5/5 ★ – Antvonio's review of Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.

Yooka-Laylee and the impossible lair is a 2D platformer developed by Playtonic Games, and by looking at the game you can tell that some of the folks that worked on it come directly from Rare, in particular the team behind the original Donkey Kong Country. Being the second installment of the series, you start just after the events of the first game, with the dynamic duo of Yooka the chameleon and Laylee the bat, who end up in the royal stingdom, where their old enemy Capital B is enslaving the population of bee soldiers with a mind-control device. After a brief tutorial you find yourself in the Impossible Lair, where you'll most likely die, due to being the final level of the game, a brutal non-stop challenge. After the defeat, queen Phoebe offers to help by opening the road to different magic books, the levels of the game, each one containing a bee soldier that will grant you an extra hit point in the impossible lair (tho you can access the level again whenever you want). The game offers some of the best platforming challenges out there, and despite being full of classic 90s tropes it feels right at home in the modern industry. The main focus is exploration, and it never gets tedious thanks to its charming characthers, super pretty visuals, detailed levels and a Zelda 1-style world map, all full of secrets to find, like coins to open more areas and tonics to customize the gameplay. The controls are tight and heavy just about right, so making mistakes shouldn't be a big deal. You only have 2 hit points, the first one being Laylee herself, who tries to run away when hit but can be grabbed again, and the second one being Yooka alone. He can tail-attack in front of him, roll, and grab/spit objects with his tounge, and when you have Laylee with you, you roll multiple times, you're able to bodyslam and can perform an air-spin to jump even further (or correct yourself in the air, since yooka is quite heavy). One thing that makes this game special is the ability to mess with the books in the hub world and change the environment inside every level. Special mention goes to the music, composed by David Wise and Grant Kirkhope, two amazing classic composers. In other words, this is a must-play for every 2D platformer fan.