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Yoku’s Island Express: completed!

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I have been playing Yoku on and off for a couple of years, on both the Switch and the Xbox One, and while I have a great time while playing it it’s not something I have ever been urged to continue. Whenever I’ve turned a console on, something else has appealed more. Then, on a 13-hour flight to Malaysia, the friendly pinball icon shone brightly, and I played through the rest of the game.

Yoku is a pinball platform adventure game. There’s no jump button; instead you play as an ant who is pushing around a big white ball, which can be fired off pinball flippers and bumpers to get to new areas. Colleting fruit allows new flippers to be unlocked, and you frequently find defined arenas in which you must carry out specific tasks such as unlocking a new door, or knocking out bungs from water spouts, or closing hatches to allow mined materials to pass through. You must go back and forth across the world, talking to people and taking things to them, trying to discover about the enemy who has attacked the island’s gods.

The locations are varied and distinct, despite being on a single island.

Maybe it was this going back and forth which put me off the game a little; the traversal feels just a little slow, with Yoku ambling along and then various pinball routes feeling as if they just get in the way. There are some abilities that are unlocked, including the ability to diver under the water, and to grab hold of purple flowers and swing around them, and occasionally I would spend a significant time trying to get past a certain blockage not realising I needed another ability.

And yet, when I played it for a long period, particularly with few other distractions, it really clicked. Opening the beeline – a fast travel network around the island – helped, but more than anything it was familiarity with the locations and a memory of how to get through them quickly. I delivered some overdue parcels, I helped rescue a spiderling, I found lots of little wicker people (but not enough to make a giant egg hatch). And I played through the story, collecting up the elders of the island, and then helping with the ceremony to cure the massive god in the background. A big plot twist later, I defeated the final boss, and the credits rolled.

Yes, you can carry on playing after the credits …

There are a few things that remain outstanding – there was a large icicle above a lake which I couldn’t break (with someone nearby hinting I needed someone to help me), I’ve not filled up all mailboxes around the island yet. I might return to this on the Xbox and complete it there, with all the side quests as well. It was a lovely game.

Invincible Presents: Atom Eve (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Presumably to tie in with, or advertise, the Invincible series on Amazon Prime, this part turn based strategy, part visual novel was released for free by Amazon. And it’s pretty good!

It tells a similar story to the show, but mainly from the point of view of Atom Eve, with her run-ins with useless foe Killcannon as well as family drama and love life trauma.

The visual novel bits allow you to choose various responses in conversations, some of which are only possible if you’ve levelled up the skill tree in required ways. The fights are turn based and fun, with some forward planning required for many of them.

Definitely worth playing if you’re a fan of the source material.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Finally a Zelda game where you play as Zelda! Aside from HYRULE WARRIORS of course, but that isn’t exclusively you playing as Zelda. Yes, a game using what appears to be the same engine as the remake of Link’s Awakening did a few years ago, only this time you’re Zelda and you don’t really fight anything because you have a magic wand and can use it to summon items and creatures you have previously scanned with it. Yes – it’s The Legend of Zelda (Actually Zelda This Time): The Magic 3D Printer!

Except it isn’t all Zelda, is it. Because not only do you start the game playing as Link, but at any point you like you can turn into a sort of clone of Link for a limited time. Cop-out, innit. Luckily, the first bit as Link is only very short (he’s soon captured and you have to save him), and the Link Clone is used at your behest for the most part so can be (and was) ignored almost entirely. At least, until you find some of the bosses are only able to be damaged when you’re in Link form. Boo.

But, it doesn’t really matter too much. As with other non-Zelda-based Zelda games, it’s mainly about the puzzles and the cloning wand makes some of the traditional ones (such as “hit the switch from a distance” or “press these two buttons at the same time” take on a different dimension when you can throw bats about or drop a bed on stuff.

As it’s all in the graphical style of Link’s (Re)Awakening it all looks lovely too which that tilt shift-like thing going on and everything looking like a little toy in a giant diorama. It isn’t very difficult, especially once you discover that you the beds you generate can be used to nap in to regain hearts, but it is very lovely and enjoyable. The fact the overworld is pretty much all unlocked from the get-go is nice too, as you get the option of which order you complete the “dungeons” and can – with judicious use of various cloneables – climb onto and over pretty much everything so exploring is fun. And essential if you want all the extra hearts.

Perhaps not the best Zelda game, but certainly the best Zelda Zelda game and it’s fun to play and has lots of silly characters and quests to keep you entertained.

Monty on the Run (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Another Monty game. It’s very similar to the first one, really, but with the added feature that you have to collect five specific items en-route to the exit or you can’t escape.

I think I was lucky in that I found them automatically or accidentally, because I certainly remember when I’ve played this previously a very long time ago I must have missed some. It wouldn’t surprise me if backtracking to find them again was impossible too.

The jumping physics and general collision detection seems a bit improved over the first game, and graphically it’s a bit nicer too. There is a teddy that looks like you should pick it up but it kills you, which seems a bit unfair as there’s no warning. Bloody teddy bears.

Wanted: Monty Mole (Switch): COMPLETED!

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The Monty Mole games were always Too Hard. You only have to look at the random nature of the instant-death Crushers to see that. I sort of liked them at the time, but not enough to struggle through with not-my-fault deaths threatening to cut my play short – it was just too frustrating. Plus on the Spectrum I had a million other games I could play instead.

So, why I bought The Monty Mole Collection, a set of three Monty and one Monty-adjacent games on the eShop, I don’t know. Madness.

But! Save states! Sure, emulators have had these for a Very Long Time but it’s just easier to play things on the Switch these days, isn’t it? And with these save states I can work around the stupid randomness and relieve some of the other frustrations that are always part of pixel-perfect platformers with slightly wonky collision detection.

And so it came to pass that I played and completed Wanted: Monty Mole. Obviously it’s a simplistic, if not exactly simple, game these days but it was fine enough. There was a bit where you have to collect items to get past a certain screen and the items I needed did nothing. Not sure if that’s a bug or I did something wrong, but I ended up starting the game again, did exactly the same thing, and it worked. Haunted.

This wall should “open”. It didn’t.