Why So Much Hate???

[baker_boy0017]

When Yooka-Laylee first came out, reviewers bashed it like crazy, and understandably so: the game apparently ran like trash on Xbox and PS4. Many reviewers seemed to let those technical issues multiply every little problem with the game. However, many people still seemed to indicate one major thing: there was a good game deep down, even if not perfect. I've seen this sentiment echoed by GameXplain and NintendoLife doing their Switch reviews for the game, saying it's much better than the previous versions, and is enjoyable to play.

And yet... I see TONS of hate for this game in comments all over Youtube. So what gives? What in the world is pushing people to hate this game? Is it perfect? Heck no: but I never thought it would be. I thought it would be a wonderful love letter to the games that defined my childhood and it was, but it also showed that 3D platformers were not - as many "critics" and "game journalists" claimed - irrelevant.


So, what do you guys think? Is this game really some sort of disappointment to the point that people feel a need to spam hate-filled messages on youtube channels? Or are these people just trolls who liked the "Yooka Laylee sucks" bandwagon from back in April? Are they just tikes born after the year 2004 that don't know squat about BK, BT, and the old Rare? The quality of argument is almost always the following: "This game is sh#t."

I'm just sick of the hate. How about you guys?

[JohnGrey]

Because it's a 90s 3D platforming collectathon, warts and all, in 2015/16/17. There's a reason why the genre died out, despite small vocal fanbases around various entries, be it B-K or Spyro or whatever else. Ultimately, it highlights the inherent problem with Kickstarter: where gaming is concerned it's often the last refuge of unwanted outcasts. It permits the coordination and consolidation of diffuse special interest but the real trick of success is producing a work that is translatable from that narrow interest to general audiences. That's usually done by updating the formula of the work to generate broader appeal; Shovel Knight is a wonderful example of a game heavily-inspired by the 2D platformers of the NES area that used tweaked mechanics and twenty years of refinement and improvement on level design to make a game that appeal to a huge number of people.

The problem is that PTG, for better or worse, went the opposite direction. They retained laser focus on the experience to which they were ostensibly attempting to pay homage, and basically said to anyone playing it: if you don't like everything that Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie were, you're not going to like this and we aren't changing it, and therein lay another problem.

I play Banjo-Kazooie at least once a year, and I often do the same with Tooie. I have history with the franchise going back twenty years, and I continue to love the games despite their mechanics and controls having not aged well. I do not have that same emotional connection to Y-L, despite enjoying parts of the game, so I'm nowhere near as forgiving of it. It's unreasonable to expect that from anyone, especially from the many gamers that don't have that connection to its inspiration, and it's unreasonable to expect that sort of contextualism, in 'meeting a game on its own terms' when it's so blatantly refuses to make any allowances for how gamers' tolerances and sensibilities have changed. I don't dispute that some of the 'hate' is good, old-fashioned trolling but a fair portion of it is the unsurprising fact that the vast majority of gamers these days aren't interested in this particular genre of game and feel that it has no place in the present.

[Tek]

[EekumBokum202]

I am also really sick of the hate, but I can kind of understand why there's so much hate even though I don't agree with it at all.

You know the phrase "you can't take back a first impression"? Well that applies with this game; it doesn't matter how many patches come out to improve the experience, most people are only going to play it once (and presumably return it if they don't like it), and it's that first impression that's going to stick with everyone no matter what.

That, combined with other minor controversies, like going from the Wii U to the Switch, the Switch's delays (even if it was worth it in the end), the fact that the Switch supposedly isn't getting a physical release, and of course the whole JonTron fiasco, it just colors people's opinions, to the point where people say Playtonic Games and Yooka-Laylee are just as bad as Keiji Inafune/Comcept and Mighty No. 9.

That, by the way, pisses me off the most when it comes to the Playtonic/Yooka-Laylee hate; say what you will about the game, the aesthetic choices, the behind-the-scenes stuff, and what-have-you, at least Playtonic didn't get carried away with stretch goals with their initial Kickstarter, IMMEDIATELY started to sell out with promises of a sequel, an animated TV show, AND a movie all before the initial game was released, start TWO MORE Kickstarters for a completely different game AND an anime tie-in for that game, have the original game delayed for an entire year, only to have the launch be botched and the game itself mediocre, only for one of your employees/representatives dismiss all that by saying "even if it's not perfect, it's better than nothing". Like, good LORD was Mighty No. 9 a disaster, it irks me to Hell and back to think people can actually compare it to Yooka-Laylee.

[moritasan2040]

The hate seems to stem from people expecting the wrong thing from the game. The complaints often contradicted each other: "Not enough like Banjo-Kazooie", "Too much like Banjo-Kazooie"; "Tries too hard", "Doesn't try hard enough"; "Worlds are too big", "Worlds are too small"; "Worlds are too full", "Worlds are too empty". Other complaints were about things that made it obvious they either never played or didn't like Banjo-Kazooie (in which case the game wasn't meant for them): "The voices are annoying (they shouldn't have been so cheap - should've had real voice acting)", "Having the ability to fly is too cheap and ruins the game". Or complaints that made it obvious they either never played or didn't like Banjo-Tooie: "Banjo-Kazooie was better than this game. It didn't make you go back to past worlds with later moves", "...It didn't have worlds of this scale".

I noticed that people who gave bad reviews tended to complain about things that were also in Banjo-Kazooie, and then say "Good ol' Banjo-Kazooie wasn't like that, tho. It was such a good game.". The rose-tinted nostalgia glasses blinded people from fairly comparing the two games. I don't think I heard a single reviewer give one LEGITIMATE complaint. I can think of several: descending while flying, camera, snowplower, et cetera. But no, instead people complained about how "horrible" the level design is: "World Three [MoodyMAZE Marsh]'s level design is horrid! I feel like I'm in a maze! Uhg!". Or: "Playtonic Games broke their promise to JonTron!". And as a whole, just didn't get that Yooka-Laylee was meant as a spiritual sequel to Banjo-Tooie, collectathons, and 90s gaming.

[baker_boy0017]

It's ironic, but the troll in this thread basically answered everything for me. It really IS just a bunch of abused twelve-year old boys that need to let some steam off on the internet somehow. Come here man: we'll give you the hug you need. We were teenagers once too, we get how hard it is. It's even OK to cry.

[Rueckkoppler]

[DarkTone]

I thought people were trying to find negatives for this project. The delay for the Nintendo console and the backlash near the end didn't help.

[NPChilla]

I'd say there are three things to bear in mind with hate, specifically with regards to Y-L:

1) In this day and age, everyone can and will have an option on anything. Moreover, they will go out of their way to manufacture outrage: did anybody really give a toss about Neogaf either way before it came up during the JonTron business? So hate is inevitable.

2) A LOT of hype was riding on this. Ex-Rare staff, coming together to make a spiritual successor to their greatest hits, smashing Kickstarter records - like all bubbles, it had to burst eventually.

3) PR issues, including but not limited to:
*The JonTron affair, which put people off, as did Team17's spectacular bungling of it all on Twitter.
*The delays, the cancellation of the Wii U version quite late in the day and the eight month wait before the Switch version.

[Rueckkoppler]

Oh yeah, I remember that Team17 guy on the Steam forums. He certainly did his best to make his company and Playtonic look like douchebags.

[NPChilla]

[Mew Mew Psychic]

Frankly, I'm just sad that the overwhelmingly negative feedback from every source may have killed the franchise and certainly ruined any chances of Yooka-Laylee ever reaching its full potential.

Yes, the game is flawed but I found it to be a pleasant surprise and better than what I expected. Though I did find myself eagerly awaiting for updates and I do think the game could have been fleshed out a lot more, I found the general feedback to be destructive rather than constructive and when it wasn't, it pointed in a direction I absolutely hated.

Very noticeably, I want to see Yooka & Laylee and their world developed, not the two of them shoved aside for some generic space lady. Or having the setting and plot hooks set up thrown out of the door. Frankly, a "worlds in books" and "literature is creation, literally"-based setting offer almost unlimited potential for both story elements and crazy gameplay stages. And I'd rather not see all of that thrown away.

In particular, I found that most of Yooka-Laylee's best elements is when it broke away from the source material to do its own things. For example, I actually found the idea of simplifying movesets to having two "base" moves that then become the basis of advanced moves to be extremely interesting in pratice. As characters, I actually grew to like Yooka and Laylee a lot more than I expected and found that they worked better when they were allowed to shine rather than ape jokes heard a bajillion times already in the Banjo games.

Gameplay-wise... I am saddened that what little challenge the game had was, except for the last boss, largely cut out of the game. I was just baffled when I spoke to players who whined about the Dark Gem Grotto, revealed that they had given up merely after dying three times... and then see Playtonic cave in to such obviously childish demands.


It just feels that at every turn, this is a game that was punted down and every attempt at constructive criticism or serious discussion of the franchise was put down by the sheer toxicity of the audience. At every turn, I want to try to give feedback that I feel could really help yet, I feel completely drowned out by all of those bashing minor elements.

At every turn, every time I want to share my thoughts on the duo and what could be done with the setting, I feel completely ignored by an audience far more concerned with bashing it because it's not Banjo or because it's not a modern Open World game.

[Yuke Quantum]