Rextro and kartos

[phuck]

The game is alright but please, if you're considering making another, leave rextro and kartos out. Those mini games are unnecessarily long and difficult. Makes me want to not play the game. I can live with glitch pagies in capital cashino but the stupid window cleaning mini games makes me hate the game. I'm one of those completionist types that needs to collect it all but I want to trade in the game instead because rextro and kartos suck balls. Rant over.

[Taylor]

You're a terrible completionist if one small section makes you turn in an entire game. Rextro and Kartos provide 15 Pagies out of 145.

[Bayo]

I loved both of them, I've been well entertained by them and they add even more variety to the game. Sometimes they are challenging, but I've never been annoyed.

[BanjoThreeie]

I just played through the game again and the only mini game I had trouble with was Hurdle Hijinx. If a few challenges and your OCD about 100% completing this game are stopping you from playing it, you probably didn't like it much in the first place.

[The Pho]

Rextro's games were a little long, but I honestly wish they were just shorter and more difficult. I beat Rextros high score the first try on all 5 games (I had a little trouble beating the high score again on the Casino one though). Kartos wasn't that hard either once you learn the course. I loved them both. They helped with the variety a bunch.

[EekumBokum202]

Having played up to world 4, I feel I can safely say I don't get the hate behind these two. Rextro's worst mini-game was the first one, which had really slippery controls. Other than that, World 3's mini-game was just "eh", while I found myself really enjoying world 2 and world 4's mini-game! So unless world 5 mini-game is SO bad it restroactively makes the others worse as a result, I feel like the hate behind the polygonal dinosaur is a bit exaggerated.

Kartos, I can almost get behind the hate, but honestly, his minecart rides aren't bad, just kidn of lackluster, at least at first. World 4 was when it really started to click for me, upping the challenge, and making use of my ability to not just jump, but brake, speed up, and shoot at the right time. It was frustrating at times, but that's kind of why it's a challenge, right? It wouldn't be a challenge if you didn't get a LITTLE angry at it, though it's important to understand what you're angry about. If you're angry because of something you couldn't possible know/do in advance, having really cheap difficulty, or being SO exact with how perfectly you need to nail certain jumps and the like, then it would be pretty bad, but honestly, the frustrating bits were me messing up a jump or getting hit, and that's on me; it's all about putting agency on the player when it comes to difficulty, making it east to play while the challenge comes in by putting a player's skills to the test. But again, I haven't played world 5's Kartos segment, so maybe that one really DOES get cheap...

Regardless, I like Kartos and Rextro as characters and in concept, so I don't want to see them abandoned entirely. I do think more thought and effort should be put into their respective segments, just like I think more thought and effort should be put into Dr. Quack's quizzes. It's just something Playtonic needs to improve upon in future installments.

[bjaxx87]

I didn't enjoy them. I wouldn't want them to be cut from following games, though, since I actually like both characters. So here's why I didn't like them and what I would like to change for the sequel:

Kartos:
I agree to EekumBokum202... While the Kartos challenges certainly had flaws, most of the time it was my own fault to fail them. I can't say I had fun failing, though... I was looking forward to Yooka-Laylee because I don't really like 2D platformers and I'm really, really bad at them. The Donkey Kong Country series (incl. Returns 1&2) is WAY to hard for me. Every time I play them I see collectibles which seem absolutely impossible for me to reach and even just trying to reach the end of the level I keep dying and dying - and the mine cart levels were some of the worst for me! I never finished a single DKC game... I guess I'm just not part of "generation NES" where failing at games was normal and supposed to keep you busy for a longer period of time since games were generally shorter. I have a huge stack of unplayed, time consuming games and simply lack the patience to try the same challenge again and again. When I recently replayed Banjo-Kazooie it was the perfect formula for me - a few challenging sections but most of the time a relaxed and fun mixture of exploring and platforming. Having a Kartos 2D platforming challenge in every world of Yooka-Laylee was a little too much for me and it caused me to have that nagging bad feeling that entering a new and exciting world also meant beating another (and even harder - except for world 5 which wasn't SO bad) Kartos challenge.

So my wish for Tooka-Laylee? Keep Kartos, but don't have him in every single world. Or at least don't make it mandatory to beat him to 100% complete the game. You could also completely drop "challenges" and make him part of the level where you need to survive a Kartos ride once to reach a secluded area (afterwards switching areas should only need you to talk to him).

Rextro:
Again my main complaint is that there is too much of him. 2 pagies in every single world? 15 out of 145? That's a little much of something I don't enjoy. Every time I played a new world I tried to beat Kartos and Rextro first, so I was able to enjoy the actual level afterwards. The mini games had wacky controls and it took a lot of time to get used to them AND to master them. No, it wasn't impossible, even Hurdle Hijinx, but I didn't have fun and it took me a lot of time to beat them. I also wish the mini games had been presented a little more retro instead of ingame graphics, Yooka and Laylee as playable characters and pseudo-retro gameplay. Do you guys know the NDS game "Retro Game Challenge"? () They completely made up their own 8bit retro games which feel authentic AND are actually fun. I think the most important thing is that they also control like real retro games.

My wishes for Tooka-Laylee: "real retro" Rextro games and again not being forced to play them all like a maniac. Maybe give players the choice which games they want to play to achieve a certain score or have a little Mario Party-esque mode so you can fail some games and still win in the end (would be fun for multiplayer as well).

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While I greatly enjoyed Yooka-Laylee (I'm almost done now, only missing 2 pagies) Kartos and Rextro were a true disturbance in my personal gaming experience because I had to suffer through 20 pagies for them. I wouldn't mind cheating when I replay the game one day.

[Scrubber]

I do think these two should be cut from the sequel UNLESS playtonic get somebody else in to do it for them. They aren't the right people to do minecarts and minigames.

[FailureFactory]

Heh, funny. My main complaint with Kartos is that it's no challenge to reach the end of the track, but you have that secondary task thrown at you instead. I really hoped Kartos would be exactly like those old DKC mine levels, and was disappointed with him being just another mini game about collecting stuff. Retro games nailed this, why can't the people who supposedly were behind DKC in the first place? It's interesting that somebody would hope for Kartos to NOT be like the kart sections I loved so much...

[FailureFactory]

Also it's a good point that Rextro's games don't really qualify as retro. They give more of a Mario party vibe (to me at least) in that they are 3D graphics from a fixed perspective and limited controls. If they had made games in actual pixel graphics, with 8/16 bit music to boot, yeah, those are retro. Rextro's games are not. This still wouldn't make them really well designed games, but at least they'd be fun to look at and add some actual variety.

Also, the games themselves could have been parodies of existing retro games like Donkey Kong, tetris, top-down shooters etc with a YL flavour. This way Playtonic could have improved on something that already exist rather than inventing a series of mediocre Mario Party minigames.

[bigfanofoldrare]

kartos
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personally i find kartos less fun than dk64, but i find it fun.. but one thing would make this part lot better...

on xbox one , he haves the jostick on the top left.. i wish for kartos event , we could use down jostick(right now we can't)..because with the jostick up , i keep going faster, when i try to go slower.. so if it was with down controller too , it would be a lot easier, and i would feel less mad..

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rextro

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it seems i am the only one who find them correct.. it was not the best part but i like it..

BUT he haves one game i find really really really bad.. UP 'N' NOVA .. i already see this kind of game , it was boring and long...

BUT he haves a game i find to look really fun.. it was not in the 5 level... it was call BLAG THE FLAG , i find it look super fun, it should be added in a rextro event.. at the place of up n nova..

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[bjaxx87]

[Piet]

[bigfanofoldrare]

to the person who say , they don't like to collect gems stuff in kart..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnf54XsVVvo 9:30 to 14:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFa4BJ6lEwM 14:15 to 15:43
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzkLc2wuf_4 10:30 to 12:20

i know the 2 last and not kart course. but it was fun to try to get collectible and do the course in same time.

[DarkTone]

Had no problems with them. Wonder why....

[FailureFactory]

DK64 did Kart sections slightly better than YL as far as I'm concerned (at least the tracks looked nice and you didn't have to sprint into obstacles you couldn't see), but those section still are waaaaay below the 2D sections of the classic or "Returns" series of DKC imo.

[FailureFactory]

[Omega]

Rextro games were really easy. A couple of them took some time but mostly they were easy Pagies. Kartos was hard in Worlds 3, 4 and 5. Its nice to have some challenge though, so I am ok if they return in future games.

[Natsu]

Kartos grew on me a lot even though I didn't like the games as much at first. I am at the point where it's just really addicting to play world 3, 4, and 5's Kartos tracks. I actually wish there was a kartos menu to just keep playing them without going to their respective worlds.

As for Rextro games, I absolutely love racing, hurdle hijinx, flappy bird, and jobstacle course. Glaciators, guntlet run, the bee spike game, and the flag game are really boring to me. The games are hit or miss to me. I'd prefer if each game was a direct homage to a past Rare minigame. You could have a Floyd mission, a Blast Corps segment, a Beaver Bother, etc.

[EekumBokum202]

Having beaten the game now, I can safely say, I think the hate for these characters is overrated. I haven't played ALL of Rextro's games at his arcade, but the ones I played to collect Pagies aren't bad. The only one that really annoyed me was that Kartos Kart one in world 1, otherwise I thought they ranged from so-so to actually kind of fun (to me, anyway).

I think the hate behind Kartos is that people were expecting DKC-like minecart levels. Me, personally, I wasn't expecting anything out of Kartos. After all, we already have great minecart levels in Retro Studios DKC games, so it's not like we've been long deprived of those kinds of things. So the minecart levels we got didn't bother me at all, other than the first two-or-three ones felt too easy to clear... Also, the firing of bullets (are they bullets?) have a weird trajectory, I wish it was made more clear where they were being fired at. Also, I noticed you can't immediate shoot/brake/boost after you already shot/braked/boosted for a few seconds, if there were some kind of indicator for when it's okay to do those things again, that would be helpful.

Again, it's not the best execution of that kind of thing, but it's certainly not bad. With a bit of ironing out, it could be really memorable and fun. Hell, a lot of Yooka-Laylee could have used that extra polish, then it would have been as great as the original Banjo-Kazooie. As it stands, I like it a lot, but it's not without its flaws.