content, refined gameplay, and heartwarming humor, Yooka-Re-Playlee doesn't just replay history…it rewrites it. This is the definitive version of Yooka and Laylee's debut and a perfect holiday pick-up for families and fans of feel-good adventure alike.
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.
The first Yooka-Laylee was Playtonic Games’ attempt to revitalize that classic Nintendo 64-style 3D platforming collect-a-thon. Yooka-Replaylee aimed to take that formula and modernize it for contemporary gamers, and they have absolutely succeeded. While Yooka-Replaylee makes its predecessor obsolete by comparison, the experience itself stands alone as a mighty fun 3D platforming adventure.
A stunning soundtrack, world, and overall charm, harmonise with the troubled, yet enjoyable gameplay, and the accompanying arsenal of moves. Simply put, Yooka-Replaylee is fun, but not groundbreaking.