After I was a child, there was a second when it felt like everybody was obsessive about yo-yos. I by no means bought higher than simply with the ability to make the yo-yo go up and down. However with Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, I might faux like I used to be midway respectable — all whereas taking part in a foolish sport that looks like a religious successor to the Recreation Boy Advance titles I beloved rising up.
Pipistrello is a top-down journey sport, by which you utilize your yo-yo to assault enemies and traverse the world. You play as Pippit, a goofy bat who has desires of yo-yo excellence however can be a freeloader who depends on monetary assist from his rich aunt, an power magnate. Within the opening minutes of the sport, the aunt will get merged along with your yo-yo as 4 massive baddies steal her Mega Batteries, and your objective is to get the batteries again and assist free her.
Stroll the canine. Picture: Pocket Lure / PM Studios, Inc
The sport is sort of charming. Pippit is a lovable doofus, and also you’ll even be tasked with ridiculous missions like rounding up folks for a soccer fan membership so you will get simpler entry to a stadium run by a corrupt boss, who needs folks to gamble. The pixel artwork is nice, too — it appears to be like precisely like what I keep in mind from GBA video games, regardless that I performed Pipistrello on my Steam Deck OLED’s way more trendy display screen. (However if you wish to go full retro, there’s a mode that mimics the GBA’s look, and it even frames the sport on a faux handheld.)
Pocket Lure, the sport’s developer, makes Pippit’s yo-yo greater than only a toy. It’s additionally good for bashing enemies, in fact. However you possibly can even chuck the yo-yo off the string to hit enemies at vary or spin it round you to maintain them at bay. And as you progress, you’ll get extra yo-yo-themed strikes that may assist you extra simply fend off baddies, discover town that the sport takes place in, and clear up puzzles. Lots of the strikes are based mostly on precise yo-yo methods: the stroll the canine transfer, for instance, sends the yo-yo surging ahead, yanking Pippit alongside so he can cross our bodies of water.
The sport additionally has an excellent ability tree with a contract-based system. Whenever you choose up a contract, you need to work off a cash debt and take care of some sort of penalty till you pay again the contract in full, like dropping a coronary heart or some assault energy. The system forces you to be considerate about which contract to tackle and helps maintain you from changing into overpowered too rapidly.
This mode is nearly like taking part in on a GBA. Picture: Pocket Lure / PM Studios, Inc
Not that you must actually fear about getting too robust, although. I discovered that Pipistrello was actually troublesome, particularly early on. Pipistrello has numerous fight, and enemies incessantly overwhelmed me. There’s not an enormous penalty for dying — you simply lose some cash and may sort out the room once more — however some rooms have been nonetheless fairly powerful and took a number of tries to complete.
Fortuitously, Pipistrello has a really versatile issue system that allows you to tweak issues like your assault energy or what number of cash enemies drop. You may even nullify fall injury. As I performed, I incessantly messed round with the choices to assist easy over some notably tough sections.
I’ll admit that by the top of my practically 10-hour playthrough, I usually made myself invincible in order that I might extra rapidly see the remainder of the story, the puzzles, and the platforming. The fight rooms grew to become an excessive amount of of a time suck for me. However regardless that the enemies posed no hazard, I nonetheless had a blast yo-yoing them to loss of life. And I nonetheless had to determine puzzles alone, too, so it’s not like I made the sport a complete stroll within the park.
When you’re feeling nostalgic for the pixel graphics and blaring horns of GBA video games, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo scratches that itch — and has some intelligent new concepts, too. It gained’t truly make you higher at utilizing a yo-yo, nevertheless it’s fairly darn enjoyable to have one in a online game.
Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is on the market now on Nintendo Change, PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
