A must-play for any Donkey Kong Country fan, it has the same core gameplay mechanics and the same 2 legendary composer, David Wise and Grant Kirkhope! Every stage has its own unique song and even in 8-bit version, it made the experience very enjoyable. ❤️

I was not vibing with the game at first. The opening is not very good, and it doesn't give a good impression of the overall game. It doesn't start to get good until you get the ability to swap to alternate levels.
However, once you can swap to alternate levels and you get a good grip of the controls, it becomes a very good platformer.
I would say that it's basically a worse Yoshi's island, but being compared to one of the best is a compliment on its own.
The 3D overworld with the hidden things and puzzles all over is very enjoyable.
As far as the actual game goes, Yooka controls very smoothly, which is honestly needed since there are quite a few levels that have some very tight platforming.
The game allows you to skip entire segments if you are failing too much. I don't think that's good because the final level doesn't have a single checkpoint and you are given a single try to beat it. You also can't use tonics in it.
As a result, the amount of people who have beaten the final level is incredibly low compared to the people who have beaten every level aside from the final one just based on the Steam achievements.
With that said, the final level is a 25~30 minute GAUNTLET of tight platforming through it's entire run, that's why I don't think that allowing people to just skip the entire game is a good idea, it makes them rely too much on the checkpoints and skips. The final level being called the impossible lair is honestly very fitting. It's so ridiculously hard compared to everything else that it feels like a Kaizo level. Also, once you beat the final final boss at the end of this gauntlet of platforming, there is a self destruct sequence that gives you a 10~15 second margin of error to complete the escape. If you die here, you gotta repeat the whole level. I do wonder what made them go with this approach to the end of the game. Personally I enjoy it, but I can see how a lot of people would be VERY frustrated. Btw you can tackle this level at any moment. For all you care, you don't even have to do the first chapter of the game, you can go straight into the impossible lair.
Overall the game is rather short. You can beat every level in about 2~3 minutes. If you rush through the game I'm sure you can finish it in some 5 hours.
I went for the 100% with all collectibles, and it took me a little over 20 hours.

This is a tough one for me.
I can see the passion and care that went into creating a love letter to Donkey Kong Country..... but also i can see this is pretty much a copy paste clone of Donkey Kong and in doing that it exposes every single place this game is weaker and no way near as finely tuned and refined as the far superior Donkey Kong games.

I also made the massive mistake of picking this game up after just playing DK country returns HD on the Switch 2.

This game is such a direct copy of Donkey Kong in almost every way which means that it also exposes every thing it does wrong. The controls and momentum don't feel the same resulting in more frustration that satisfaction. The level design simply isn't as good. DK Country has so many moments that filled me with glee and excitement and Yooka-Laylee often feels forced and generic. The pace feels slower as well.

One major frustration with this game is the opening and how much dialogue you have to skip through. Every character is telling you what to do. Instead of pacing their game and gradually introducing features to the player or letting the player figure stuff out through game play and exploration the opening of the game has you talking to endless boring NPC characters over explaining every single feature of the game or menu. Its just frustrating and very tedious. It made me annoyed with the game before it had really started.

If you don't own a Nintendo device from the last 20 years then by all means this is a great alternative. You could even emulate DK country returns HD on Wii U and see what this game is trying (and failing) to achieve.

There is charm here and i understand what the developers were trying to do but i don't feel that they stuck the landing and believe they would have been better off creating something original instead of ripping off the exact same mechanics from Donkey Kong which only exposes the weaknesses instead of any strengths.