I used not to be picky about the games I replay, but I have starting to become so more and more over the years. As I said before, I am now only replaying games I basically have no accurate recollection of.

Yoshi's Story was a game I also adored as a kid, and kinda still adore now, even if I see its flaws. I guess, most people expected a proper sequel to Yoshi's Island or a brand new 3D Yoshi game. I had none of those expectations and I also had not played Yoshi's Island at the time... so for me, it was just a fun (if terribly easy) Yoshi game.

Fun, I actually installed Yooka-Laylee the other day. I want to try to play it this year. Lets see if I succeed.

My thoughts on the two Banjo games I played recently are not too dissimilar from yours.

Grunty's Revenge is serviceable. You have some obvious drawbacks that the devs could have avoided, but didn't. I do not mind 3D simulation with a isometric camera view in most cases, I played entire strategy games like that (Age of Empires above all), but as a developer you have to be aware that you have to build the levels in a way that a player can understand. I think some levels are not built with that in mind. Having to second guess jumps in a platform game is a clear indication that some game designer did not do their job properly. If my avatar's life depends on the jump, I want to make sure that if I do not nail the jump, it is my skill's fault, and not the camera angle's.
That said, the mini-games were repetitive, the cast was meh, the levels were quite cool, the music had ups and downs and the whole thing was short, but with decent pacing, so that was fine. Still somewhat disappointing. I did not play the DKL trilogy, so I cannot directly compare, but I get the comparison nonetheless. I think I can agree.

Nuts and Bolts is a different story. I think what they wanted to do could have been great. But it should not have been a BK game and they should have thought about their controls and vehicles a bit more. The vehicle builder is very powerful and actually quite cool, I only came to appreciate it towards the end of the game. But... why did they decide, no custom vehicles were allowed in the hub world? And why did they make the controls of the default vehicle so bad? And why was the level design of all other levels except the first so... thoughtless? I actually like the visuals as a whole, and the soundtrack is great, but Nuts and Bolts suffers from.... insecurities. And bad level design...

God, yeah, you're not wrong about the writing from Pontac and Graff. I'm about to revisit Sonic Lost World as I'm doing a thing where I'm revisiting the Sonic games from the post-Unleashed, pre-Frontiers era, DS and 3DS versions included. Expectations are rock bottom given my previous experiences with the game, but I'm still willing to give it another chance like I am everything else (sans the 3DS version of Lost World because GOD IT IS A MESS). I'm pleased I can say I finally found the means to appreciate Colors' home console release, I'm hoping I can continue to enjoy the DS release of it and the home console/PC release of Generations, too.

I actually got inspired to do this because I booted up Forces again recently, and while I did recall having some nitpicks with the game, I did still generally enjoy the Avatar and Wispons, the latter half of Modern Sonic's stages (Network Terminal especially), and the non-Classic Sonic bosses. After playing Frontiers, though, with its improved control and game feel, that almost hits as closely as the Adventure-era control, MAN did Forces feel stiff as heck to control, regardless of the character I chose. It's led to me wondering how much of that particular era actually holds up. Keeping my fingers crossed I'm still able to come out of this positively.

Considering all the Frogger sequels Konami has made over the decades, I'm confident they've accidentally made one or two good ones. Unfortunately, Hyper Arcade Edition isn't one of them. [Link]

I'm with you on that! Fortunately, the recent sale has dropped it down to about $12 and I can say the game, while not perfect, is much better and more stable than at launch. It's faster to load, runs at 60 FPS, and feels better than I remembered! The Jade Ghost Wisp is also less shoehorned in than I expected and adds new sections of level design, both to increase replay value, and skip over some parts of slower-paced levels. I think I'd rank it an 8/10. Most of my complaints were either nitpicks, like sound effects not consistently playing for some things or Starlight Carnival's color palette looking duller than it used to.

The only major complaints I have with Colors Ultimate partially stem from issues I had with the original release not being fixed, such as the Double Jump and Homing Attack being on the same button, which led to some collectibles being a pain. The Homing Attack ALWAYS takes priority over the Double Jump, which gets frustrating at times, and I was really hoping there would be an option to separate the two, but no such luck. The other issue I have is that they didn't fix the audio issue from the base game with Eggman's PA Announcements. Despite Colors having my least favorite Sonic script (until we got Lost World), the PA Announcements were the one thing I could always count on for a good laugh, but they're just as hard to hear as they were before.

Honestly, for the price it's at now, I think it's a worthwhile experience. I think enough has been improved that I'm willing to stick with this over the original release, though I admit I don't have much attachment to the game prior to my recent playthrough, which I had a shockingly good time with! I think Colors holds up better than I remembered. It's not clearing any of my favorites, but it's still fun!