N64 Love Letter ‘Yooka-Laylee’ Unveils Its Colorful Cast, Including A Surprising Cameo

Monday marks the Nintendo 64‘s 20th birthday, so what better time to roll out a new Yooka-Laylee trailer Developed by a group of ex-Rare employees, Yooka-Laylee is a love letter to classic N64 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. That means it’s full of big open stages, colorful graphics, a ton of collecting, and yes, all manner of goofy, googly-eyed characters.

The latest Yooka-Laylee trailer focuses on these characters, and they’re certainly a mixed lot of troublemakers. In addition to our lizard and bat protagonists, we have a pants-wearing snake named Trowzer, a disembodied duck head in a jar named Dr. Quack, a retro-game-loving dinosaur named Rextro, and the villainous insect Capital B. Now that there’s some quality ’90s wackiness! The game will also feature an unexpected cameo – Shovel Knight, star of the top notch retro platformer of the same name, will be making an appearance. It’s certainly interesting to see the big blue guy in 3D and speaking in Banjo-Kazooie-style gibberish (he’s totally silent in his own game). Honestly, I imagined him having a deeper voice.

Yooka-Laylee doesn’t have a specific release date nailed down yet, but it’s expected to deliver some potent N64 nostalgia in early 2017.