Once again, I feel the opposite on this. Couldn't every game ever be called a cash grab when their primary goal is to make money? Is creativity truly lost on recreating properties in a new fashion utilizing the same measures that created the original property so long ago? Is it that wrong or that terrible to cater to an audience that has been starved of content like this because of the constant AAA in your face open world spiral we have fallen down in the past couple of years? Yookalaylee is the most genuinely unique game to be coming out these recent months despite its familiarity to the property all of those devs worked on YEARS AGO.
In the past 3 months, we have had 3 huge RPG's come out almost back to back. Horizon, Zelda, and Mass Effect. Nioh wasn't far off that trail either. Huge sprawling action RPG's with open world elements and hour long time sinks all hoping to gobble up your money based on buzz words of freedom and blah blah blah.
What is wrong with Yookalaylee coming out as a streamlined 3d platformer that we never really see anymore? Is this desperation for revival, or giving people what they've been longing for that other companies, quite frankly, are never going to give them again?
Is it dead creativity, or revitalized creativity? They still made dozens of original characters, original music using real composers, and poured all of their resources and development into crafting a really pretty game. I just don't see it as a cash-grab. If i did, I could apply those words to every property that has ever come out in the past decade because it could apply in anyway that I spun it.
Because it's NOT creative. Yooka Laylee is literally the same Banjo Kazooie formula with a different coat of paint.
Want to know why Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild isn't just another open world game? It incorporates familiar Zelda gameplay and fuses it with open world gameplay concepts. Quests, flexible tools available at all times, This is what it means to BUILD upon what is already known. This is what makes the series so diverse.
Link Between Worlds. How is this different from other Zelda games? Tools are now available from the beginning. The world is fully available upon the start. The 2D Link feature allows the player to explore the world literally from a two-dimensional point of view. This was carried into Breath of the Wild and Nintendo was very pleased that fans were enjoying this type of gameplay.
Ocarina of Time. Well how is this different than other Zeldas? It's in fucking 3D. Already this poses new challenges for the player who has only experienced this series' puzzles from a 2D, birds-eye view. This introduces challenges where "gosh, maybe I need to look around a bit to find out how to proceed?".
Majora's Mask. We know about Ocarina Time already. Seems like it uses the same formula. Oh crap wait there's a time limit tied in with the gameplay and plot! Oh dang and we need to use Masks to unlock tools and whatnot.
It is through these explorations in innovation such as these that game series continue to thrive and stand on their own. The series entires are identifiable because it continues to return old concepts and still introduce new ideas. Players engage in new and familiar gameplay.
So what does Yooka Laylee do different? Well you are a lizard and a bat.
The main point being, how does this adjustment contribute to overall gameplay?
It is in this Yooka Laylee falls flat. The game is relying on you constantly comparing it to Banjo Kazooie. It just wants to
be Banjo Kazooie and nothing else. Not a new Banjo Kazooie, which unique new gameplay innovations, oh no Microsoft already tried that. Just the old ones in a new coat of paint.
Final Fantasy is not a 2D turn-based RPG anymore. The series is incredibly diverse in it's gameplay and Square-Enix builds upon their old concepts with each entry. This is what Banjo Kazooie
needs.
This idea that Banjo Kazooie is this stationary type of collecting gameplay is what is truly killing the franchise.
Source (Gameindustry.biz)
