Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo Review

What is it about top-down action-adventure games that captivate audiences? Games like A Link to the Past or Alundra strike a great balance between freedom and focused design. Their interconnected worlds, viewed from above, instantly give a sense of place and scale. They’re essentially metroidvanias but with a different perspective that encourages tactical combat built around timing, positioning, and clever use of abilities. This sub-genre delivers both the thrill of mastery and the joy of exploration without the overwhelming sprawl of huge open worlds, yet it remains surprisingly rare despite the massive influence of the Legend of Zelda series. Mina the Hollower may be the one taking all the glory, but only a few months earlier, there was the little bat who could. Is this a horrible night for a cursed yoyo?

Pippit, a confident but somewhat reckless member of the powerful Pipistrello family, fancies himself a yoyo master. On his way home to hit up his energy magnate aunt for a handout, he instead stumbles upon a vicious plot by rival crime bosses determined to topple the Pipistrello empire. Their scheme shatters his aunt’s soul, hiding its fragments inside custom mega-batteries that power their businesses and tighten their grip on the city. Only one fragment is left, trapped in a cursed yoyo that fuses with Pippit, giving him strange new powers and tying him to the mission ahead.

Pippit sets out on an adventure through the city’s diverse districts, each ruled by a unique rival boss with their own signature gimmicks, reminiscent of dungeon challenges from the Legend of Zelda series. As Pippit journeys forward, he picks up an ever-growing set of yoyo tricks that double as tools for both combat and puzzle solving. The story plays out as a character-focused mix of corporate drama, revenge, and redemption, blending light humour with darker themes of power plays and betrayal. It combines mobster-style underworld clashes with supernatural twists involving soul manipulation and corporate sabotage. As Pippit gathers the scattered soul fragments, he slowly restores his family’s influence while uncovering a conspiracy that threatens the entire city.

Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo keeps its scenarios lighthearted and energetic throughout its surprisingly beefy story. The overworld feels like a fleshed-out city festooned with nooks and crannies packed with Game Boy Advance-style flair. There are always some amusing details and unique sprites to find that keep the visuals stimulating and even a few influential nods popping up unexpectedly. It’s like the city is one massive puzzle box where everything connects and feeds into each other, and activating one thing will make a change somewhere else, fostering a palpable need to explore and experiment with Pippit’s yoyo and abilities.

Like a proper top-down adventure game, the core loop revolves around exploration, combat, puzzle solving, and ability-based progression. Pippit’s yoyo is the core tool for almost every interaction: attacking enemies, triggering switches, snagging faraway items, and bouncing off walls and surfaces. Basic throws allow striking foes from range or behind corners when angled correctly. As progression advances, players unlock over ten distinct yoyo tricks and special moves. These include riding the yoyo, detaching it from the string, wall riding, crossing gaps with momentum, and performing complex parkour chains. The controls are fluent and responsive, and compounded with the chunky graphics and auditory feedback, Pippit feels good to play as.

New tricks recontextualise the environment, enabling access to previously unreachable platforms, hidden paths, and secret areas through creative combinations. Traversal emphasises momentum and precision. Chaining manoeuvres creates fluid yoyo-parkour sequences that reward mastery and spatial awareness. The top-down view maintains clarity during these acrobatic moments, allowing players to plan routes through the dense, vertically oriented cityscape filled with obstacles and interactive elements.

Combat blends smoothly with the yoyo system, emphasising smart positioning, timing, and creative trick use over simple button mashing. Each of the four main districts features bosses that push your skills to the limit through multi-phase battles packed with environmental hazards and requiring mastery of specific tricks. Along the way, underlings and rival crews fill the streets, delivering diverse encounters that invite you to experiment with different tactics.

Sure, the yoyo is a devilishly fun weapon, but it’s also the key to everything. Puzzles are all about creative yoyo use and paying attention to the environment. Many challenges have you chain tricks in specific sequences to hit multiple switches, move heavy objects, or reach hidden spots. Using walls and surfaces for bounce points, building momentum, and interacting with the surroundings adds a depth rarely found in top-down adventure games. Some puzzles even mix in timing, like ricocheting the yoyo through moving hazards or leaving it detached to keep pathways open while exploring elsewhere. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo explored every possible trick and idea imaginable with a yoyo.

Progression is a mix of ability gating with plenty of customisation. Pepita, Pippit’s cousin, offers contracts that give passive perks and side goals to open up more possibilities. Collectable badges let you unlock new moves or upgrades, but Pippit needs badge points to equip them, which are boosted by finding containers scattered around the world à la The Legend of Zelda‘s heart containers. Petal containers raise max health, offering a bit more failure allowance. The setup offers lots of build variety while keeping things balanced with limited slots.