Yoku’s Island Express takes two unlikely genres and combines them into one playful, natural experience. The game’s audio and visual design is simply joyous and the large game world seamlessly combines its pinball puzzles with some brilliant level designs.

Yoku’s Island Express brought something to the table few games, even among those I enjoyed, have managed to recently - a true sense of freshness. It really is unlike most games on the market, and it manages to grow beyond this defining gimmick, nailing almost every other aspect. Between the fantastic gameplay, lovely presentation and endearing characters, minor faults like excessive backtracking and a somewhat flat main storyline are negligible.

Yoku's Island Express is a game that's full of surprises and charm. It kept me on my toes with its unique mechanics and visuals, and I'm very happy that the pinball aspects never became taxing. If pinball isn't quite your thing but you love casual adventure or metroidvania games, I think you'll enjoy Yoku's Island Express immensely.

While the campaign smartly doesn’t overstay its welcome — it took me about six hours to complete, including some distractions — collecting all 80 of Yoku’s hidden Wickerlings, finding all of its chests, and completing some other simple missions like delivering letters made me want to keep playing even after the credits rolled.

Who said Metroidvania and pinball can’t exist in the same game? Yoku’s Island Express shows the opposite by being a great game, thanks to very uncommon and never frustrating gameplay.

Yoku's Island Express perfectly blends Metroidvania platformer with pinball game, and it's incredibly smooth and fun.

Pinballs are coming back within this title, whose narrative background is not so deep and intense, while its gameplay and tactics features are really well conceived. Colourful, frenetic and catchy, Yoku's Island Express is a good alternative in a AAA-dominated market. Boredom not included.