4/5 ★ – DaysposableHero's review of Yoku's Island Express.

What do the “metroidvania” and pinball genres have in common? Well, nothing, really. Which is why it’s so surprisingly delightful to play Yoku’s Island Express. The environmental design is very clever, manifesting an island upon which you move about using pinball principles such as bounce pads, flippers, rails, and traps. As you complete pinball challenges in the environment, you unlock abilities which allow you to access more environmental pinball challenges, eventually giving you access to all the varied environments across Mokumana Island. You will need to visit each environment a few times, from the snow-covered peaks at the island’s highest point, all the way down to the subterranean sunken temple and glow-moth cave in order to complete your objectives on the island. Those objectives involve responding to a recent attack on the island’s legendary deity, and finding an enemy hiding among friends. You take on the role of Yoku, a dung beetle who has recently become the new postmaster of Mokumana island. You’re taking over from the previous postmaster, who is not at all interested in the excitement happening around the island and has decided to move on. Yoku soon learns that the excitement consists of an ancient evil who has attacked the island’s protector deity, and who is now hiding somewhere on the island, biding their time to finish the job. As the new postmaster, it is now up to you to get the word out to the island’s disparate chieftains, so that they can come together and perform the ritual that will save their god’s life, and that of the island itself. All the tasks necessary to complete your postal duties on the island require use of the island’s built-in pinball functions. As a dung beetle, you are tethered to your dung ball (don’t worry, it doesn’t exactly look like dung) for the duration – bouncing, flipping, and shooting through all the island’s very clever pinball puzzles. As you traverse the island delivering the mail, important messages, and lost packages, you will pick up various missions and requests from the island’s inhabitants. Some of these will relate directly to your overall objective, others are merely side tasks that present you an opportunity to find new and interesting regions and secret areas. Almost all of these regions have something fun and interesting to do, and most of them contain un ultimate “boss fight” type event, though the stakes are incredibly low. I’m not sure there even is a failure state in the game. When your dung ball inevitably gets past your flippers and down a drain, you simply lose a small amount of fruit (the game’s currency) and can re-shoot back into the field of play. The fruit is abundant and easy enough to collect that I was never in danger of running out, so I can’t say what might happen if you drain with an empty wallet. But that, to me, is one of the things that makes Yoku’s Island Express so much fun. You’re never really punished for not being good at the pinball. You just keep working on a particular puzzle until you get it, and that usually opens a new path or shortcut for you to take the next time you move through that area. That is not to say that there is nothing about the game that could be improved. The fast-travel system has frustratingly few on-boarding points. I found myself re-treading well worn areas a bit more than I would have liked. And the swinging ability/upgrade requires a level of precision which was surprising for how forgiving this game is in most other respects. Aside from those minor quibbles, I really enjoyed this game. It was, for the most part, a chill experience. Low stakes, cute characters, a simple story, and an interesting environment for exploration make Yoku’s Island Express a welcome surprise, and a fun genre mashup that I wouldn’t have guessed would work as well as it does