Yoku’s Island Express

I'm mostly terrible at platformers (let alone metroidvanias), but make it into a pinball game and I have half a chance. Yoku's Island Express is cute, entertaining, charming and just generally utterly delightful. So creative and colourful, this is not the sort of thing I normally play but it has completely captured me.

Hello friends,
Welcome to my review of Yuku's Island Express. In this game, you play as a small dung beetle who takes over for a pterodactyl in delivering the mail for a island. The game itself is a mix between rpg elements and pinball mechanincs. The storyline is pretty straight and linear, but you can explore the island at your own leisure. You also get abilities or items that can help looking around the island. They can help you explore the island fully. Be aware that some collectibles in the game require a special trick that is not mentioned. This is the slug explosion trick. Basically, a explosion that propels your character over obsticles. Anyways, here is my PRO/CON list:
PROS:
- A fun game.
- Great artwork and a nice soundtrack. The artwork is similiar to raymon series.
- Lots of collectibles.
- Puzzles mixed with pinball action.
- Nice storyline.
CONS:
- Sometimes the pinball mechanics of the game are hard to use and hard to get used to.
- The fact that the "slug explosion" method is never mentioned in the game, so it is up to the player to discover how to use it. They should of at least explained a bit about it.
- I wish there was more of the game..it was fun. Maybe a sequel in the future?
I do recommend the game because it is quite fun. If you also like pinball games, this will also be fun for you. I think this game would be great for young children and hard core achievement hunters too. There are things in the game that both group of players will enjoy.

I couldn't believe those genres can be put together and succeeds!
Developed by Swedish indie studio Villa Gorilla, Yoku’s Island Express game is a metroidvania-style pinball adventure, in which you play the part of Yoku, an adorable little beetle. This mashup of genres succeeds despite being an uncommon combination, and seriously I hope they start a new franchise, because I want to play a lot more of this. The final result is a charming, delightful, and wonderfully satisfying experience.
Yoku arrives on Mokumana island, ready to start his new job as a postman. Sadly, things start falling apart pretty quick, as the island's god figures were attacked by something called the God Slayer. As a consequence, our cute beetle was tasked with bringing all the leaders together to health the last god alive. Yoku can walk along flat surfaces or gentle slopes, but unlike most platforming games, he can’t even jump. Instead, the flippers, launchers and bumpers widely present across the island are his main method of moving from one location to another. Moreover, late on the game, you gain new abilities like climb or swing that comes in handy.
This superb 2D world is filled with distinct areas (such as lush jungles, dark labyrinths, snow-covered mountains, underground caves or underwater temples) that are basically small pinball tables we need to beat to keep on our adventure. In parallel, the game-world is plenty of secrets, collectibles and side quests that it's worth to investigate, as they unlock new areas and rewards. The game also counts with Steam achivements. Most of them are fairly straightforward but occasionally you'll encounter frustrating collectibles that are almost impossible to grab unless you own insane skills. Probably this ridiculousness, is the only negative point on the game.
Moving onto the art-style, the background scenery is just as beautifully detailed as the foreground. Every environment of this large open-world island is perfectly accompanied by its sound design which gives everything a unique atmosphere. There are a wide range of NPCs on each area as well, each of them with their own dialogs and style.
All in all, here you are a simple but cute story to follow, alongside a great amount of side quests, hidden collectibles, and other distractions along the adventure. The mixture of genres are difficult to describe but good indeed, and flippers and bumpers make uncovering this wide island a ton of fun. You won't came across something similar for a while, so take this opportunity to play this unique and innovative game.

Most underrated game ever; I love this game so much.

TL;DR: Fun, fun, fun 10/10
I feel compelled to write this review because this game is a gem and I don't think enough people have played it. I would put it up there with the likes of Ori. The story isn't as emotionally driven, it's more fun and cartoony but in all other aspects I think it's just as good.
The game is perfect in nearly all aspects. Music is fantastic, the world is gorgeous, the story is fun, but where the game really shines is in it's game play and level design. It's a platformer/metroidvania/pinball game. It's fun and unique.
If you're bad at pinball like me, you might think this game is going frustrating and in a few parts of the game it is. BUT, even though it's sometimes frustrating and challenging because you can't seem to hit that 1 spot, the game still manages to feel fun, because there isn't really a way to die in the game. You just get to bounce yourself around the board till you manage to get it right, and it's rewarding when you do. The game also has a few boss fights and every single boss encounter is unique, well designed and really fun.
Really every single aspect of this game is fun. It does everything right that it sets out to do. It's a 10/10. Even the fast travel in the game is designed in a way makes it fun to use.

Sonic Spinball meets Ori and the Blind Forest
Got this game in a bundle, didn't expect much, but was pleasantly surprised. Yoku's Island Express is indeed a metroidvania, it features a large interconnected world and you gradually acquire new abilities to unlock more areas and gain access to a plethora of collectibles, there are also many NPC's and quests to do. BUT... it's also a pinball game. How does this even work? You play as a little beetle dude who pushes and rides a ball (like a scarab), you can walk but you can't jump, you use flippers and bumpers instead. It's a pretty neat idea and it works very well. Eventually you will unlock swimming, grappling etc, but the core gameplay loop will still revolve around carefully propelling your ball using flippers and bumpers which are placed everywhere in the world. I'm not too big into pinball games and it's been a while since I played one, so there was a bit of a learning curve at first, but the game is very forgiving. There's no fail state, you can't die, if you "lose the ball" (basically fall down and hit spikes) you will lose a tiny bit of currency which can be regained almost instantly. Still, the game features quite a few tricky puzzles and even boss fights but it never gets too crazy. The graphics are full HD hand-drawn art with some tasteful 3D seamlessly blended in. Think Ori but on a bright tropical island instead of a gloomy forest. The developers themselves say they took inspiration from Studio Ghibli's works.
I'd recommend playing on an Xbox/Playstation controller as the game makes heavy of analogue controls, both the stick for controlling Yoku's speed (which is used in place of tilting that you would do on a real pinball machine) and the triggers for controlling the force of flippers. Playing on the keyboard is possible but will be much less precise which might lead to some frustration.
The game will take you about 8-12 hours to clear, depending on how good you are at pinball games and whether you go for 100% completion.

A really fun and adorable pinball platformer game. This game would be a lot less annoying if you had the ability to jump and not just use the pinball functions, BUT it would take away most of the fun in this game. The soundtrack was also amazing and I could have listened to it forever. 100% recommend this game for everyone.