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And.. again. Once more it’s the same only different, with a few tweaks (underwater physics) and new bosses, but otherwise – Dadish is finding his stupid kids again across tricky platforming worlds. And it’s just as good as it was before.
Almost everything I said about the first game applies here. It’s pretty much just new levels for the same game, with some added space physics for one of the worlds.
It’s clearly the same engine and same graphics, but if it ain’t broke, right?
I’d seen this game get gradually cheap and cheaper on the eShop but never bit, until two sequels came out and were bundled together and then reduced. Look, cheap things come to those who wait.
Dadish – a radish who is a dad, obviously – has to navigate a load of platforming challenges to save his many, many kids. You can jump, and double jump, and that’s it, but there are a good variety of levels and gimmicks with usual platform game features like spikes, springs and moving platforms.
There’s nothing outstanding here, but it is a solid, well made game with some really funny conversations between Dadish and both his kids and the characters you meet. Levels are tricky but never frustrating, and unlike the thousand other games on the eShop that are superficially similar, it nails the physics and collision detection which are essential to the genre but broken so often.
Now onto the sequel!
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.
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.
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.
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.
