Yoku's Island Express Reviews
Yoku’s Island Express is a beautiful combination of pinball and metroidvania. It doesn’t require you to be particularly skilled at either and lacks the challenge often associated with both of those genres. However, I thoroughly enjoyed bouncing Yoku and his dungball around Mokumana Island and the collectibles are rewarding enough to have me working towards 100% completion.
Yoku’s Island Express is a one-off, and it needs to be – its ingenuity is perfectly contained on its own hole, and well worth the broadening of your gaming experience.
In conclusion we must say to be very satisfied with this little indie labeled Villa Gorilla; Yoku's Island Express is really a nice game, colorful, fun and full of adventure. It offers an always exciting challenge and proposes a genre that is certainly different from the usual one that mixes a classic platform with pinball components and exploratory parts. In short, a varied title with excellent facets that will surely offer you a good chance for fun!
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All said, Yoku's Island Express is a breath of fresh and creative air on the Switch and just what this jaded gamer needed to get out of a pretty serious "more of the same" funk. As a life-long fan of pinball I'm thrilled with the result and enjoyed the many ways mechanical concepts from physical machines managed to get integrated into this adventure-style format. Even if you're more of a pinball novice, in general the controls are pretty friendly and approachable, you'll just need to develop a sense of timing and pay attention to certain patterns to determine what you'll need to do to progress. If you're down for something with boatloads of charm and heart mixed with a style of play you've likely never experienced before it is well worth picking up.
Yoku's Island Express surprised me from start to finish. It has taken the core pinball mechanics and blended it with a wonderful story, memorable characters, and natural progression system that you would see in a platforming game. The mechanics work exceptionally well, and it is a joy to play from start to finish. If you love pinball and want to see it in a refreshing way, then you owe it to yourself to check out Yoku's Island Express.
If there’s one type of game I never thought I’d be praising to the high heavens in 2018, it’s a 2D Metroidvania-esque puzzle pinball platformer featuring a Dung Beetle as its protagonist. Even those words written together make very little sense to me, and on paper Yoku’s Island Express should be an absolute trainwreck. Keeping as many genre balls the air as developer Villa Gorilla are doing here Yoku feels like somewhat of a herculean task, and yet here we are. Yoku’s Island Express is my favourite platformer of 2018 so far, and I’m not even sure it’s a platformer at all.
Yoku's Island Express is the best indie game of 2018 so far and an unmissable wholesome jaunt that manages to bind pinball gameplay with a gorgeous sun-soaked open world brimming with wholesome characters and secrets that will keep you paddling for hours on end.
A nice show of unique gameplay mechanics with the inclusion of boss battles that mixes both platforming and pinball action that never gets old as each and every area is unique and properly executed. A flurry of characters… oh sorry! I meant a ton of furry characters that looks great and side quests that is actually fun to do as you think your way out of sticky situations or just tap your way, every way, along the way!
The unique blend of metroidvania and pinball is done excellently and with a great aesthetic to match. The world is also full of secrets to find, but is victim to a number of boring fetch quests.
Yoku's Island Express is a great time, it's a charming and enjoyable for any audience.