Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo

I don't want to make it sound like I’m talking down on Nintendo. They help create a good chunk of my childhood as well as for many other gamers. Their motto has always been about fun above all else, and their products along with Sony's represent what Triple A games and budgets should aim for. However, I do feel kinda bad for them, especially with recent events in the world. Their products are gonna become harder to sell for reasons I shall not explain. Just today the price of a PlayStation 5 Pro just went up to seven hundred fifty dollars. That’s the average paycheck for an individual working nine to five every week. Things keep getting more expensive and nothing but complaints as far as the eye can see. Whether that be people upset with a piece of entertainment that was easily more attainable before now feels targeted towards folks of higher salaries, or if the products we’re paying a high sum of money for is actually worth the cost. I mean for f*ck’s sake why would anyone want to spend eighty bucks on Mario Kart World of all things!? Be glad titles like Clair Obscur and Remnant 2 are trying to lower the price of big budget games.

Still they do still make quality games to this day. Can’t go wrong with The Legend of Zelda, even though Zelda fans like to complain about the current state of the franchise. A series once known for its condensed worlds full of activities and dungeons to overcome has gone full open world. Innovating on a genre of games by providing absolute freedom to go anywhere. An approach that was well praised upon its release but has gotten mixed reception with time. You have fans who wish the series would go back to its roots, and the latter half of fans who got into Zelda with the new formula and are fine with Zelda sticking to that approach. I’m not gonna say I’m for one or the other. They’ve both been done very well in the past and my favorite entry, The Wind Waker, was a great mixture of both. Providing a traditional Zelda experience but plopping you into this open ended sandbox you could freely explore after a few hours of progression. Although I will admit sometimes I do wish the newer Zelda games had more of that classic DNA in ‘em. Smaller more focused games can be better than becoming bigger and more bloated with content. Thank god for indie games though on trying to improve and at the same time recapture what made those older titles still good. A subgenre of games people coined as “Zeldalike” and I love it.

Hyper Light Drifter, Tunic, Unsighted, Crypt Custodian, CrossCode, etc. All of which I played and covered before on this website. Always enjoy playing a new Zeldalike in the same way I’ll always enjoy playing a new metroidvania. I love seeing the ideas people put onto the table. Even if it’s flawed, I like seeing what they do, because it’s a learning process and I know they’ll try to improve in the future. Here’s a new entry to add onto the pile: Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo. Developed by Brazilian studio Pocket Trap who’ve also made Ninjin and Dodgeball Academy. They have a pretty good track record of games, and their most recent title was recommended to me for how it freshens up the Zeldalike formula. By having what I believe is a hip rabbit protag wearing a punk red jacket and performing cool yoyo tricks in the street. When somebody told me that’s what the game was about I told them to sign me up, because that sounds awesome. Look I’m a very easy guy to impress, okay? I’m the same person who’ll most likely give your game an excellent score if it has cute cartoon bugs like the ones in Hollow Knight or Bug Fables. There’s a lot of Zelda DNA in Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo upon playing, but you want to know what this game makes me think about the most. Weird thing to bring up seeing how you need to know a YouTuber animator to understand, but it reminds of a set of animations created by Piemations. He’s well known for the Meet the Amazing TF2 series inspired by you know what and one of my personal favorites Suction Cup Man. Little recently he’s stemming off and creating a new set of comedy shorts called How To Be Cool. A series where an alligator in shades tries to teach a small rabbit how to be cool. Whether that be learning to say insults, punch people, or do harcore drugs in the middle of the streets. Don’t do drugs kids. Drugs are bad. M’kay?

This game kinda made me think of that, because again I’m playing a hip rabbit in a red jacket performing yoyo tricks in the city street. If that doesn’t sell you I don’t know what will. Beat the game just last night and I can confidently say it was as good as people told me. Probably one of the best indie games of 2025 that not a lot of people will know about. Pipistrello is not just trying to pay respects to games of the past, but it’s trying to put a unique twist on them. The yoyo is a more clever tool than you think as it changes how you approach fights, traversal, puzzle solving, and more. The world isn’t your typical fantasy setting and tries to fit the time periods which one of these types of games would’ve been played in. The story addresses real life issues through its colorful cast of characters and light hearted tone. Pipistrello is a magical time and I hope my words are enough to convince you to give it a look. Today we’ll be talking about Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo, why it's so hip, and why it deserves your attention. Remember: It’s hip to be square.

Story

For dozens of years Pipistrello Industries has provided people the energy and resources they need to go about their daily lives. Riding subways to work, performing their daily jobs, attending their livelihoods, and going home hopefully with smiles on their faces. The city would be nothing if it weren’t for the Pipistrellos, and they remind the people that each day. Madame Pipistrello who lives atop her fancy manor and runs the family electricity plant oversees everything in the city. Demanding they pay a high tax so they get the electricity they need or asking for something in return. If not then no electricity. They can just rot in the streets or go homeless for all she cares. The madame is somewhat of a tyrant, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care for her family. One of which is her nephew Pippit, who we see is traveling from several towns over to visit his auntie and spend a weekend with her. Pippit has dreams of his own. Ever since Pippit was a wee rabbit Pippit has always dreamed of becoming a performer. Mastering cool yoyo tricks and showing them off to everyone around them. Always managing to impress them and rise amongst the yoyo master ranks. Pippit plans to enter a yoyo tournament and win first place, but before he can do that he wants to check up on his auntie. What’s essentially a second parent to him, because this game does not let you know if Pippit has actual parents.

Pippit takes a taxi cab to his aunt’s manor and walks up to her office. Giving her a big hug and telling her of all the things he’s been doing. His aunt is proud of what he’s achieved, but claims she’s busy keeping everyone in the city under control. Everyone must be kept under an iron boot of course. Discipline is needed for a society to function. Madame Pipistrello talks about power as in tyrannical power for a bit until she hears something bang on the walls. She tells Pippit to hide and within a few seconds the walls explode. Four individuals break into Madame Pipistrello’s office bearing a peculiar device. Each individual is a leader of one of four businesses nearby and they tell the madam that they are hired by her ruling. They are tired of paying high taxes, being unable to get the resources they need to keep their industries alive, and she has gone too far with the people. So they proposed a different solution towards providing the city energy, one which she tried to research years ago. The ability to generate energy from the soul, and they plan to go harvest her soul using soul fueled batteries. During the extraction process Pippit intervenes to save his auntie. Throwing their precious yoyo in between the extraction beam and accidentally letting his aunt’s soul into the yoyo. They escape into tunnels beneath the manor, and auntie who is now a sentient flying yoyo instructs Pippit on what they should do. Track down the four folks who harvested her soul, steal their batteries, and put auntie back together. 

Gameplay

If you’ve played a classic styled Zelda game before or one of the Zeldalike indie games out there then you probably know what to expect of Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo. Upon stepping foot into the world you’re given a couple of objectives to fulfill. The question is how to obtain them. You have to explore, figure out how to get to places, solve puzzles, find alternative routes, and try not to get killed by the dozens of enemies in your way. There’ll be a lot of backtracking along the way and opening up shortcuts to cut down said backtracking. It’s exactly what you expect in a Zeldalike, but what separates Pipistrello from a majority of entries in the subgenre is of course the yoyo. Instead of having a sword you have a yoyo. Launch it forward to hit anything in front of Pippit. However, you can also use the yoyo to interact with and pick up objects. A switch or lever that is too far to hit with the basic whip attack? Unleash the yoyo so it flies forward. A tiny gap you can’t fit through? Launch the yoyo so it can travel through it. What makes the yoyo even more special is that it can bounce off curved surfaces. Meaning it can travel further as long as it’s not off a straight wall. As you progress further into the game you’ll discover new abilities and tricks so you can travel the world and unlock routes you weren’t able to go through before.

Such as being able to bounce off walls when jumping and hitting it with the yoyo. Quickly travel across water or along walls by riding the yoyo. Maybe it’s just attack skills like a circular spin to knock enemies away, a flurry of yoyo jabs, or the ability to parry because every action game now needs a parry button. (Fine by me) Enemies come in a variety of flavors and the layout of certain arenas will keep you on your toes. Enemies who shoot from afar, charge towards you, attack a highlighted space, can fly or not, etc. Making use of the terrain and bringing the right skills can be what saves you from death. Another unique thing aside from the yoyo is how upgrades work. Health is upgraded by finding petal containers, and there are pins you can equip to have special perks. Sorta like the ones in Hollow Knight where better more unique perks require you to have more pin points. There is also a skill tree that makes your basic combat skills stronger, and this is improved through contracts. You accept contracts where you get to have the perk in exchange for having to collect a certain amount of money and a debuff. Debuffs include having less health, less pin points, or enemies not dropping healing items. Once you complete the contract you get the full perk and no longer have to deal with the debuff, but if it’s too much to handle you can spend some money to refund the contract. Reverting back to your normal self, but undoing any of the work you may have done up until that point. It creates an extra challenge for the player, and in some ways encourages them to explore. Fight more enemies and stumble upon loot to end the contract faster before progressing further into the story. Aside from that there’s nothing much else for me to say. Just a cool rabbit doing cool things in the streets. Like not doing hard drugs!

Thoughts

Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo is exactly the type of game the Zeldalike subgenre has needed for a while. It understands what makes a Zeldalike game good, pays respect to a dozen of things aside from the Zelda series, and puts in enough fun new ideas to freshen everything up. It is as good as people told me with only a few flaws that hold it back. The first thing that amazed me was that Pipistrello was a confident Zeldalike with fairly decent platforming. Yes, the game is done from a topdown perspective but there’s occasional platforming here and there that makes use of the many traversal upgrades you unlock. Bouncing off walls, lunging across gaps, riding on waves, and trying to land safely without falling or sinking to your demise. There are some platforming sections here that remind me of Celeste, and while I wouldn’t say it’s as or equally as hard a lot of them will require intense focus and being able to pull off precise moves at the right time. It’s challenging platforming, but it’s nothing too hard or frustrating. I would say the whole game is fair even when it does get too demanding at times. Combat is fairly challenging as well and there’s enough enemy variety to last the ten or so hours this game goes on for. It asks you to know when to adapt on the fly, or utilize different tricks instead of just your basic whip maneuver. Prioritize your opponent instead of just hack and slash while hoping for the best. 

I do have two criticisms for combat though. One is that you can’t attack diagonally similar to the older Zelda games, although this is a problem you can overcome quickly. The other is that even though I said enemy variety is good there isn’t enough to sustain the last few hours of the game. The world design is great. Enough looping pathways to make sure backtracking isn’t annoying, and opening the map screen gives you an idea of where to go. Even marking any collectibles you have missed, or optional areas containing items you’ve missed. Something a lot more Zeldalike games have done in recent memory, and I appreciate it. Bosses are a pure test of skill, but use enough of what you’ve learned from dungeon mechanics to put them to the test. For example, one of the early bosses has you dealing with an opponent whose arena is filled with tiles that can crumble away easily. He’s always jumping around and lunging at the player’s position, so you always have to keep moving to keep up with the boss. I love how the upgrade system works even though I stopped engaging with it near the end, but for good reason. To get stronger you need to fulfill contracts which adds extra challenge to the game. A barrier you have to learn to overcome, because it’s either you struggle now or later in the game. A choice of whether or not you make it all harder. You can either accept multiple at once or do them one by one like I did. You don’t even need everything to beat the game. You could just do what I did. Get what you want, hunt for health upgrades, and save your money up to refine your pins. It’s a very clever way to handle upgrades versus leveling systems in RPGs.

The visuals are quite stylized despite being your typical pixel art. The developers wanted to catch the feel of playing an old Gameboy Advance title. Upon booting Pipistrello up I was greeted by an in-game representation of a Gameboy Advance named the Pocket Trap. Otherwise the devs of the game. Pressing buttons on the controllers leads to the Pocket Trap pressing buttons matching what you’ve pressed and it’s really cool. Then the game you are actually playing is on the device, which further makes you feel like you’re playing a game from this era. The world of Pipistrello is not just retro, but it tries to capture the time period one of these games would take place in. It’s colorful, hip, and I love how instead of the typical fantasy setting you usually see one of these games take place in a big city. There are dungeons, but instead of caverns or castles you explore big city locations. Malls, construction sites, a convention, and stadium. All of which are distinct from each other and have a villain/boss that matches the theme of the area. People act like the era the game takes place in, and if not it’s made up for by some truly funny humor. There’s a joke where a cat kid runs up to you from a fastfood line and yells “WHERE’S MY BURGER!?” and then running back into the line. It’s completely out of nowhere, but the fact it happened made me chuckle. There’s a lot of moments like this if you take the time to talk to people.

The story despite being somewhat simple is quite good. The more you help Pippit’s aunt take down those who betrayed her the more you learn about her. The more you learn about her the more you realize she is absolutely not a good person. How she uses fear and manipulation to put all those beneath her under control. How she’s willing to make terrible sacrifices and throw folks into the fire to make more profit. Pipistrello, despite being a game for younger audiences, is a bit political at times when it comes to how it addresses capitalism. See kids, everything is political. It talks about who we give power to and what they’ll do with it. How an entire corporation can own your entire life. About people who are financially struggling day in and day out cuz there really is no other option. That evil people have a simple choice to help others and stop being the greedy pigs they are, but choose not to. Otherwise the plot of the original Deus Ex, except now there’s a cool rabbit and he gets to criticize what the evil auntie does. Raising awareness, telling her what it means to care for others, and seeing her change by the end. Truly wonderful stuff. Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo gets a strong recommendation in my book. It’s not too long of a game, puts out a ton of unique ideas within that runtime, and manages to do more than you think. By all means it's a hip game. I give Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo a 9.5/10 for being superb.

9.5/10, Superb