Yoku's Island Express

The result is an adventure that feels weirdly honest, even if you are playing as a beetle who delivers the mail. The world is exhilarating and beautiful, but it's also frightening and gross. It is, to borrow a phrase from David Chang, an Ugly Delicious kind of deal - and what a perfect way of summing up this magnificent and loveable oddity.

Yoku's Island Express is one of the most surprising games of 2018. The combination of pinball and Metroidvania is, on paper at least, a little like dipping your French fries into your milkshake; as good as the two elements are separately, they shouldn't really work together. But thanks to an array of smart design choices, a wonderful art style, and some genuinely inventive puzzles, Yoku's Island Express is a game that only rarely frustrates – and frequently delights.

The time spent with Yoku is a delight, however, and Villa Gorilla has succeeded in crafting a gem of a pinball machine. I played the game on Nintendo’s Switch, and the console’s portable mode is a perfect fit for intermittent flipping and bumping on the go.

It isn’t often that I find a game that takes me by surprise like this, making me smile and laugh as I roll around the island, but that is exactly what happened with this delightful title. From the charming opening movie to the wonderful title sequence, Yoku’s Island Express will use its adorable charms to pull you in and, unless you’re a heartless husk, you’ll fancy sticking around until the end credits too.

What faults we found in Yoku's Island Express are not nearly enough to stop us recommending it. Villa Gorilla's game is likely to prove fun for anyone who plays it, relaxing and enjoyable for the most part while also testing player skill just enough to keep things interesting. It might be a game more appealing to youngsters but grownups shouldn't be put off by the cute aesthetics; there is still plenty to get sunk into.

Yoku’s Island Express oozes charm and love from every pixel; it’s plain to see how much care Villa Gorilla, the game’s developer, has put into this. It’s a very simple idea, yet a very clever one. Two very distinct gameplay styles have come together perfectly to create something that anyone can enjoy. I challenge you to play Yoku’s Island Express without a smile on your face. Go on. I bet you can’t.

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!

Yoku’s Island Express has a lot of fantastic ideas. It plays with its pinball formula enough to keep what could’ve been repetitive endlessly new and engaging, and it wraps all that up in its beautiful and unexpectedly deep world. Unfortunately, every good idea is slightly undermined by its glaring lack of real challenge, turning its otherwise fantastic design into more of a chore than it really should have been.