Finished Yoku's Island Express last night, and, good Lord, is that final boss incredibly weak and anticlimactic... In fact, the whole ending is terribly underwhelming.
All in all, a nice little game, with a fresh concept and pleasing art style, but too limited, short and easy for its own good. Still recommended, I'd say, but not at full price.
O Baseball Stars 2, where art thou?...
I have a confession, friends: I was underwhelmed by the entire Yoku experience.
Now anyone who knows me on these boards knows I'm obsessed with pinball. Yoku was one of my most-anticipated games because of the intersection between pinball and metroidvania.
Ultimately, the game fell way short of my expectations. I was looking for something else. The game is cute, clever and well made. highly polished. I cannot fault it for doing what it seems to have set out to do. But the game has zero challenge. If you were looking for a nice, breezy chill-out game then I can heartily recommend Yoku. But if you are a pinball fan looking for even a modicum of challenge you won't find it in Yoku.
IMO, there's a ton of missed opportunities when it comes to the level design. There also needs to be a bigger penalty for falling into brambles.
I wonder how much more the game could be improved just by adding a difficulty where you can die and have to go back to checkpoints.
Yoku is a much better game than Rollers of the Realm. The genres they mash are different but Yoku's execution is way better. In fact, I don't think Yoku is a bad game. I think it's quite good. But it's not the game I was hoping it would be.
Was a bit disappointed Hamster appeared to have stopped announcing their upcoming Arcade Archives games ahead of time. But, they just revealed the next batch:
Neo Geo:
- Puzzle Bobble
- Puzzle Bobble 2
- The King of Fighters 2001
- Zupapa!
- 3 Count Bout
- Pleasure Goal
- Savage Reign
- Strikers 1945 Plus
Other:
Athena and Ikari Warriors are weird choices since they're both in SNK 40th, but maybe they're two different versions?
Vs. Urban Champion is a weird choice because that game is basically a meme now for how bad it is and how often Nintendo kept pushing it.
Outside of Puzzle Bobble and Strikers 1945 Plus that list of NeoGeo titles is awful.
O Baseball Stars 2, where art thou?...
No shit. That's one of the best Neo Geo games and one of the best Baseball games ever and Hamster is fucking around.
Guess we'll be waiting til sometime next year.
Also disappointed that KOF 2001 is on the list but not 2002.