I didn’t enjoy the original Yooka-Laylee when I first played it, but I loved Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair on Nintendo Switch. I was more of a fan of the Donkey Kong Country games at that point, but I was curious to play the original based on how excited my friends were. I wasn’t a fan of the controls, some of the levels, and the technical performance on console for the original Yooka-Laylee. I eventually played Yooka-Laylee on Switch and was more impressed than when I first tried it on Xbox One. It felt like a more polished package with updates and generally being one of the better ports to Nintendo’s hybrid console. It definitely felt like a game that could benefit from a modern console port to iron out the performance issues, but Playtonic clearly had bigger plans for its debut title.
When Yooka-Replaylee was announced, I was both hopeful and confused. I thought a remake less than a decade later was a bit much, but there was hope to see some of my annoyances with the game’s controls and even collectibles addressed here. After it got confirmed for Switch 2, I knew I was going to play it on the system. Would this be a repeat of Yooka-Laylee on the original Switch in delivering an excellent port, or would it be lacking like some of the other third-party releases we’ve seen recently? The answer is not clear-cut right now, but I have enjoyed Yooka-Replaylee a lot more than I did Yooka-Laylee so far. I’ll be updating this with my full review thoughts in the near future, but I wanted to focus on some of the technical aspects of Yooka-Replaylee’s Switch 2 and even PC versions for launch week.
Ahead of its launch, I’ve had a chance to play the Switch 2 and Steam versions of Yooka-Replaylee. I needed more time back then, but after over a month with it and updates later, I can safely say that this is a big upgrade over the original game, and while it is a fine experience on Switch 2, I expected better and hope to see the port improve in updates.
Right from the get-go, Yooka-Replaylee feels like a modern 3D platformer with its controls, structure, and even visuals. It is lush and dense, but my favorite change or addition here is the camera. Unlike the original, which annoyed me with its camera, Yooka-Replaylee never bothered me. There are some fixed-camera sections, but there hasn’t been a single moment where I was frustrated with Yooka-Replaylee’s camera.
None of the annoying backtracking issues in the original are here, and while that does make Yooka-Replaylee easier and snappier overall, I do not want to play the original again. I will happily revisit Yooka-Replaylee on Switch 2 after the potential performance patch arrives, or even get it on PS5 to play. I think the developers addressed basically every issue the original had already, and it is still getting updates to tweak the quality of life improvements and other gameplay.
Visually, I thought the original game already looked lovely, but Yooka-Replaylee definitely feels like a big leap in fidelity, foliage, textures, and even a lot of the models. Out of the box, it looks very good when played handheld on Switch 2, but I’m a bit disappointed with how it looks docked, given the performance. This is also the one area of Yooka-Replaylee that I feel could have done with a bit more optimization for the full game.
Yooka-Replaylee is a demanding game. It targets 30 frames per second on Switch 2, both docked and handheld. So far, it holds that rather well, but there are some frame pacing issues or minor hitches that were quite noticeable while running around. When trying the Steam version on Steam Deck, it is locked to a 45 frames per second target with no graphics options visible to players, but I was able to use a launch command (SteamDeck=0 %command%) to access the menu and tweak things. I also want to highlight that the Steam version has very good 21:9 support, which I was able to test when playing on Steam Deck. Running the demanding PC version at higher resolutions than 800p is not worth doing for actual gameplay, but I was able to get it working to see how the UI scales.
When it comes to load times, Yooka-Replaylee takes nearly double the amount of time to load compared to Yooka-Laylee’s Switch version when played on Switch 2. In fact, the Steam version of Yooka-Replaylee loads 50% faster than Switch 2 when played on Steam Deck and ROG Ally. Speaking of the ROG Ally, the Windows version on ROG Ally feels a bit unpolished with a lot of hitching right now. I’ll be digging deeper into how it plays on Windows when I update this with my full review and score.
While the 30 frames per second is no doubt disappointing for a platformer, Playtonic has added great support for HD Rumble 2 that is almost as good as the DualSense haptics so far in Yooka-Replaylee. The PS5 version also has additional controller features like controller speaker sounds based on the demo, but Yooka-Replaylee is a good fit for playing docked with the Switch 2 Pro Controller or using the Joy-Con 2 controllers handheld. I just hope a performance mode can be worked on for a future update and that the frame pacing issues or hitching can be resolved in the near future.
Yooka-Replaylee on Nintendo Switch 2 is a very good upgrade over the original to the point where I wouldn’t bother playing the former anymore. I just wish the Switch 2 version had a performance mode or even a 40 frames per second option. Right now, this is one to play on PS5 or Steam Deck if you have those options. If you only play on Switch and Switch 2, I can still recommend it if you want a quality 3D platformer collectathon, but I was hoping for better.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review copy provided by Playtonic Games
