Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo – A Review

Video games in 2025. We are at an inflection point where some say everything is unimaginative. But I disagree. I believe that, with all the grandiose games coming out each year across all genres, we are living in the most original time of the medium. With more than 30 years of knowledge, developers can pick and choose what to implement and be inspired by in their projects, in the process creating something truly unique. Pipistrello and The
Cursed Yoyo is one of those games.

Featuring one of the histrionic titles in gaming, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is an amalgamation of everything that came before it, yes, but it is decidedly its own thing. A metroidvania, a Zelda-like, an ingenious brain teaser, roll all of these into one, sprinkle some indie magic, and voila. You have a top-down, pixel-art gem that feels like one of the best examples of its kind.

It all starts with the presentation. In a handheld console akin to the Game Boy Advance, dubbed “Pocket Trap Game System”, the camera zooms in to reveal the physical cartridge of Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo. You take control of an irresponsible young bat named Pippis (pipistrello in Italian means bat) who’s always asking his aunt for money. He has delusions of grandeur to be the best yoyo trickster there can be. On his latest request for money to his “Auntie”, she is betrayed by four mob bosses wanting to control the city and take power away from “Pipistrello Industries”.

For anybody who has played any of these types of games before, it is not difficult to guess what happens next. Pippis needs to collect four “Mega-Batteries” to rescue his aunt and save the city by visiting each of these levels and confronting a final boss. It’s a song and dance every gamer has done before, but this pattern is upended by the genuinely clever approach to solving the puzzles presented. Other than the basic frontal attack with the yo-yo, it is also possible to rebound the yo-yo with carefully placed angles around the levels that help reach further without having to be near the enemies, adding a degree of complexity from the very beginning that only gets more difficult from there.

As a tried and true trope, every biome introduces a new ability that allows Pippit to face challenges in different ways, while keeping things fresh throughout. A wall-ride, a “walk-the-dog” move, and others let you go further to the point of having to eventually combine several of these moves to arrive at previously unreachable areas. In that sense, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is not afraid to put players to the test as the game progresses. In the last area, for instance, each skill and ability gained during the game is evaluated in a race against time. This and many other minute elements make this indie adventure one that clearly takes a page from old-school classics.

A distinctive option that makes Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo stand out over their predecessors, though, is the difficulty sliders to help those who would just rather enjoy the ride. Turning off damage from falling, or in its entirety, increasing your hearts, or making more damage to solely focus on the quirky narrative and puzzles instead of the combat are all available from the very beginning. This game is made to appeal to players of all kinds, and it shows.

Moving around the city is crucial to know more about the expansive side content on offer. Characters in trouble while having to figure out how to cross chasms is part of the fun of exploring New Jolt City. With a base of operations set in the sewers, aided by other bat members of Pippit, it is easy to go back and set up your abilities before heading out to the next boss area. You can choose which abilities to use, badges to apply with certain unique abilities, and costly buffs that will make you think twice before thinking of using one of them.

My only real gripe with Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is how said buffs were handled. When you acquire one from your family member, you get a debuff for a certain period until you can pay off a debt, earn external money, and then are finally freed from its curse. It gave me the impression that I was never at full capacity during the whole game, making it unnecessarily hard most of the time. With my wallet full of money but unable to buy said buffs as the game mechanics decided to act differently, I couldn’t help but feel like it could be implemented more intuitively.

Verdict

What makes Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo stand out is not only how well-made everything is. There is also the culture of its Brazilian creators running through its veins. A wonderfully authentic detail is the soccer chant Olé, Olé being sneakily adapted to the football stadium level. It’s little details like this that reaffirm Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo’s care to every single detail of its creation. Having the legendary icon of Street Fighter 2 and Kingdom Hearts fame, Yoko Shimomura, compose certain tracks of this already great experience is just showing off at this point.

A genre-defining adventure, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo nails that innate arcadey feeling just right. Its inspired puzzles, wacky dialogues, and perfectly recreated GBA soundtrack and graphics do make it feel like someone unearthed this game recently after being lost to the sands of time. The kicker here is that it is a brand-new game released in 2025, and it arrives in the nick of time to remind us that a hero standing up for what’s right in the world is a timeless journey worth embarking on.

Remember to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Bluesky to keep up to date on everything we have going on!