Because people were desperate for another Megaman game. They weren't putting in their money because they thought carefully about what the project entailed or who was doing what or anything like that. It was simply "Hey, give us some money and we'll make a Megaman game" and people were like, <derp voice> "OK".

It's the same reason that a game like Descent Underground got funded. It is a real Descent game? No. It's not even made by any of the same developers. It was a different game completely and they simply bought the license to use the Descent name, changed a few things and then went to the desperate Descent fans and said, "Give us money and we'll make you a Descent game". No, fuck that, but clearly people were thirsty enough for it that they got the game funded.

It's simply taking advantage of people's emotional and nostalgic attachment to certain loved franchises. Which is ok if you've actually got a promising project on your hands with talented developers, good management and a realistic goal timeline. But some projects just scream "WARNING. WARNING" so obviously and still people persist in throwing their money at the project because of desperation.

Yooka Laylee seems like it's turning out pretty decent so far. It's not necessarily my favorite genre and I still feel a lot of the level art looks pulled from stock game engine assets(not saying it is, it's just generic), but I can see the promise in it.