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Main Characters
Yooka
Yooka the Chameleon
- Cartoony Eyes: His eyes do not have the conjoined eyelids real chameleons possess, plus they're fixed.
- Expy: Of Banjo.
- Extreme Omnivore: No matter what he eats, whether it be honey, cannonballs, or fire, he always finds it tasty.
- Extra-ore-dinary: He can eat cannonballs to give him metallic traits.
- Fartillery: One of his special abilities is to fart out a giant bubble underwater that encases himself and Laylee.
- Hollywood Chameleons: He'll be applying his colour-changing capabilities for stealth purposes.
- An Ice Person: Swallowing a special ice plant allows him to shoot ice balls.
- The Idealist: He seems more optimistic and hopeful than Laylee, although nowhere near as forceful as her brand of cynicism.
- Kind Hearted Simpleton: Possibly, considering his name is a pun off a word that means "small-brained person." Though his dialogue seems to suggest that if anything he's naive rather than stupid.
- Lovable Lizard: A kind and optimistic chameleon who is one of the two main protagonists.
- Lizard Folk: Unlike most depictions in popular media, he's the hero and a good guy. According to Playtonic's notes with his concept art, the main reason they made him a lizard over the original tiger design was that he looked less heroic and therefore easier to push as an underdog.
- Material Mimicry: His Slurp State allows Yooka to take on the properties of certain objects by licking them. For example, a beehive makes him sticky like honey, a cannonball makes him heavy, and a bonfire makes him warm.
- Making a Splash: Eating a water berry allows him to spew out water.
- Multipurpose Tongue: Uses it as a whip and grappling hook.
- Overly-Long Tongue: Comes with being a chameleon.
- Playing with Fire: Eating a Scorchberry gives him the ability to breathe fire.
- Punny Name: Other than the obvious one when combined with Laylee's name, Yooka's name is derived from uku (which means "small-brained person").
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: He's quite adorable, which is natural due to being a chameleon.
- Stock Animal Diet: Being a chameleon, he enjoys eating insects and gains health from butterflies.
Laylee
Laylee the Bat
- Bat Out of Hell: Played with. While she's definitely not portrayed as a monster, much of her visual design borrows from this trope's associated imagery, leading to her big ugly nose, exaggerated pointy bat ears, prominent fangs, and unnatural purple coloration. However, she also has big, goofy smile which is not creepy at all, and combined with her generally cheerful (if snarky) disposition and cute voice, thoroughly undermines anything that would otherwise be monstrous or creepy about her appearance.
- Deadpan Snarker: Much like Kazooie before her, Laylee takes up this role.
- Deuteragonist: Pretty much in the same ways as Kazooie before her.
- Expy: Of Kazooie.
- Gag Nose: Her big red nose kind of resembles the strange-shaped noses that many species of real bats have.
- Head Pet: What she is to Yooka.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Inspired by real bats' echolocation ability, she has sonic attacks.
- Punny Name: Other than the obvious one when combined with Yooka's name, Laylee's name is derived from lele (which can mean "to fly" or "to exit a vehicle")
- Pungeon Master: While a good chunk of the cast could be considered one, Laylee is the worst offender. If she's not being snarky, she's making groan-inducing puns.
- While she may enjoy making them, Laylee seemingly hates it when others drop groaners around her, she lights into them, such as a Pagie indulging in a blizzard of ice puns.
- Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Very much. In one teaser she mocks the development team by saying they're probably going to make it a game about cars by the end.
- Stock Animal Diet: Subverted. While most bats in fiction are the vampire kind, Laylee is instead a fruit bat (which is a lot more common type in real life). Though she mentions she also likes to eat insects, like most bat species in real life.
- Unnecessarily Large Vessel: In one of the teasers she's shown lounging on a huge towel— far bigger than Yooka's, in fact, which is barely big enough for his body.
Supporting Characters
Trowzer
Trowzer the Snake
- Disco Dan: He carries a 1980s mobile/cell phone, so he may be this. Though it might be a walkie-talkie, going with his explorer theme.
- Evil All Along: To an extent in Impossible Lair. In the first game he's simply selling moves and over charging you. By game two he's graduated to blackmail and extortion.
- Expy: He fulfills the same role as Bottles and Jamjars of Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, being the character who sells you new moves.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: A particularly ludicrous example— he's a snake wearing trousers designed for a human shape, so he bends his tail in a loop through both legs to wear them.
- Honest John's Dealership: Before the events of the game he apparently sold Yooka and Laylee a rather poor-quality TV set.
- Small Name, Big Ego: His career never really took off, but he thinks he's the bee's knees.
- Smug Snake: Quite literally, described by the developers as a "smug serpent salesman".
- Snakes Are Sinister: Averted. Snakes are usually portrayed as villains, but Trowzer is not one of them.
- Sssssnake Talk: He appears to speak like this.
- Visual Pun: A rather dirty one, befitting the developers' established sense of humor—he's a literal trouser snake.
Queen Phoebee
Queen Phoebee
- Affably Evil: Even when she outs herself as a member of V.I.L.E., she still remains very friendly to the main duo.
- Big Good: Of The Impossible Lair, serving as the ruler of the Royal Stingdom and leader of the Beetalion army. Subverted in that, while she's glad to help Yooka and Laylee, she herself is a member of V.I.L.E. like Capital B.
- Cain and Abel: The Abel to Capital B's Cain, when it's revealed they're sister and brother.
- Distaff Counterpart: Serves as one to Capital B., being a kind ruler and loved by her subjects.
The Ghost Writers
The Ghost Writers
- Defeat Means Friendship: The red Ghost Writers can't be collected unless they're bested in combat.
- Expy: Their role in the game is basically the same as the Jinjos from Banjo-Kazooie. However, unlike the Jinjos, who you simply had to touch to collect, the Ghost Writers will require a little more effort.
- Food as Bribe: The pink Ghost Writers will become collectible after you feed them.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: Being the living (un-living) collectibles of the game like the jinjos from Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka and Laylee will need to be grabbing the ghoulies.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: They all have strange ghoulish appearances.
- Precursors: They were the ones who wrote the book worlds of Yooka-Laylee into being.
- Punny Name: In this case, they're literal ghostwriters.
- Reality Warper: They created the worlds that make up the game's stages.
- Rhymes on a Dime: The one line they say in the Toybox implies that they will do this.
Rextro
Rextro Sixtyfourus
- Dumb Dinos: He's seemingly this given he speaks in broken grammar and constantly forgets who Yooka and Laylee are. But then it's revealed he managed to learn modern technology.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: The other characters pretty much view him as a fossil (without even factoring in the fact that he's a dinosaur) and are just as baffled by his familiar gaming conventions (memory cards, the reset button, cheat codes, etc) as he is with today's. He starts taking classes to improve his memory and catch up on modern gaming trends (though to Laylee's chagrin, the class really pushed the inclusion of microtransactions)
- Friendless Background: He had friends that he played multiplayer games with, but they all left to go play "on a line", so he plays single-player games to pass the time while he waits for them to come back. He's been waiting since 1997.
- Punny Name: A portmanteau of "retro," "sixty-four," and "Tyrannosaurus Rex".
- Retraux: He looks like he leaped right out of an N64 game. Just to drive the point home, he's covered in scan lines to make it look like he's being viewed on a CRT television. He also has an intentional over sized head which was common for dinosaurs and such on the N64 and PlayStation.
- T. Rexpy: He certainly resembles one. It's also in his name. He doesn't play the common stereotype, though.
Kartos
Kartos
- Animate Inanimate Object: He's a talking mine cart that moves around under his own power.
- Funetik Aksent: Speaks in a southern accent, using phrases like "y'all".
- Sentient Vehicle: He's a living mine cart.
- Shout-Out: Playtonic's notes on the characters concept art states that it's a 50/50 chance that he was either named after a gaming magazine making a typo when referring to the protagonist of God of War, or simply a case of them implementing the common "add -o" to the end of what it is" naming scheme. Either way, Laylee jokingly refers to him as the God of Ore.
- Weird Beard: Kartos has a moustache that appears to be made out of wood.
Dr. Quack
Dr. Quack
- Brain in a Jar: Falls somewhere in between this and Losing Your Head, being a disembodied duck head in a jar perched on a small, wheeled machine. Although his neck descends into the jar, it's unclear if any of the rest of his body remains, as some of his dialogue reveals he removed his limbs years ago.
- The Dragon: He serves Capital B. as his right-hand man. Even organizing his own quiz shows to slow down Yooka and Laylee's progress.
- Dragon with an Agenda: If you beat the game, it's revealed that he was assigned to monitor Capital B. and report back to the board of directors on the minutiae of his dealings.
- Expy: Of Klungo. He also brings the Professor to mind.
- Face–Heel Turn: He was not quite as bad before, but apparently Capital B's corporate takeover of his company left him a little loopy, helped along by his constant demands. Now, he's gone full Mad Scientist.
- Green and Mean: Quack is Capital B's second in command, and his feather color is primarily green.
- Hypocrite: If Yooka and Laylee give an incorrect answer to a question in one of Quacks quizzes, he'll condescendingly remind them that all the answers can be found on The Internet, but if the duo give a correct answer, he'll complain over the possibility that they looked up the answers on Yookapedia.
- Mad Scientist: He's the crazy genius responsible for building the various contraptions seen throughout the worlds, most notably having created the device that is being used to capture all the literature in the worlds.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Uses his knowledge of science to help with Capital B's evil schemes.
- Punny Name: His name might be a pun on quack doctors.
Dr. Puzz
Dr. Puzz
- Expy: Of Mumbo Jumbo from Banjo-Kazooie, being the character that handles the transformations. She also defected from the enemies' side to help the main duo, though unlike Grunty who was evil from the start, Dr. Quack wasn't as bad before Capital B. came into the picture.
- Funny Octopus: Dr. Puzz is an anthropomorphic octopus with several tentacles and a human-like head.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: According to the artbook, an accident with the D.N.Ray transformed her into her current half-human half-octopus form. It further says that it's unknown which was her original form.
- Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair later invokes this and clears up the question involving her original form. She's still trying to get rid of her silly human head and hopes to one day return to the sea.
- Mobile Fishbowl: Being an aquatic creature, she wears one on her head that resembles a space helmet. There's even an actual goldfish inside.
- Punny Name: Dr. Puzz... Doctor Puss... Octopus. Yeah.
Shovel Knight
Shovel Knight
- First Time Feeling: He's having a hard time getting used to this bizarre third dimension that doesn't exist in his own game.
- Special Guest: Hailing from his titular game.
- Shovel Strike: Wouldn't be the Blue Burrower without it.
- Wrong Turn at Albuquerque: According to his own words, he ended up in Yooka-Laylee's game because he embarked on adventure so great he ended up in the wrong game as a result.
Inept
A class of incompetents robots that serve as goonies to Capital B. One of them in particular is the host of the Toybox, and appears in the final game in Galleon Galaxy. For the boss I.N.E.P.T., see below.
- Mr. Exposition: One of them fullfills this role in the Toybox, being the giver of tutorials.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Unlike the other Inept robots, the one in the Toybox and Galleon Galaxy isn't trying to kill the duo.
- Robot Buddy: In the Toybox, at the very least.
- Take That!: Their name is Inept, and their head resembles an Xbox Kinect. Most likely a jab at how Rare was forced into developing Kinect games.
Boss Characters
Capital B.
Capital B.
Click here to see his Impossible Lair appearance.
The Big Bad of the game, a giant anthropomorphic bee. He runs a ruthless organization trying to take advantage of the Ghost Writers.
- Ambiguously Gay: An official piece of art depicts him and Dr. Quack on a date. In the game itself, he interprets Quack winking at him as Quack trying to flirt with him, and tells him that "I'm flattered, but once bitten..."
- Bee Afraid: He's an anthropomorphic bee and the Big Bad of Yooka-Laylee.
- Bee-Bee Gun: Or in this case, Bee Bee Grenade. In the final battle, Capital B. is able to lob beehives that explode on contact, sending an angry swarm towards the chameleon-bat duo.
- Boss Subtitles: "Crowdfunded Corporate Creep".
- Big Bad: He's the CEO running the whole evil scheme, after all.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Jagged, pointy and very large, to the point of resembling devil horns a little.
- Busman's Vocabulary: Capital B. loves his business-related puns and expressions.
- Cain and Abel: The Cain to Queen Phoebee's Abel, once the latter reveals she and Capital B are siblings and work under the same organization.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: In all of the promotional art of him so far, he always carries a wide smile of glee. His status as a corrupt CEO who has pulled a countless number of corporate takeovers in the past very likely over profit should tell you right away he is not Big Fun in the slightest.
- Chest of Medals: His outfit in The Impossible Lair features this in lieu of his business suit.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He is a cartoony caricature of this trope, much as Gruntilda was of the classic Wicked Witch. Instead of consisting entirely of rhyme, his dialogue consists of corporate-ese speak and related jokes.
- Evil Laugh: He occasionally does one, such as at the beginning of his battle in the first game.
- Evil Sounds Deep: His Voice Grunting has a deep, almost growly sound.
- Expy: In the overall scheme of Banjo-Kazooie parallels, he fills Gruntilda's role. His business-like demeanor is also reminscent of L.O.G. Additionally, elements of his visual appearance appear to be inspired by Gru and/or the Penguin. However,
Word of God confirms the latter two are not intentional and they wanted to avoid it. - The Generalissimo: Invoked in The Impossible Lair. Instead of his business suit from the first game, he now wears a militaristic suit with colorful medals and shoulder pads. He also forcefully takes over the Stingdom from Queen Phoebee and enslaves all the other bees.
- It's All About Me: His first appearance shows him unveiling a gigantic solid gold statue of himself in the company's lobby, then ordering the destruction of Dr. Quack's makeshift Vice President statue since he feels its presence ruins the majesty of his own statue.
- Large and in Charge: Literally. If this screenshot◊ is any indication, the largest of his minions only reach him to neck level at best.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: He wears what appears to be a combo of a fine business suit with the shoulder-pads and scepter you'd expect from a warlock. Either way, expensive, looks good, and clearly not the mark of a good man.
- Mythology Gag: His overly large, bloodshot right eye is an obvious homage to his fellow Rareware platformer villain, King K.Rool. The way he changes his outfit and shtick between games is likely inspired by K. Rool as well.
- Obviously Evil: If his pointy nose, large pointy eyebrows, obese physique and hunched posture, complete lack of a dental plan and name hasnt tipped you off already, he's the bad guy.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The "banker" at the casino stage. Yooka and Laylee are initially suspicious, but still fall for his lazy explanation of who he "really" was.
- Punny Name: Multilayered, at that. The B(ee) should be obvious, and Capital for both capitalization and the monetary sort of capital. Then there's the bit more "mature" pun...
- Scary Teeth: All jagged nonetheless, and he's a bee.
- Sinister Schnoz: An evil bee CEO with a pointed nose.
- Take That!:
- His entire character and the company he owns, Hivory Towers, is seemingly one towards Microsoft and its executives what with the hostile corporate takeovers and everything.
- The small Twitter ARG before his reveal makes it fairly more obvious for fans."Playtonic Games": Smart employees eliminated. Hard workers doubled-down. It's time to leverage the anti-profit marginalisation strategy...
The Great Rampo
- Boss Subtitles: Ancient Angular Stone Bloke.
- Breath Weapon: In case you manage to climb his ramp, Rampo will start breathing fire. He'll also Blow You Away if you start breaking his teeth.
- Cyclops: He has only one eye.
- Living Structure Monster: He's a sentient stone wall.
- Mistaken Identity: The reason you fight him is because he believes the main character duo are annoying salesmen who try to cheat them with their deal.
- Stationary Boss: He doesn't move from his spot at the top of his slope.
- The Tooth Hurts: To defeat him, the duo must break his teeth.
Brrreeze Blok
- An Ice Person: A giant ice block thing.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: He himself lampshades this.Brrreeze Blok: I knew that buying that 'Scorchberry' Bush would come back to haunt me!
- Boss Subtitles: Bookend in Burnie.
- I'm Melting!: At one point he says this when you attack him.Brrreeze Blok: Argh! Look what you've done! I'm melting!
- Kill It with Fire: To the surprise of absolutely no one, this is how he gets defeated.
- Punny Name: His first name is derived from "breeze" with Trrrilling Rrrs to make "brrr".
- Small Name, Big Ego: For a minor boss, he's really got a huge opinion on himself, considering freezing Burnie from inside his "reign of terror".
- Trrrilling Rrrs: His name features this.
Trev the Tenteycle
- Attack of the Monster Appendage: His body is never seen. Instead, only his giant tentacles and eye are visible.
- Berserk Button: The reason the duo are fighting him is because they made him miss his soap operas.
- Boss Subtitles: Upset Kraken.
- Brits Love Tea: A British-accented kraken who's very fond of his "brew" and also uses a Pagie he found as a tea cosy.
- Combat Tentacles: How he attacks. In fact, they're the only visible thing about him besides his giant eye.
- Disproportionate Retribution: For making him miss his soap operas and having the risk of it being spoiled on social media, Trev decides to squash the duo and use their remains to stir his brew.
- Eye Scream: Beating him will cause his main eye to fall off its socket.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: As his name states, he has eyes on tentacles.
- Go for the Eye: His weak points are his eyeballs, both on tentacles and the main one that occasionally peeks on the heroes.
- Kraken and Leviathan: He's a kraken, although what he's doing in the middle of a swamp is anyone's guess.
- Oop North: Speaks with strong British accent, notably greeting our heroes with an "Ey up".
- Punny Name: His last name is Tenteyecle and he has eyes on tentacles.
- Tentacled Terror: A giant tentacled monster (described as a Kraken) that attacks the player.
I.N.E.P.T.
- Blind Mistake: Happens twice. He sees in double, which resulted in him saying to Yooka, Laylee and Kartos that "You six are in huge trouble!". Later, he mistakes Yooka for "green badger" and Laylee for "his purple dragon" after defeat.
- Boss Subtitles: Sentient Short-Sighted Super-Computer.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In the final phase of the battle, he must be taken out with his own missiles.
- King Mook: A boss version of the Inept robots.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Fires missiles at the last phase. That fly from the front of Kartos and when jumped over fly straight into his face, damaging him.
- Minecart Madness: Fought while riding Kartos.
- Mondegreen Gag: His poor hearing makes him mishear statements said to him as insults. For example:Yooka: I think there's been a mistake... Maybe you should calm down and log off.I.N.E.P.T.: Bzzz... Bog off?! Nobody gives casino security that level of sass!Later, at the start of third phaseKartos: Give up, ya piece a' junk! Ah'm the track king!I.N.E.P.T.: My tracking's what?! A few missiles will teach you some manners!
- Shout-Out: His status as a short-sighted boss is one to a certain visually-impaired welding torch.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: Using missiles to kill your enemies is all fine and good, but when said enemies are right in front of you and the missiles try to hit them from the front, you might want to consider another attack.
- Take That!: He's a more vicious example of this than his lower brethren - he has poor vision (seeing double and thinking that Yooka and Laylee are a badger and a dragon, respectively), is responsible for destroying himself, and makes comments about his poor sensors and tracking.
Planette
- Anti-Villain: Of all bosses in this game, she is the most sympathetic, as the duo killed her husband.Planette: And they call you the 'heroes'!
- Big "NO!": Her first line, when she realizes the duo accidentally killed her "Moonie".
- Boss Subtitles: Intergalactic World Widow.
- Dishing Out Dirt: From craters of her facial side of her body, volcano on the top of her head and from her mouth, she can shoot asteroids.
- Genius Loci: She's an entire living planet.
- An Ice Person: She can shoot ice shots from her craters on ice side of her body.
- Logical Weakness: Her ice craters can only be destroyed by fire and her fire craters can only be destroyed with ice.
- No-Sell: If the player tries to attack her fire craters with flames and her ice craters with ice shots, she won't get hurt.
- Playing with Fire: She can fire jets of flame from her craters on volcanic side of her body.
- The Smurfette Principle: The only female boss in the game.
- Stationary Boss: She does rotate to use different attacks, but that's about it.
- Time Abyss: In one of her quotes, she says it took billion years to form all craters on her body, which suggests she has a very long lifespan. Justified, as she's a sentient planet.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: All she wanted was to avenge her husband who was killed by the duo...
