LogFAQs > #961124387

Yooka Laylee lacks level design. Like, some of the challenges and minigames are fun, but it's like, someone just made a big open space and just placed set-pieces at random. Compare Banjo-Kazooie's ice world to Yooka-Laylee's.

The "expand the stage" gimmick was a neat idea, but ultimately didn't add anything worthwhile imo. It probably would've been better to just take a more organic approach and gate off portions of the worlds by putting in obstacles you need later abilities to cross. From what I remember, the devs idea was that a new player might find the full size stages overwhelming, so this was a way to start off with something more manageable. But I think if you have that problem to begin with, that's a problem with the design and not the size.