Thanks to PM Studios for the review code
Title: Yooka-Replaylee
System: Steam (PC)
Price: $29.99
Release Date: 10/09/2025
Prelude
In this full remake of the 2017 Yooka-Laylee, you take control of Yooka, as he and his friend Laylee explore a tower consisting of strange worlds in order to investigate a mysterious book they found. There’s some cute added story elements in the beginning of the game to help flesh the backstory out more, and despite it maintaining a good chunk of nonsensical humor like the other games in the series, I didn’t find the dialogue bad enough to the point I wanted to dive out a window like in the original game.
Speaking of which, the original Yooka-Laylee was a weird game for me. I remember following the development of it pretty actively until the Wii U version got canceled, back in the old days when I was only really doing Wii U reviews for this very website. I did eventually get it on PS4 years down the line, and found it to be remarkably dull. The original game had concepts of some plans resembling old 3D platformers, but it mostly consisted of the dull tedium and empty areas I’d find from the weakest 3D games of the 64-Bit era I grew up with.
Ironically, I found more enjoyment with that original YL game once I learned you could break the game into pieces with some cool sequence breaks, but even then being able to break a game in fun ways didn’t fix dull level design.
Then in 2019, the 2D platforming sequel Impossible Lair came out at the most awkward time for me. In a year where I had to banish Fire Emblem Three Houses to the depths of my backlog for being a hard memory of the summer I lost my grandfather, Yooka Laylee IL came out two months to the day of that loss, and was my first big purchase I wanted to give an honest go rather than sulking with review queue titles and puzzle games since that day. Much to my delight, it was an excellent time with super fun level design and lots of clever mechanics, with me actually wanting to work to 100% that game. (although I got stuck near the very end, but I plan on finishing it one day!)
Anyhow, all that prelude is to say I went from being soured by that original game to really digging Playtonic’s 2D sequel, so I was curious to see what they’d do next. Enter Yooka-Replaylee, which does the first game… Again. On one hand, it feels annoying to wait so long and then they go back in time before doing a third game, so I could make a joke that Playtonic are unable to count to three. But on the other, the sheer quality boost from the original to Impossible Lair is undeniable, and if a remake is anywhere near as fun as that gem, we’d be in for a great time. Thus, I decided to give a crack at it!
Presentation
The original Yooka-Laylee came out in 2017 and was pretty bland looking, despite being meant as a colorful game with lots of funny creatures and goofy surroundings to goof around in. Models weren’t that great and the worlds were remarkably dull, feeling like there was a lot of empty gaps of just little to do, even upon expanding the worlds. It also ran at 30 FPS on anything that wasn’t a PC, and despite that being the target it just never felt great at that framerate, leaving most of the systems to suffer from a pretty janky feeling game.
Yooka-Replaylee on the other hand, comes to us on the more newer systems and yet again the PC. I’m covering this via the Steam Deck, and it the extra detail to everything definitely shows. You can try to run it at 60FPS on a steam deck, but it hardly ever hits it, and not even 40FPS seems to feel that great. Thankfully there’s a steam deck preset that does the bulk of the work to make it feel nice on the handheld, and it does scale up to 1200 x 800 rather well. Turn that V-Sync to 1/2, set a per game profile to force a 30FPS max, and you have yourselves a pretty fun Steam Deck experience.
Yes, even at the same downgraded 30FPS the first game’s console versions had to deal with, I was pretty impressed by how much better Replaylee looks and feels to play on the deck. There’s still drops mind you, but not to the point of it annoying me, and I was still able to see a lot of the huge visual upgrades they made compared to that original platformer. The models have more detail, the worlds have more cool things to look at and other visual touches to make them as a whole a lot better to look at, (and well, feel like actual worlds instead of boring landmasses) and when even the downgraded settings I had to set for my steam deck looked better than that original game did on my PS4, that says a heck of a lot about how much work they did on the visual upgrades. There’s even some cool tonics that can toggle various visual filters, with one reminding me an awful lot of some 3DS games, which I found to fit nicely on the deck!
Of course, if you have a stronger PC, you can get even better visuals and framerate, but alas, my Dell was on its last legs so I just stuck exclusively to the deck for this one and had good fun, not minding the visuals at all. The music is also pretty solid too, mostly consisting of the same tunes from the original game but touched up a bit to sound more pleasant. The music was the least bad thing of the original Yooka-Laylee, so having it sound a bit nicer helps to give backing to the vibes of each world. I always found the silly victory sound that plays when a caged pagie is free to be a lot funnier than it should be.
Gameplay
Being a 3D platformer, you have the usual setup for these kind of games; run around some kind of area and grab whatever the heck you can. You initially kick things off right outside the Hivory Towers, before entering the said capitalistic tower and having it act as your hubworld. Right away I was pleased to see how all the handy movement abilities such as the roll and tail jump are available from near the beginning of the game, rather than having to fiddle around to unlock the means of better movement. As a matter of fact, all the unlockable movement techniques you had to get in the original game are just given to you thanks to Laylee having the foresight to write in the magic book to cut to the chase on that.
Anyhow, upon entering the towers, the usual collectathon loop comes into play. You traverse the hub area, enter new themed worlds, do random stuff in said worlds, and repeat until you have enough of whatever special thingy you need to unlock the path to the next world in the hub tower. In Yooka-Replaylee, your focus is on Pagies, horrifying little pieces of paper that make funny speaking noises and enjoy being tormented. Still, this is the bulk of the game, and the experience of traversing the worlds as a whole, although there are a few pagies within the tower itself waiting to be collected, making it worth poking around there, too.
When it comes to the worlds themselves, I gotta say, I was very relieved to find them much better than their original YL counterparts. Where dull gaps of nothingness would be previously, are more detailed sights to see and more enemies to take care of, or little purple quills to collect for going out of your way. Sometimes you’ll end up stumbling across a fun little challenge room of some kind requiring a puzzle be solved or some other gimmick be dealt with, and a few recurring NPCs like to pop up in each world to give you new things to do.
Whether it be Rextro and his weird obsession with Arcade Machines (that he made himself), or a talking minecart that lets you do a fun little minecart autoscroller right out of older Rare platformers, there’s more engaging stuff to do now and thus a lot of fun things to goof off and poke around, unlike the original where it can feel pretty dull trying to wander around to figure out what the heck to do next. Even if I go wildly out of my way, I’d always at least stumble upon a coin or something for my trouble, and if I got lucky, even some pirate treasures. It also helps that traversal is just a lot better due to all the movement techniques being available from the get-go along with talking bookmarks you can awaken to use for warp purposes, helping cut back on the tedium.
It’s a good thing these bookmarks are here, since the only real gripe I had with Replaylee’s level design despite the massive improvements were from how these worlds are all based on the “expanded” versions you could unlock in the original YL. The idea was you had a smaller area to mess around in, got to grips with things, and could eventually expand it for the true size of the world and to find your way to the world boss. Now you just have the full world open from the start, and so if you have an idea where to go for a boss fight, nothing’s stopping you from just going straight there.
On one hand, the full freedom of just being able to go around makes these worlds a lot more engaging and worth having curious exploration, and making it easier to keep track of everything due to the world remaining consistent. On the other hand, it does mean that if you aren’t sure where to go, you’re gonna have a tougher time compared to that smaller world size being a better teaching ground. Still, those aforementioned bookmarks help a lot to prevent you from getting too lost, and the map as a whole is pretty useful too.
Next, are the tonics and other cool things that can be unlocked. Using the coins you collect throughout each world, you can buy Tonics, just as you would in the original YL or Impossible Lair, and these are basically modifiers that let you fiddle around with the game however you wish. The neat little 3DS-style shading I showed above is one of said tonics, and so are a few other visual options. You also have the means to make the game easier (by doubling your health) or harder (by making it a OHKO), along with many other ways to play around with the game’s difficulty and even customize the duo. You don’t really get a difficulty option here, so I found these tonics to be a very satisfying substitute for that.
Of course, Trowser is back, like the secret immortal hydra he is, and will sell you more permanent upgrades at the expense of a world’s quills. You can’t just take one world’s quills to use for another set of upgrades in another world, you have to actually hunt them out per world, which is a good way to encourage exploring every world rather than just your favorites. (otherwise I’d just be in the ice and casino worlds forever… and ever) These range from more tonic slots, permanent health upgrades, and various other things, all adding to the fun of the game’s exploration.
Lastly, is the game’s combat, which was a pretty dull and borderline miserable part of the original game for me, and was made a bit better here. The good news is, your main attack is pretty decent at taking out grunt enemies, along with the usual jumping on heads or ground pounding on them, so I didn’t find them to be much of a bother. The bosses were a little more clever feeling than they were in the original, and I particularly enjoyed the second world’s boss much, much more than the original game, since it felt a lot snappier and easier this time around. If all that isn’t enough for you and you just hate combat, there’s also tonics to make the enemies OHKO wonders, too. (or also make them tougher, if you like sponges) All in all, a delightful amount of customizability and fun platforming.
Conclusion
In the end, Yooka-Replaylee was a pretty great throwback to 3D platformers, and actually did the darn thing right this time. While not nearly as polished as Impossible Lair, and one that might take a bit of fiddling to work nicely on say, a Steam Deck, this is still one huge improvement over that original platformer. The only real sore spot I had was that the worlds being meant to get bigger as you progress, only to just be their expanded form from the get-go means you’re basically able to walk to a world boss and deal with it if you know where to go looking, which made the worlds lack the progression and finality that original worlds offered.
Still, the sheer amount of customization and QOL thanks to the tonic system and the fun of goofing off and stumbling upon a ghost or pirate treasure really makes this a pretty great time. When world size is the big gripe, and compared to the sheer amount of ways Playtonic went and took not fun worlds and made them actually engaging, I think I can sacrifice some early boss encounters for the sake of a hubworld that’s more fun to explore and main worlds that reward wandering off the beaten path a lot more than the original game ever did for me. As a 3D platformer, Yooka-Replaylee is a very tight and fun time, and while not nearly as excellent to the highest degree Impossible Lair was, this still makes for a great redemption arc and well worth a play if you like 3D platformers.
I give Yooka-Replaylee an 8 out of 10.