Why I'm afraid that Yooka-Laylee is becoming more like Donkey Kong 64 than Banjo-Kazooie (and hope it won't be)

[psych151]

I think that most people would agree that Banjo Kazooie is a far superior game to Donkey-Kong 64, and in preparation for Yooka-Laylee's release, I went and replayed both of these old platforming gems. I also got my hands on a copy of Conker's Bad Fur day, and I might be referencing that a bit throughout this post as well. I already maintain a yearly ritual of replaying both Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie from beginning to end, and I believe both games are possibly the greatest that have ever been released, but I never felt the same attachment to the Donkey Kong Country games. In going through this most recent RareWare platforming marathon, I wanted to figure out why that is, and now that I've figured it out, I'm afraid Yooka-Laylee might be falling into the same trap.

In Banjo-Kazooie, your actions mattered within the world of the game. Everything affected either the quest against Gruntilda, or the specific worlds in which a puzzle took place. Every single thing that you had to do to get a Jiggy took place within the world you were in. This is opposed to the Banana Barrels found all throughout the worlds of Donkey Kong 64. You would jump into one of these barrels and be transported to a random mini-game that had nothing to do with the theme of the world in which the barrel was found, and rarely had anything to do with the game. There's no reason that any puzzles that result in being rewarded with a collectable can't occur within the world of the game, and I hope that Yooka-Laylee does its puzzles this way. To give an example of a puzzle that is interconnected with the world versus one that isn't, I would like to reference the sled race against Bogey in Banjo-Kazooie's Freezeezy Peak and Tiny's race against the turtle in Donkey Kong 64's Angry Aztec. Both of these quests are essentially race mini-games that result in getting one of the respective game's primary collectable, yet I believe that Banjo-Kazooie's race quest is much better because it involves racing through the world that you have already explored outside the racing context, and interacting with a character who exists in the game separate of this mini-game. So this is the primary reason that I believe Banjo-Kazooie is better than Donkey Kong 64. I want the puzzles to take place within the world.

Next, and I believe that this helps to keep the puzzles in the world, Banjo-Kazooie had a much more expansive set of characters. Most of the Jiggy’s that you got in Banjo-Kazooie were obtained by doing some kind of task for one of the characters. Sadly, this was lessened in Banjo-Tooie, and it was almost never true in Donkey-Kong 64. Every time you got a Golden Banana, it was because you performed some task to open some kind of secret room that randomly contained a banana.

Donkey-Kong 64 had far too many collectables. I know this horse has been more than beaten to death, but I wanted this list to be comprehensive, so here you go.

Banjo-Kazooie had more variation in the moves. You didn’t just have five characters who basically all had differently skinned versions of the same move. You had unique skills that added depth to the gameplay.

Now to bring it all back to what we really care about, Yooka-Laylee. Some of what we’ve learned for sure about Yooka-Laylee has made me concerned that the gameplay may be lessened in an attempt to satisfy fans who preferred Donkey Kong Country over Banjo-Kazooie. The primary concern here regards the arcade machines. This comes straight out of Donkey Kong 64 and adds to the out of world mini-games that I believe defeats the work that they put into making beautiful and immersive worlds. I am also worried about the mine cart sections. Again, this comes straight out of Donkey Kong, and breaks up the platforming gameplay. These are my two major concerns, and I know that both elements have already been concerned, I just hope now that the Playtonic team doesn’t overdo it so that Yooka-Laylee doesn’t become too much like Donkey Kong 64. My other minor concern is the expanding worlds. I know that this could go either way, but I can’t help but feel like this could basically work the same way as the early levels of Donkey Kong 64, where one whole segment of the level was simply locked behind a door that you needed another Kong to unlock. At the same time though, I loved how the worlds connected in Banjo-Tooie, so like I said, this could go either way. I also know that we’ve been promised a large cast, which should make the game more Banjo-Kazooie like and less like DK 64. Overall, I just hope that Playtonic does what they did so well with Banjo-Kazooie, and create beautiful worlds and then keep us in them.

[Scraps69]

So, right, lets just follow this, you're saying that the Playtonic Games staff were abusing illicit substances while making BK and not when they were making BT and DK64, and that they should go back to abusing illicit substances again to make YL as good as or better than BK...

How could you?

[xiriusnoodles]

[Scrubber]

I agree with what your saying in that the mini games in dk 64 that had nothing to do with the game/current world, i didn't like that either. They were too hard and pretty frustrating too. And fighting inside a barrel with a black background and nothing else was very boring.

Having said that i trust playtonic 100% and know they won't make the same mistakes again. There's also only one controllable character (yooka) so we don't have to worry about having to constantly switch characters to obtain different collectables. As for the minecart sections I completely disagree I love minecart sections and I'm really looking forward to them.

I have nothing bad to say about B-T and would prefer the game to be like B-T over B-K. But obviously we don't want another dk64 it was too much.

[wwwarea]

To be honest, out of all 3 games, Banjo Kazooie was my least favorite, but not in the bad either.
And I don't think a lot of people agree that DK64 was "bad"..

Donkey Kong 64 was great in it's own style (Maybe a little less non-fun tasks would be fine), and I think it's my favorite game of the N64. - It's probably because there was so much to do, and so much ways to find stuff, and there was a lot of personal favorites I liked about it.
Though maybe it had too much collectibles, but I did like it was still over the basic 100 coin/notes search and for the main items, maybe 300 would of been better?

For Yooka-Laylee, I think I would rather have it as Banjo Tooie, in terms of how big it was, the connections, etc..
I do however want a game like Donkey Kong 64, and there are many fans (I may be wrong) who wants that too.
I don't think YL would be the right fit for DK64, so I would personality avoid this and I do think it shouldn't have too much collectibles for this game either. Though, I don't want a world empty either.

The reason why I prefer Banjo Tooie way over Banjo Kazooie was that Banjo Kazooie was very small, and each level was always 'separated'. While Banjo Tooie had bigger levels, felt very open, connected, awesome quests for jiggies, etc.

_____

As for the minigames, I personality liked either way sort of, and did like DK64's better because I prefer a new place sometimes. I do think for way random, it's just something that can be more 'magic'.. Like it doesn't need to be part of the world to be good.. I guess it's all subjective, so I do think maybe they should add some for those fans and focus more on the way Banjo Tooie went by, including Banjo Kazooie.

Edit again: I read the whole post. I understand too. xD However, I still stand, perhaps I don't think it's a bad thing to add some stuff that pleases those kinds of fans (e.g. A random arcade machine). Perhaps don't make it too much like DK64 like you said, but I do like to have some random minigames similar to DK64 and the minecart, as I really loved the minecart part. I think it's that many people love different kinds of things, so that's why I give the idea of having all. Haha

[Yavga]

[Alucard]

The only thing I didnt liked in Donkey Kong 64 was that the npc characters had no depht. The worlds where so lifeless , not like in Banjo-Kazooie or Tooie, where you can find silly characters in each corner of each world.
But in DK64 there was to less characters and they all felt like random npcs not like real characters which are a part of those beautiful worlds like in Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie.

[GildasMagnus]

I have to say I agree with pretty much every point. I will say, though, that Playtonic have made it clear that they will be creating a rich, diverse cast of characters, characters that will have so much personality they could star in their own games. For this to be the case you can almost guarantee that they will play a major part in sidequests, and that sidequests will most likely take place in the worlds themselves, rather than some faceless minigame. They wouldn't create awesome NPCs and then not Use them.

In brief, awesome characters means awesome quests. Chillax, Bro.

Edit: Grammar is a cruel mistress.

[dotEXE]

They've already said they're aiming to scope the game between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie so if superfluous collectibles are your concern, don't worry.

They've already said they're aiming to give any and all backtracking plenty of meaning, be it via new exploration, expanding worlds, using new moves in old worlds in creative ways, or hiding secrets. Some of these secrets are supposedly going to take months to find. So if bland backtracking/quests is your concern, don't worry.

They've already said they're making a huge cast with diverse and exciting backstories, so if meaningless characters is your concern, don't worry.

If you're worried about moves, Trowzer's purpose is literally to sell you a huge list of special moves for Yooka and Laylee to utilize together.

And if you're worried about random mini-events that have nothing to do with the main quest, think about plenty of the jiggies in BK/BT. Plenty of them are only "related" to the world because they happen to be in that world. Mr. Vile, Tiptup Choir, Croctus statues, climb to the top of X tall thing, spell BANJO-KAZOOIE, etc and so forth. The only reason these types of quests were "thematically related" was because they put set pieces from that world near them. They could be taken out of context and put anywhere. Really, that's true for most of the jiggies.

Honestly, your list of concerns just sounds like you need to go back and actually read and watch all the interviews to date. All of your concerns have already been addressed at length.

[Dracul JOSHI]

Personally I feel and always have felt that DK64 was the best collect-a-thon out there, period.

I also had issues with Banjo-Kazooie's game design until it was fixed in the xbox live version and Banjo Tooie is probably the Worst Collect-a-Thon I have ever played.

[Pokemaniac Dan]

I just replayed through DK64, and I have to say it frustrated me. As far as actual game play, it was cool to an extent, but got very laborious after a while traversing these worlds that had zero personality. I also agree with the mini games that had nothing to do with anything. That beaver game is the worst. I definitely hope there's more creativity to YL (and I'm positive there will be). The mine cart sections weren't bad, nor were the races, but agree to your point that the race against Boggy in Freezeezy Peak is a better example of integrating a "mini game" into the world itself, instead of being transported elsewhere for the challenge.

BT is my favorite game because of the worlds and the personality. It was just fun to explore everything, and every nook and cranny had something to see. There was just a lot going on and the interconnected worlds was my favorite feature. So, I definitely think the liveliness of BK and BT is what they are going for in YL, with little nods here and there to elements from DK64.

[Yavga]

I created a thread from a part of this conversation:
Specifically about the collectables.

PlayTonic mentioned the collectables in YL would not be "as tedious as in DK64"
I wonder where we can draw the line.

[Rueckkoppler]

They will follow the B-K/B-T route & evolve from there, so I don't think we'll see any of the negative aspects of a DK64. And having minecart sections doesn't make it DK64 #2 already

[dyarch]

I actually didnt mind the puzzles/races/events that take place outside the current would, so long as they are still in theme. It's just the generic ones such as the inside of a barrel that are not enjoyable.

Ideally i think everything would occur within the world, and parts of the world being designed around these objectives (rather than objectives using landscape not designed from the ground up for it)

[psych151]

I know that there is a lot of room for interpretation in much of what has been said about this game, I just wanted to get this opinion out there before anything was pinned down.

Regarding the minecart sections, I did not dislike the minecart sections from DK64, but I think it would have been much more meaningful of these sections had taken place inside the world such as the minecart ride from Banjo-Tooie's Glitter Gulch Mine. I think that combining a ride through the world with the mechanics of the minecart section from DK64 would be perfect.

[wwwarea]

[chameleojack]

I don't think the "arcade machines" concept is inherently indicative of contextless puzzles (much as I don't care for the idea AT ALL). Some very respected Rare Games had them, including Jet Force Gemini and...Jet Force Gemini!

I also doubt you've played the original Donkey Kong Countries if you think the franchise is detached or lacks meaning in your accomplishments. The 64 game may have been garbage, but the last two SNES entries were very special. There were memmorable sequences, hidden areas, secret levels only availible by completing every challenge...they didn't just hand players victory so we could see all their pretty art and awful script (which was funny and minimal back then). All the banana rooms were set in the region you discovered them.