Yoku's Island Express: Imaginative Metroidvania Fun!

Another little gem I found on the Xbox Game Pass, I downloaded it when it came out but only after beating Bloodstained did I decide to go for something that looked a little more mellow. Surprisingly Yoku's Island Express is another metroidvania game but instead of swords, arm cannons or whatever else one might use to kill something, this game instead uses pin ball mechanics. It's so cleverly ingenius and genuinely intuitive, the game plays and feels natural and looks beautiful too. Reminds me of the recent Rayman games, the gorgeous hand drawn sprites and environments. It has a real unique and distinguished look.


I do have some nitpicks and firstly and this one is the biggest gripe! The fast travel system is a bit pants, you often have to do some slow travelling just to get to the fast travel pick up station. I didn't play much more beyond the story but I imagine back tracking to find all the collectibles is twice as much a pain in the ass as backtracking for objectives. To be honest, I really only struggled with one objective and that was because I failed to spot a certain NPC waiting to chat with me.
Secondly, the pinball level paddles, not the paddles that help you go from A to B, but when you enter a lair and have to win the pinball game, I found you had to be fairly pixel perfect to get the paddle to whack Yoku where you need him. The game doesn't use a physics based system (which eliminates randomness), the paddles instead will send Yoku in a preset direction depending at what length of the paddle the ball is on, but you have to be incredibly precise and it can get a tad annoying at times. 
And lastly, I hat the Sootling leash. I despise the sootling leash, you spin so fast that it makes it very unpredictable where you'll end up and getting flung in the wrong direction often means lots of lost time. No fun. 

I didn't have to pay for Yoku's Island Express thanks to the Game Pass, it's a very fun game. Short if you're only doing the story but if you are a collecting kind of gamer, you'll probably double your play time.
I think this is the kind of game I would replay and would say it's worth around £13, whether that means you get it during a deal or not is hard to say. £10 would be a definite bargain.
Fun game, interesting gameplay, great visuals and I hate Sootling leash.