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  1. Developer Playtonic's follow up to their throwback to 3D collectathons takes a step even further back, this time to side-scrolling platformers. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair draws clear inspiration from the Donkey Kong Country games on the SNES, but like the first Yooka-Laylee the game never feels derivative. A unique final level mechanic and two sides to every level gives The Impossible Lair enough character to stand out in the crowd of side-scrolling platformers on the Switch. In this game Yooka and Laylee are once again fighting against the nefarious Capital B, who has captured Queen Phoebee's Royal Beettalion Guard in order to control the Royal Stingdom. You'll need to rescue Beettalion Guards in each level in order to help you tackle the fiendishly difficult Impossible Lair where Capital B is hiding. Like the first game there is a clear love of puns at work here, which gives The Impossible Lair a classic sense of cartoony charm. The gameplay has a classic appeal as well thanks to traditional side-scrolling platformer mechanics. Yooka serves as the main character while Laylee provides support abilities—Yooka can run, jump, and roll into enemies to defeat them, and with Laylee's help Yooka can also twirl in the air for a little extra distance or ground pound through weak obstacles in the floor. The rolling mechanic in particular has a familiar Donkey Kong Country feel to it, especially when you're rolling off of a ledge to gain a bit more momentum so you can reach a distant cannon. What makes The Impossible Lair unique comes down to how hit points work. If you're hit while Yooka and Laylee are teamed up, Laylee will fly off of Yooka's head and flutter about in a panic, not unlike Baby Mario floating away when hit in Yoshi's Island. If you're able to grab Laylee before she flies off for good, you'll essentially "recover" your HP and, more importantly, retain the aforementioned abilities that Laylee provides—Yooka on his own feels comparatively weak. Trying to catch Laylee when she's flapping about is somewhat obnoxious but if you're good at it you basically have an unending ability to take damage and recover immediately (there are also Laylee bells scattered through each level that allow you to recover your bat friend). It certainly helps keep the action of the gameplay moving more than hunting down a mushroom or a handful of rings, and it doesn't make the game too easy since there are still plenty of ways to die and fall back to the last checkpoint. The main levels of the game are admittedly on the easy side of things though, which is what makes the titular final level, the Impossible Lair, so confounding. The bulk of the game is a pretty forgiving take on platformers with plenty of checkpoints and opportunities to skip levels if you're having trouble, but the final level is an unforgiving gauntlet of precise platforming challenges that quickly grows discouraging. The Impossible Lair throws you into various fast-paced platforming sequences as well as several boss fights against Capital B, all of which has to be completed in one run (dying sends you back to the very beginning). To mitigate the challenge somewhat you need to collect the Beettalion Guards from each level, each of whom acts as a hit point inside the Impossible Lair—instead of losing Laylee when hit you lose a guard, and you'll even lose a guard when falling into a pit instead of dying completely. So to be as well equipped as possible to handle the Impossible Lair, you'll want to rescue all 48 Beettalion Guards, though even with a full roster the final level can be maddeningly difficult. It's surprising to see such a jump in difficulty, especially one that can be so tedious since you'll need to trek through the early parts of the level again and again if you die near the end of the lair. Finally, the overworld actually plays a significant part in The Impossible Lair. Instead of merely a map to connect various levels, the overworld is kind of a level unto itself with various puzzles and challenges that you'll need to overcome in order to fully explore the map. Additionally, each level of the game actually has two paths, and to unlock the second path you'll need to solve some kind of puzzle in the overworld, such as flooding an area to turn a normal level into a water level, or literally turning the level upside down. The changes within the levels are significant, and figuring out how to trigger them in the overworld is a fun challenge that gives a lot more depth to the overworld than a typical platformer hub. Your play time with The Impossible Lair could vary wildly depending on how you play. Like Breath of the Wild you're actually able to jump straight to the final level immediately. It is, like the title suggests, a nearly impossible task to complete without the benefit of the Beettalion Guards, but the challenge is there if you want to test your skills. More likely you'll spend 10 to 12 hours completing every level to collect all Beettalions, and truly dedicated players will take the extra time to collect all coins and tonics in the game. Coins are needed to unlock gates in the overworld so you'll have to grab a percentage of them, but tonics are strictly for the benefit of augmenting the experience with buffs or new challenges. The inclusion of tonics is novel but the limited use of a vast majority of them makes collecting them a fairly underwhelming pursuit. Yooka-Laylee's colorful and cartoony art style translates well to the 2.5D setting of The Impossible Lair. There aren't many truly interesting visual designs in the game, but nor is there anything lackluster about them. Plus the game runs at a nice smooth frame rate, though the trade off seems to be some tediously long load times, especially when you first boot up the game. Still, a bit of waiting is far preferable to choppy graphics. The soundtrack meanwhile is undoubtedly a highlight of the game—not surprising with the likes of David Wise and Grant Kirkhope involved—and certainly does most of the heavy lifting to give The Impossible Lair a charming sense of personality. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair puts a unique hook on classic side-scrolling platformer gameplay, and even though that hook can be a little tedious thanks to a surprising spike in difficulty, the overall experience still captures the fun and charm of old-school platforming. A small set of abilities for Yooka and Laylee provides a wide variety of platformer challenges, all of which is buoyed by the addictive nature of exploring an in-depth overworld full of secrets to uncover. Even though it's such a change of pace from the first game, The Impossible Lair is a strong continuation of the Yooka-Laylee series. Rating: 7 out of 10 Beettalion Guards
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