Squinty wrote:Tried the impossible lair once more, made it to 49% completion. It's insane.
I now have 43 bees. Think I've done all the levels. I assume I'm missing a few secret exits.
This is similar to where I'm at. Also have 43 bees, have done all the levels (but only found a couple of secret exits and am missing plenty of twit coins), and after 3 attempts have only reached 43% completion of the impossible lair.
I've enjoyed the game. The overworld has been my highlight, especially in the various inventive ways of affecting the levels to unlock their alternate forms. The levels themselves have been entertaining, although I find it frustrating how the level design is all built around giving you a single shot at getting a secret. If I'm not far past a checkpoint, I'll deliberately kill myself for another shot. If I'm a way past, I'll just grumble at missing something and move on. I'm all for hidden challenges, but I want to be able to repeat them, not be forced back through half a level because I messed up one time.
The vials are a neat idea with their +/- quill multipliers, but in practice poorly implemented. Far too many are novelty filters, the kind you'd more expect to be hidden in a secrets menu, which makes finding them feel pretty unrewarding. Those that affect the quill multiplier are most often just unwieldy. The powerups sound useful, like running or swimming faster or getting a triple spin ability, but I don't equip them because I don't want to lower my multiplier. Those that raise the multiplier do so in mostly annoying ways. Who is honestly going to choose to play the game with the controls constantly reversed in order to get a 10% boost to quills? It's a bit rubbish really. I wish those were implemented a lot better, and I wish the powerups were actually just permanent moves you learnt throughout the game - it really lacks a sense of character progression in that sense.
My final, and biggest, criticism is of the Impossible Lair itself. I've played through all 40 of the game's levels, and now other than hoovering up collectibles I just have the final level to beat. I'm not going to do it. Despite the game not being easy, the difficulty still spikes, but worse is the complete lack of checkpoints. The lair is long and even after a couple of attempts I'm already frustrated at being forced to replay all of it. I don't mind the challenge so much as the lack of respect for my time - and I'm simply not going to waste any more of it.
It's a shame that both Yooka-Laylee games have been let down by their final boss, but that seems to be the case. It's a bit of a baffling design decision, really, to make the finale of the game so different in structure to everything that has come before it.
