Yoku’s Island Express

This is a pretty good bug-themed pinball adventure/metroidvania. It's extremely polished and generally very fun to play. Lots of secrets to find, items to collect, and areas to explore. The pinball physics aren't perfect, but the game is designed very well around them. My main complaint is that as you explore the world, backtracking can become increasingly tedious. There is a limited fast-travel system, but I would have liked to see a more fast-paced "pinball-y" way to quickly move around the map on a larger scale. This slow backtracking distracts from a gameplay experience that is otherwise pretty dense and fast-paced.
Overall, Yoku's Island Express is a great looking and feeling game with a lot to see and do. A very interesting take on the metroidvania genre.

The combination of pinball and metroidvania gameplay is enough to make it stand out but the lush, vibrant visuals and overall relaxed tone of the entire experience truly make this game one of one. The visuals and the atmosphere combine to bring a cozy charm that's rare for any game or piece of entertainment in general to capture. If you want a "chill" game that isn't a sim or involves farming this is an easy recommendation.

Yoku's Island Express is a delightful mix of pinball and platforming in a beautifully crafted world. Its charming art style and unique gameplay mechanics make exploration fun and refreshing. Although the game is short, it’s a creative experience that stands out for its originality and charm.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

This game is some real comfort food especially if you love the hybrid open exploration and pinball fused together. 100% worth to be in your library.

I want to update my review. I dont think i gave it proper positive review that it deserves and I dont think I explained my slight issues with the game.
This game is freakin awesome. Its a mix of sonic spinball and ori and the blind forest. The aesthetic is great. Very colorful and bright, but also gloomy and dark when it needs to be. The world is huge which is so impressive for such a small indie game. The story is pretty good, not perfect, but still jams in enough heart to make you feel sad at times and happy at others.
The basic mechanics are pretty interesting and fun as you move through the world pushing a marble. No jumping just using pinball bumpers and paddles to get up in the air and traverse quickly. There are some great unlocked abilities that add to the movement in interesting ways. One of the more fun things is moving through the world and seeing little secrets and wondering how you get access to them. And then you unlock a new skill and you want to run through the map trying to figure out everything you missed and you went through the first time. And the game makes you feel clever when you solve a puzzle without assistance. Its a great game. I spent about 13 hours in it, sometime it was one without me playing others was just me exploring around trying to access stuff I could not yet.
Now I am going to point out somethings I didn't love about the game. Not because they are bad, but I think if they were tweaked a bit I would have loved the game a bit more. These are not really negatives as much as slight challenges or frustrations I had. Honestly though this game is worth the play through. Its not too long and its not too hard. Don't let the next few paragraphs detract from the fact that this game is freakin awesome and I highly recommend it.
I felt like some of the mechanics lead to punishment by tedium. For example the slugs. Once you are able to suck up the slugs you are able to move in interesting ways. Some of the puzzles have blocks that can be blown up by slugs and you have to hit them. The thing that becomes tedious is when you have to grab a slug and hit a specific area in the pinball area. Its not bad at first, after the 10th time of grabbing the slug and missing the hole you want to snap your controller. I know this is ultimately a skill issue, but damn it would have been nice to not have a timer and just have the button to blow it up. There are parts of the map that this would have saved me some sanity as well.
I would say the same thing about the grappling hook. I really wish I could deploy when I wanted to or at minimum re-grab if you miss your target. I was lucky that I was able to scale the big tower up top on one pass, but going back up I just kept missing it and it broke my brain. I saw a video when trying to figure out a puzzle I wasn't getting where the user seemed to be able to re-grab pretty freely, for me it felt like i would miss, I would be close and it would not grab.
Ok so this is a weird issue but honestly my biggest complaint. I mentioned how big the map is, well as you get near the end traversing the map is tedious... plain and simple. You are down in the caverns or in the upper mountain and want to get all the way over to the starting point. Better hope you are near a beeline, if not you are traveling quite a bit of way and might have to use the map to make sure you are not going the wrong direction. I think this is fixed in two ways. 1. Fast travel. Similar to assassins creed when you do a specific thing you unlock a fast track portal. The purpose is to get to a section that you already unlocked with ease. 2. Chapterize the map. You make the green level, the ice level, the depths, the dungeon, the workshop, and the center is the tree god. Perfect now you can also track better what you missed and how to complete that area. I think this is something you could add a the end of the game if you want to make sure people experience the entire world. If you find a way to make traversing better from all parts of the map, not just by the mail area you make this game 10x better for me. I would almost for sure 100% as I wouldnt have to travel to an area and then spend another 5 minutes going to the other end. For me this was the biggest frustration. God It almost killed the end game for me.
Outside of those small complaints a few more I am not mentioning this game would be perfect. Like I said I highly recommmend still. Its a solid indie and I hope they make a second. Because of the price I am thinking about buying it for a few friends.

game is really good
for kids and for adults
im ashamed i bought it on promo
but looks like these guys aren't gonna make more games :C
~10h for 100%
game doesn't waste time
sometimes frustrating, but never too much
great ost
great level design
honestly cant find anything to complain about

This game is adorable and I'm terrible at navigating through it, but I'm still having a great time playing. That being said, I won't be 100%-ing it. It requires a level of precision and timing that I just don't have the patience for, particularly with the explosive slugs. After I finished the main story, I wandered a bit, but the things I had to find and collect didn't really have any helpful cues to getting them and repeatedly trying to get the right angle to hop up and get a key is not my idea of a fun time.