Yoku's Island Express

• Genre: Pinball/Metoidvania
• Spoiler Free Review: Not much to spoiler, so yeah.
• Time Played: 11 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's good.
• Did I cry: Nah
• Soundtrack: It's fine for it's settings but nothing to really jam to.
• Why I played: A lot of "Metroidvania" and Pinball-video game spaces alike mention the game in a rather positive light. Definitely seemed interesting/different, and I like pinball as a mechanic.
• Jank: It's not too bad, but there were some points where things were stuck, not in a broken way, just in a... ugh this shouldn't happen way.
• Difficulty: Mostly it's not too difficult, but there are times when getting your ball exactly where you need it feels more difficult than it should be. You also get an ability later on that is very hard to control precisely, despite many challenges with it requiring very precise control.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Overall I'm pretty pleased, it was fun, and different, and inspired me to play some other pinball-video games.
• Recommend to others: It's an easy recommend for anyone that actually likes pinball plus the exploration aspect of exploratory action platformers, as the "action" is light unless you consider flipping flippers action, and the platforming is... well I mean the whole point is to get the ball onto different platforms in a sense, but it's not exactly the same kind of "platforming". There is no jump button, but obviously you "jump" via flippers and such.
  

Yoku's Island Express isn't necessarily the first attempt at a Pinball-esque adventure game, but it is one of only a few I can think of, and perhaps the only one fitting precisely into it's genre. It's pretty good. Besides a few sections that get a little frustrating for the ball not going exactly where you want, it pretty much meets all expectations. It helps you do have a little direct control over the ball as technically Yoku is a little beetle pushing the ball around. Though, most of the time the ball is yanking Yoku.

I would say I'm a little disappointed at the 100% completion ending(which I don't think you technically can get before the normal ending), as I mostly was there by the end of the game and went back in just to turn in that last bit. I guess it's just a cute little bonus, but for all the work for this whole other aspect of the game - throughout the whole game, I expected a bit more. Overall though, fun and pretty neat and different game.