We've seen a lot of games in recent years that were pretty much carbon copies of older games, that were well received by their communities, like Pillars of Eternity, and Starcraft 2.

I don't play PoE, but I'm curious as to why you'd call StarCraft II a carbon copy of Brood War.

For starters, the campaign of the game (over 50% of the players never even touched the multiplayer) changed things up dramatically. Many of of the StarCraft I and Brood War campaign missions were very similar, acting mostly like a traditional match with a few exceptions.

StarCraft II's campaign missions were all wildly different and introduces a lot of twists and new ideas to the formula. In terms of its gameplay, StarCraft II's campaign was not like its predecessor, it was a dramatic change.

The multiplayer changed less, introducing primarily modern RTS conventions (ability to select more than 12 units, ability to select more than 1 building, etc.), but they did have tons of fresh ideas during the unveil and after. Each new preview of the game demoed cool new features the game would be introducing.

StarCraft II changed a lot, and I'd say it's very wrong to say it's just a carbon copy of StarCraft I.

So far, Yooka-Laylee's presentation has been mediocre at best. In complete and total honesty, they haven't showed off anything new, and they haven't mentioned anything new. Yooka and Laylee might as well just be a change in artistic assets with how little they've changed from their predecessor.

Yes, a "carbon copy" of a game that dramatically improves on the original will be well-received. But I see no new ideas, nothing except for a promise that the developers know what they're doing.