The Game Pass Metroidvania train keeps on a'chuggin' as I finish yet another. Yoku's Island Express is what would happen if someone took Sonic Spinball and made it a Metroidvania with a charming, light tropical island theme. It is, as strange enough as it is to say it, a pinball take on the Metroidvania genre, and it actually pulls it off pretty damn well! I did 95% of the stuff in the game, apparently (the last couple achievements were so time consuming I didn't bother) and it took me probably around 12-ish hours (the game has no playtime counter, so far as I can tell, and the Xbone itself won't tell me either).

You play as Yoku, the new postmaster on the island of Mokumana. Though a dung beetle, Yoku rolls around a white ball of rock to get from place to place, and that is your pinball. In places that aren't too steep, you can use left and right to roll around, but otherwise you're usually using the left and right triggers to activate yellow and blue bumpers all over the world to get you from point A to point B. You get new powers as you go through the game, as fits the genre, such as a noisemaker to toggle things in the environment, wallet upgrades to allow you to hold more fruit (basically coins that are also a kind of points that you earn as you play that unlock stuff in the game), the ability to swim, but the overall mechanic of pinball doesn't change much outside of the occasional spot to grapple hook.

There generally two kinds of areas in the game's fairly large contiguous map. You have more corridor-like areas where you're doing more simple bumper-based platforming to get from place to place, and then you have what are effectively mini-pinball tables to get through to get to the next area (often after doing some kind of thing within the table). Those tables are fun, but can often be frustrating with the very precise angle you need to hit. This is mitigated a bit by the bumpers themselves glowing where you touch them, so there's a clear visual cue for your position and therefore the spot you should be aiming to hit once you've done it correctly, but it's still so tricky that it's never really a solved problem (if you view it as a problem in the first place). Those tables also make it a real pain in the ass to re-navigate through them though. Navigating to a specific spot on the island can be a real chore due to the lack of save points and somewhat limited fast-travel system, but the very good overworld map helps mitigate that.

The writing is simple, but the humor is charming and not overtly in your face. The presentation overall is very laid back and pleasant. The music is very good, especially the main theme is one I can't stop humming to myself X3. The world is also awash in color and style. The 5 or so areas of the island have their own look to them, and the pretty, painted-looking style to the world makes everywhere very pretty. Put that on top of how there's never any kind of failure state beyond having to redo a little bit of pinball or re-collect a bit of the already super abundant money-fruit, and this makes for a very laid back Metroidvania experience (outside of getting frustrated at pinball, anyhow XD).

Verdict: Recommended. The frustration on the precision of the bumper hits and how long it can take to get around the island keeps this from being higher recommended, but I still had a fun time with this. It took me a time or two booting it up to really get into it, but once I did I was hooked and had a great time with it. It's certainly not for everyone, even people who consider themselves fans of Metroidvanias, but if the concept of a pinball Metroidvania sounds like something that'd be up your alley, then Yoku's Island Express is probably something you'll enjoy ^w^

I bought the game in a bundle of smaller games when I got myself the SteamDeck.
The game is just perfect for it. You can always jump into the game quickly and complete a few smaller sections. It's very charming and cozy. The game mechanic with its mix of Pinball and Metroidvania is a great idea, even if it's not fully exploited. I'd be happy to play a similar game in the future that delves a little deeper into this genre mix. For example, it would have been great if the Pinball areas weren't so separate and if the mechanic was also used more as a tool to get around the map instead of walking from stage to stage.
Overall, it's a small delight, nothing too special, but it's just fun to play.

I never thought I would play a metroidvania pinball game—yet here I am. Yoku’s Island Express, from the now disbanded two-man team Villa Gorilla, is so much fun. The game is charming, boasting a gorgeous aesthetic similar to the Ori series, but with the vibes of Delfino Island.

You play as Yoku, a tiny dung beetle tethered to and constantly pushing around the eponymous ball in this pinball adventure. When you arrive on the island, the former postmaster corners and tasks you with delivering mail to the islands' quirky residents in his stead. You scurry off to do the lazy pterodactyl’s bidding, traversing a beautifully realized 2D world using the left and right triggers to activate pinball flippers and navigate between platforms. It’s a lot of fun to explore, discovering secret areas, picking up collectibles, opening treasure chests, and completing quests for the local denizens. There are also dedicated pinball playfields which must be completed to unlock new areas and occasionally boss monsters to defeat in order to progress the story.

That story is fairly light, the deity of the island has been injured and it's up to you to gather the local chieftains so they can perform a healing ritual. It's very low stakes, Yoku can't take damage and the only fail states in the game are losing a bit of collectable fruit (i.e., money) or sending you back to the plunger in typical pinball style. That said, I appreciated the chill atmosphere and gameplay; it would have been frustrating to constantly hit a "game over" screen thanks to my abysmal pinball skills.

In terms of critiques, I experienced some minor graphical issues and terrain clipping—at one point I got stuck in a wall, forcing me to reset to the last checkpoint. Also, the controls do not seem to take pressure sensitivity into account, so you cannot lightly tap Yoku's ball with a flipper, which is a bit disappointing. As a result, I ended up having to brute force some of the more challenging pinball segments.

However, these minor issues did not detract from my overall enjoyment of Yoku’s Island Express. I've really come to appreciate small, but lovingly crafted games that can finished in a single weekend!

Sights & Sounds
- It's a bright and colorful game. The visuals almost always trends towards cute and cheery
- The music follows suit. Most of the songs are fun and tropical sounding
- Although the sound design for the game is above average overall, I just wish the pinball sounds had a little more punch

Story & Vibes
- You're a little bug who rolls around a ball that for some reason has become the new mail carrier on a tropical island. Some nonsense involving the island's god getting attacked by the big bad goes down, and it's the mail carrier's responsibility to fix that for some reason
- It's really not a story-focused game. It's mostly just set-dressing for the novel gameplay

Playability & Replayability
- There's really not much out there like this. I suppose some people may want to compare it to Sonic Spinball, but this is pretty different. The entire map is interconnected, and you unlock new areas using pinball mechanics to progress
- That's the long and short of it. There's plenty of familiar table concepts like bumpers and flippers, but the game adds enough twists to the formula to keep things interesting
- My only complaint is the reuse of the "break crystals to unlock new path" concept. I would have appreciated just a little more variety for making new paths within the table sections
- The map is fairly huge and easy to get lost in, particularly if you fall from a great height. It can feel pretty discouraging to lose a bunch of progress if you haven't unlocked fast travel to where you're heading

Overall Impressions & Performance
- It ran perfectly on the Steam Deck. The camera largely did a good job zooming in on the action, but there were a few times that would have benefitted from a larger screen
- There's so much extra content, but I didn't feel motivated to continue. I felt like 4-5 hours was enough. I think I would have gotten a little bored of it had I bothered with all the sidequests and post-game stuff

Final Verdict
- 7/10. A fantastic and fairly unique gameplay concept with great presentation that is just long enough. And hey, if you really like it, there's several hours of extra content beyond the final boss

Cute and charming Metroidvania meets Pinball. Mostly letdown because of clunky controls.

Especially the grappling which is a guessing game as to where you will fly when you let go, i ended up giving up on trying for 100% when one of the collectibles where placed in a spot requiring extremely precise timing after 20 tries i gave up. The Spider boss also pissed me off, because of the way it was designed meaning that it if you mess up it you fall down to previous area, which means i spent more time pinballing myself back up to the boss arena than i did in the arena.

It leads to a game which frequently frustrated me with controls that just aren't precise enough for what the game asks of you at times. The to mention the backtracking gets old quick. The "Git Gud" crowd can maybe dismiss that, but to me it ruins what could have been an easy recommend because everything else is good.

Even if you don't think you like pinball I highly recommend you give Yoku's Island Express a shot. This game takes the concept of a pinball adventure we've seen in the likes of Sonic Spinball and expands on it in ways I've never seen before.

It's just a fun Metroidvania with no pretense of anything but fun. By the end you'll find yourself carefully studying angles and velocity as you try to aim and time your shots with this surprisingly great physics engine. It's charming, it's cute, and while it left me satisfied, it definitely left me wanting more.

Turning a pinball game into a Metroidvania is such a deliriously inspired choice that it almost makes me want to give this a higher rating. Unfortunately, some elements of the pinball mechanics translate to being more frustrating than fun - namely traversing the world and entering/exiting the various "encounters" you bounce around. Sad to hear that the developers behind this have split since its release because this feels one iteration shy of being something truly next cutting edge for the subgenre. Still, it's charming, silly fun and that's all you can really ask for sometimes.

Just want to get this bit off my chest first. I kinda hate some of the aesthetic direction in this game. Not all of it; the actual art design of the world is generally strong and the music slaps, and I particularly like how the trip-hop vibes in some of the tracks give a dingey arcade-hall-y feel to some areas to match the pinballing gameplay. But overall, Yoku definitely prioritizes being cutesy, quirky and cozy; to me, that's the unholy fucking trinity of tones that just piss me off. Parts of this game genuinely feel designed specifically to annoy; half the characters (yourself included) constantly squeak like dog toys for no goddamn reason, and I genuinely nearly abandoned the game when I realised my main way of interacting with the world was via a party blower. Maybe there's just something wrong in my brain but I really cannot stand cutesy 'lol randem' humour like this at all, and Yoku might be the single most not-for-me game I've ever played in that aspect.

Grumpy old man rant aside, this is an extraordinarily fun metroidvania. The pinball elements of Yoku help it to achieve something that games like the Tony Hawk's Pro Skaters manage, in that the act of movement in-and-of itself is both enjoyable and rewarding. I'm honestly surprised how well the pinball boards just slide into the gap that platforming would normally occupy in a Metroidvania; before playing this I would never have thought those were two genres that would merge well at all, but Yoku made them seem like the most natural pairing in the world.

But does the gimmicky movement make free exploration and backtracking a bit more awkward (as is the case in something like Dandara)? Well... yeah, i guess, but generally I didn't care because that was part of the fun, rather than something I just had to do to get between fun bits. And I think that's the most brilliant thing about Yoku; it's gimmick helps to counteract a couple of issues present in the Metroidvania genre as a whole. It actually made backtracking feel great!

I think the one spot Yoku's pacing isn't so great is whenever its economy gets involved. The only times you really get large amounts of currency is in the dedicated pinball boards, but in those doing literally anything just absolutely showers you with money. This is good, this is what pinball should do from a feedback point of view, but it clashes awkwardly with your coin capacity (which is small for most of the game) and your constant need to pay small amounts to unlock new paths. I found the economy to be extremely feast-or-famine; multiple times I'd be 10 fruit short of buying something, and then have to trek all the way back to the last dedicated pinball board and win far too much fruit because there just is no way to easily make a small amount of money in this game.

So yeah, I can recommend this. Like I said this is aesthetically very much a 'not for me' game, but even I can admit there is some charm in that department, and the underlying gameplay is more than strong enough to carry the experience. A weird combination well-executed and I now want to see more pinballtroidvanias.

Fun, oblique take on the Metroidvania that had me wrestling with the core movement controls a bit towards the end, but not in such a way that spoiled my experience. Wish there was a map for 'incomplete Scarabs' because I don't think I have it in me to go look for the ones I haven't activated.

EDIT: Thankfully, incomplete Scarabs are marked on the map when a certain threshold is crossed, so thanks for that. Still a bit of a nuisance to go get to all of them, but at least it was a directed nuisance. 😋

Attempting to seriously rate/review every single game I've played - Day 1:
I rolled the dice and got Yoku's Island Express, a game which I played to 100% completion not too long ago, so thankfully my thoughts on this game are still relatively fresh in my mind.

This is a charming little indie pinball game with Metroidvania elements, or a Metroidvania with pinball elements if you prefer. It looks great, sounds great, and rarely falls into the trap that many pinball games do of getting you to do the same ludicrously precise shot over and over again. You might expect the pinball to get in the way of the exploration but I found that it wasn't usually an issue, and the map is small enough that even the lack of a more robust fast travel system isn't a huge problem.

There are some spots where the game can feel a little unpolished, mostly just strange stuff on the map screen and a couple of weird physics interactions, but otherwise this doesn't feel like an indie game at all.

It's not particularly long, only taking me around 10 hours to see everything in it, but it's worth the price and an easy recommendation from me.