Latest news with #Pipistrello
The Verge
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo would feel right at home on your GBA
When I was a kid, there was a moment when it felt like everyone was obsessed with yo-yos. I never got better than just being able to make the yo-yo go up and down. But with Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, I could pretend like I was halfway decent — all while playing a silly game that feels like a spiritual successor to the Game Boy Advance titles I loved growing up. Pipistrello is a top-down adventure game, in which you use your yo-yo to attack enemies and traverse the world. You play as Pippit, a goofy bat who has dreams of yo-yo excellence but is also a freeloader who relies on financial support from his wealthy aunt, an energy magnate. In the opening minutes of the game, the aunt gets merged with your yo-yo as four big baddies steal her Mega Batteries, and your goal is to get the batteries back and help free her. The game is quite charming. Pippit is a lovable doofus, and you'll also be tasked with ridiculous missions like rounding up people for a soccer fan club so you can get easier access to a stadium run by a corrupt boss, who wants people to gamble. The pixel art is great, too — it looks exactly like what I remember from GBA games, even though I played Pipistrello on my Steam Deck OLED's far more modern screen. (But if you want to go full retro, there is a mode that mimics the GBA's look, and it even frames the game on a pretend handheld.) Pocket Trap, the game's developer, makes Pippit's yo-yo more than just a toy. It's also good for bashing enemies, of course. But you can even chuck the yo-yo off the string to hit enemies at range or spin it around you to keep them at bay. And as you progress, you'll get additional yo-yo-themed moves that will help you more easily fend off baddies, explore the city that the game takes place in, and solve puzzles. Many of the moves are based on actual yo-yo tricks: the walk the dog move, for example, sends the yo-yo surging forward, yanking Pippit along so he can cross bodies of water. The game also has a very good skill tree with a contract-based system. When you pick up a contract, you have to work off a money debt and deal with some kind of penalty until you pay back the contract in full, like losing a heart or some attack power. The system forces you to be thoughtful about which contract to take on and helps keep you from becoming overpowered too quickly. Not that you should really worry about getting too strong, though. I found that Pipistrello was really difficult, especially early on. Pipistrello has a lot of combat, and enemies frequently overwhelmed me. There's not a huge penalty for dying — you just lose some coins and can tackle the room again — but some rooms were still pretty tough and took multiple tries to finish. Fortunately, Pipistrello has a very flexible difficulty system that lets you tweak things like your attack power or how many coins enemies drop. You can even nullify fall damage. As I played, I frequently messed around with the options to help smooth over some particularly tricky sections. I'll admit that by the end of my nearly 10-hour playthrough, I often made myself invincible so that I could more quickly see the rest of the story, the puzzles, and the platforming. The combat rooms became too much of a time suck for me. But even though the enemies posed no danger, I still had a blast yo-yoing them to death. And I still had to figure out puzzles on my own, too, so it's not like I made the game a total walk in the park. If you're feeling nostalgic for the pixel graphics and blaring horns of GBA games, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo scratches that itch — and has some clever new ideas, too. It won't actually make you better at using a yo-yo, but it's pretty darn fun to have one in a video game. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Digital Trends
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Fill the Zelda-sized hole in your heart with one of 2025's best indies
The Nintendo Switch 2 is just days away. That's exciting, but there's one big void begging to be filled come June 5. Unlike the Nintendo Switch and Wii before it, we won't have a new Zelda game to keep us company this week. Sure, you can buy upgraded versions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but the closest thing you'll get to a Zelda game this year is Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, a Musou spinoff. If that has you just a little disappointed, fear not: There's an excellent new game you can play right now that will scratch that itch. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is the latest game from Pocket Trap, the studio behind Dodgeball Academia. Take one look at it and you'll be able to see its clear sales pitch. The top-down adventure game about a bat with a yoyo is an ode to classic Zelda games circa the Game Boy Advance era. It's a spitting image for something like Minish Cap with its dense, colorful pixel art. But this isn't just a simple bit of imitation; Pipistrello is an incredibly clever little adventure that uses yoyo tricks to craft excellent navigation puzzles that break its urban world wide open. Recommended Videos The story stars Pippit, a blue mascot that wouldn't have been out of place in the GBA era. He's a yoyo-loving free spirit who just so happens to be part of a powerful family, The Pipistrellos. When Pippit gets unwillingly sucked into their business, as a power struggle breaks out in town, he sets out on a quest to help his family out. That's sort of by force, because his aunt's spirit has gotten stuck in his yoyo. It's a goofy little setup, but one that helps Pipistrello differentiate itself from other Zelda-likes right out the gate. That's thanks to its setting, which trades in fields and lava pits for bustling city streets. There are densely decorated alleyways full of secrets to explore here, which is exactly what you want from an adventure full of collectibles and upgrades. On paper, the gameplay should sound familiar. Pippit explores a top-down map in search of four batteries, all while getting new yoyo upgrades that open more places to explore. What makes that idea feel fresh is how he actually moves around. His yoyo isn't just a stand-in for a sword, though it's perfectly good at bludgeoning enemies. It's also handy for crossing water, bouncing off walls while in midair, and eventually creating grapple points to cross big gaps. Pipistrello does something that a lot of my favorite Metroidvanias do: It shows me spaces that seem simply impossible to cross, and then lets me traverse them in increasingly unpredictable ways. By the end of the adventure, I was finding secrets in ways that I couldn't even dream of when the story began. The late game had me chaining together every move I had learned in puzzle gauntlets that put my reflexes to the test. That would be enough as is to make Pipistrello so special, but that's not its only defining quality. It also gets experimental with its skills and upgrades. For one, there's a badge system that allows me to tinker with how Pippit plays. For instance, I can equip a badge that turns every 5th hit into a stun attack and another that increases damage on stunned enemies. Each badge can be upgraded with cash too, giving them extra perks or reducing how much BP is needed to equip them. With plenty of badge points to collect, there's a lot of space to mix and match to create a distinct playstyle. Even more creative is Pipistrello's risk-based skill tree. Throughout the adventure, I can grab upgrades that will increase my attack power, BP, and more by speaking to a character in my sewer base. Skills aren't free, though. Every time I buy one, I have to pay off a cash debt. 50% of any money I earn will go to me, while the other half pays that amount down. While I'm indebted, I'm afflicted with a negative status effect that might cut down my life points, BP, or attack. It's a neat little system that required me to think more strategically about when I equip a skill, as I don't want to walk into a big dungeon underpowered. It's also a great tool for encouraging players to actually explore off the beaten path since that's a good way to find sacks of cash. I played Pipistrello over a few days and was delighted by it at every turn. It's filled with creative ideas that help it stand out in a crowded field, but I love just how well it captures the feeling of the GBA era. Like Grapple Dog before it, this feels like a long lost handheld classic pulled from a time where mascots ruled and a great singular idea could form a backbone for a whole game. Pocket Trap finds so much to do with a simple yoyo, creating the most satisfying top-down puzzling I've felt this year. So, who needs Link? Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is the real hero you're looking for. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is out now on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
