Yooka-Laylee — A Chameleon, A Bat, and A Bunch of Funny Noises

Would’ve been funnier if they were called “Mando” and “Leen”… Get it?

So I found myself in a pickle, as they say (if they still say it, I’m not sure what happens in 2022). I need to write an article, as per my usual daily requirements, but then I realise I have nothing to write about. I go to my EGS library filled with god-knows-how-many games, and for whatever reason, I choose the game that’s an obvious pun for a Hawaiian string instrument. The game is called Yooka-Laylee.

Yooka-Laylee is a game known by the majority as “Banjo Kazooie 2.0” because it was made by the same people (but not by the same studio), and the gameplay shows many similarities. I never played Banjo-Kazooie (not sure why, really). Still, if the gameplay between the two games is as similar as people say it is, then as a kid, I would probably play it, but not as an adult, as per the impression I’m getting from playing Yooka-Laylee.

The game tells the adventure of the eponymous Yooka and Laylee, who is a chameleon, and a purple bat, respectively. They were just lounging in the sun when their magic book or something got appropriated by the evil Capital B, a humanoid bee-mutant of sorts (it’s a weird game), by using his evil technology to vacuum all the books into his lair… or whatever it was. So Yooka and Laylee go around these magical worlds to find their precious book and stop Capital B from rewriting the universe in his image or something along that line. That’s more or less the premise of the game, and as for gameplay, it’s mostly just a platformer where you jump a lot and collect stuff, the classic formula. But that’s not important… Have you heard what the characters sound like?

Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

Arguably, the most notable feature in Yooka-Laylee is how the characters talk. You’ll have to forgive me, but there’s no proper way for me right now to describe just how nails-on-a-chalkboard uncomfortable it is to hear every character as though they are having a stroke, so here’s a video that exemplifies what happens in the game. Now, I know I don’t usually post videos in my articles, but I thought this was worth trying something new, and I might share more videos.

Anyways, as you can tell, the way the characters communicate with each other is either funny or annoying depending on what kind of person you are. As for me, I can’t quite say. I just know that at some point, I grew so amused with hearing all these random noises that I stopped paying attention to what the characters were saying. It was just weirdly amusing hearing whatever noises the characters made. If this were a language, it would be the most unintelligible language ever.

But these random sounds that come out of the characters’ mouths… might’ve worked when Banjo-Kazooie was relevant, and even then, it was a questionable design choice, but is it relevant now that these characters talk so weird?

I wonder how these characters would sound “normal”

Well, this is a design choice and as I already said, whether you like it or hate it depends on what kind of person you are (I have mixed feelings between “weirdly funny” and “repetitively annoying”). In all my articles, I have inspected a lot of design choices, and they all come down to just telling the developers what to do, which is unjust given that it is their project and no one should tell them what to do with it as I always say.

But if I’m already inspecting the subject, I suppose a good alternative would be to invent some kind of gibberish distinct from the game instead of talking in a literal Morse code (what they speak in the game). So now, you have some kind of speech that’s still weirdly unintelligible, but now it has a bit more distinction because it’s gibberish trying to impose as a fictional conlang. In a sense, you could say that it is an improvement.

Then again, the simplest solution (even though it’s not a problem) would be to have the character speak good ol’ plain English. If this were the case, most people wouldn’t have a reason to criticise the voices.

What’s your opinion on this “language”?

I know it’s not a language, but let’s say it is. Now, tell me what you think of it. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Do you have a better idea of what could be for Banj- uh, I mean Yooka-Laylee? Honestly, I can’t tell the difference between the two, even though I only played one… of them.

In Conclusion…

Yooka-Laylee is an ok game, but if it were for me, I would take the time to explore it better and see what more it has to offer. I understood that the game is replete with transformations, something that I have yet to see but probably will never see because I already dropped the game and moved on. If you want to get to the level where they transform into stuff, you’ll have to get there by yourself because I already dro… oh wait, I already said that.

As for the “voices”, I think it’s kinda funny, but it can get tedious after a while. Whatever works for the developers, I guess.

I am really tired right now, whether it’s evident by this article or not. I’m just glad I got to write about this because… It’s a quirky game. I can say that, at least.