Once 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 having the ability to make the yo-yo go up and down. However with Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, I may fake like I used to be midway first rate — all whereas enjoying a foolish sport that seems like a religious successor to the Recreation Boy Advance titles I beloved rising up.
Pipistrello is a top-down journey sport, wherein 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 also be a freeloader who depends on monetary help from his rich aunt, an vitality 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 purpose is to get the batteries again and assist free her.
The sport is sort of charming. Pippit is a lovable doofus, and also you’ll even be tasked with ridiculous missions like rounding up individuals for a soccer fan membership so you will get simpler entry to a stadium run by a corrupt boss, who desires individuals to gamble. The pixel artwork is nice, too — it seems to be precisely like what I keep in mind from GBA video games, regardless that I performed Pipistrello on my Steam Deck OLED’s much more fashionable 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 fake 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’ll be able to 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 can aid you extra simply fend off baddies, discover town that the sport takes place in, and clear up puzzles. Lots of the strikes are primarily based 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 talent tree with a contract-based system. While you decide up a contract, it’s a must to work off a cash debt and cope with some type 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 preserve you from changing into overpowered too rapidly.
Not that it is best to actually fear about getting too robust, although. I discovered that Pipistrello was actually tough, particularly early on. Pipistrello has loads of fight, and enemies continuously 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.
Thankfully, 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 possibly can even nullify fall harm. As I performed, I continuously messed round with the choices to assist clean over some significantly tough sections.
I’ll admit that by the top of my almost 10-hour playthrough, I typically made myself invincible in order that I may 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 dying. 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 received’t really 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 out there now on Nintendo Change, PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.