Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo PS5 Review. In many ways, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is a total surprise. It sets out with the mission statement of being the “first Yoyovania,” and while I don’t think this is exactly achieved in this game, what it does achieve is being an utterly stellar adventure game in the vein of classic handheld greats.
Everything that Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo sets out to do, it does with panache, heart and a clear direction in mind that culminates in a game that adventure fans shouldn’t ever pass up. It’s something truly special and that only really set in partway through my time with the game, all the way to the end.
Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo Review (PS5) – Full of Charm, and Surprises
Tongue-In-Cheek All The Way
If there was one thing that surprises me about Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, it’s the surprisingly critical storyline of the mega-rich. I’m not about to get on my soapbox about it, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the game tackle such a subject in this kind of genre.
You play as Pippit, the aspirant entertainer who returns to his family’s estate to receive more money to fund his freewheeling lifestyle. He clearly doesn’t like being associated with them, but continues to for the sake of money. During one of these trips home, he witnesses his aunt – the leader of the entire organisation – be attacked and ends up infusing her into his yoyo.
From there, the quest is on to restore her to her corporeal form and take down the business owners who are using her soul to power their own businesses. It’s established very quickly that the Pipistrello family are the iron fist over this city and are viewed as tyrants, to some extent.
I won’t go into the details here, but I was massively impressed with how the game – despite first appearances – dives into the moral red tape around the Pipistrello organisation and the way that is impacts the town. It made for a massively compelling journey that properly sunk its hooks into me as I went through.
I wasn’t expecting this game to be the game to dissect the power imbalance in the current socioeconomic period, but here we are. And I’m so happy it does.
Yoyo Tricks to the Extreme
Taking the format of a top-down 2D adventure game, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo has clear inspirations and it wears those inspirations on its sleeve; anyone who has experience with the classic Zelda games will immediately feel a familiarity here.
That isn’t a bad thing by any means, this game understands what makes those classics tick and brings them to a new generation and brings new ideas in the process, namely the titular yoyo.
Every aspect of Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is designed around the wide variety of ways you can use it in each area you explore. Rather than relegating specific functions to a variety of items, the possessed yoyo essentially acts as a Swiss army knife in its functionality.
As well as being the core of the game’s combat, it serves exploration and mechanical functions outside of combat to make for an interesting cohesion that I enjoyed exploring. While the game opens with a modest selection of moves to work with, things very quickly start to burst to life and offer a wide variety of approaches that are each useful in their own situations.
The yoyo offers a versatile approach to gameplay that allows you to go in the direction you like for particular encounters, without punishing you for going one way or the other. The ability to bounce my yoyo off of angled walls in order to reach around corners was the first indication to me that the yoyo was far more than just a stand-in for the classic sword.
Each move has applications in various scenarios, and I found myself thinking on my feet pretty much all the time in order to make sure I got through an encounter without dying.
And you probably will die a lot. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo isn’t the hardest game I’ve ever played, but it certainly isn’t the easiest either. Enemies and the environment can be fairly threatening, and a small initial health bar means you’ll probably see the game over screen more than your fair share.
But with practice, you’ll steadily learn how the world works and the best ways to navigate challenges. Encouragingly, the game adopts a more modern approach to game overs and simply lets you restart at the beginning of any given room with a slap on the wrist and a small cost of money.
There was never any real pressure from long reruns of previous areas, and I’m thankful for that.
Unique Progression
Outside of your yoyo being your de facto item throughout the game, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo features an incredibly unique progression system that very much plays into the themes of the story.
Instead of a straight skill tree, you are free to unlock the next skill in a branch and actually reap the benefits straight away. The only side note is that you have to pay off the cost of the ability through exploration and combat. As a result, for each skill you unlock, you briefly have a debuff that will stay until you earn enough money to pay off the vendor.
It’s an intriguing system that I think has a lot of potential. Certain skills are very powerful but come with the stipulation of weaker attack power or reducing the amount of badges you can equip at any one time.
It’s a game of balance and this – at least in concept – sounds like an interesting twist on an overly familiar system. Unfortunately, I found the idea to be better on paper than it was in practice, riddled with frustration that the developers were clearly aware of but not prepared to compromise on.
You can’t pay for upgrades out of your own pocket; instead, pay it off with new coins that you find from defeating enemies. The game does attempt to waive this frustration and joke about how the vendor for upgrades is “germophobic” and only wants fresh money, but I was left rolling my eyes and wondering why I was being forced to slowly collect coins when I already had all of it in my pocket.
I suppose it’s good that the team are aware of this and are prepared to commit to their own design choices, but I do wish it weren’t such a frustrating caveat. Ultimately, it’s a small aspect of the larger game that I didn’t end up noticing too much. Money is a commodity, and it reflects nicely on the greed of the wealthy, I suppose.
This is supplemented by the badge system, which allows you to use a steadily growing catalogue of badges to further augment your combat and exploration abilities as you adventure. These were fun to discover and upgrade as another method of self-expression.
Get Exploring
Instead of tackling the traditional fantasy trappings associated with the genre, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo goes uniquely urban and grungy in its approach to level design and aesthetics. The pixel art is gorgeous and full of expression, from both characters to the world around you and I enjoyed spending time in each area.
The in-game map helpfully notes down any areas of interest that you can explore off the critical path and these often hide incremental upgrades to your health and money to help pay off some of the heavier upgrades.
Each one of these areas features a unique puzzle that pushes you to think creatively about how you use the yoyo to bounce it off of walls and into the right location. I was consistently surprised by how far they pushed these mechanics and found solving puzzles deeply satisfying.
You’ll come to learn the environment like the back of your hand and steadily unlock more of it as you go, but the game doesn’t ever really hold your hand. You’re free to explore as you please and go your own route about solving problems.
All Coming Together
After wrapping up Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, I had to wrestle myself not to immediately dive back in and see what I’d missed. Every part of this game comes together to make for an experience that took me by total surprise and emerged as one of my favourite indie games of the year so far.
Like I said before, inspirations are made abundantly clear, but that never gets in the way of a creative vision that is as bold as it is entertaining. Not a single idea feels wasted or rushed.
While I might not have gelled with the upgrade system as the game intended, this is a remarkably small blemish on a game that otherwise feels realised within its boundaries. If you’ve been craving a game to scratch that classic itch, this is the one for you.
Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is out today for PS5.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.