Developer: Villa Gorilla
Publisher: Team 17 Digital Ltd
RRP: £15.99 (Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam)
Released: 29th May 2018
Available on: Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam
Played Using: An Xbox 360 Control Pad
Approximate game length: 18 Hours
I have to say I’ve had smoother first days on the job, first the previous Postmaster quits without really telling me what my duties are and then it turns out he hasn’t actually been delivering the mail for years and its super backed up! All of this and it turns out the island is dying because the God Slayer has returned, and apparently its the Postmasters job to handle that!
You play as Yoku a bug who has been assigned as the new Postmaster for the island of Mokumana. A beautiful island with a varied range of biomes for you to roll, bounce and ping off of… oh did I not mention? Yoku’s Island Express is a strange cross of a pinball machine and a metroidvania, and what’s interesting is that that specific mix actually works. The story is silly, but then you are playing a dung beetle who is tethered to a ball that acts as Postmaster for an entire island. When you set the silliness to that level having a God Slayer threaten to destroy an island is totally reasonable.
In a way this game falls under the ‘casual’ label because there is no actual failure state. But once you play a few minutes of this game you quickly realise that there not being a failure state doesn’t make this game any less
challenging. That isn’t to say that if you fall between the paddles there isn’t a penalty to be paid, sometimes its the loss of some fruit others its time because you fell quite far and now have to work your way back up.
As you traverse the world, bouncing here and there you’ll collect fruit (that for some reason is in bubbles) which you use to unlock extra paddles scattered throughout the level as well as a few items some NPC’s have.
The art style of this game is very cute, lots of soft colours that blend well together. I never thought I’d call a pinball game cute.
Each zone that you go into has its own zone (and colour pallet) and I have to say I loved each one, with exception of the boss battles they’re all very chilled out and fit the tone of the area well. Ranging from some light drumming through to blues.
You can complete the main story rather quickly, of course to do that you would be ignoring most of the side missions which are honestly the most entertaining and challenging parts. I found this game to be very compelling, I kept wanting to push on with it until I had reached 100%, sadly I had to quit at 96% so I could move on to another game.
The way this game got me to keep coming back even after I completed the main quest I have to give this a big thumbs up. Not once, did I find myself actually angry at the game, which is what I expected. It’s all a very calm experience set to some wonderful soundscapes and backgrounds.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Hollow Knight
Sundered
