The Good: Great story, amazing visuals, amusing puzzles
The Bad: Some clipping and frame rate issues, can lack major challenge for some
Sitting with your knees against your chest, as a large monster like creature passes by the door, each step pounding against the ground, fearful and teary eyed, you remain silent as it passes by the door. It continues to search for something, each pounding step causing you more fright. A mysterious symbol appears on the wall before you, opening a portal. Your curiosity makes you touch the symbol and it pulls you through this to an unknown world. You see another child; a girl, a chase ensues and your mysterious adventure beings.
Papo & Yo takes you through a mysterious adventure of obstacles, puzzle solving and platforming all while throwing you into a stunning fantasy world to interact with. The game takes place in an unknown location of Brazil where you will navigate through favelas using dream like abilities to interact with the environment. These abilities let you progress in the environment and also creates that great sense of fantasy by combining these dream like elements with real world aspects.
You play as Quico, a young Brazilian boy who has an intriguing imagination. Throughout the game little information is given on Quico. At the start you find yourself hiding in what is presumably Quicos' closet and the next you're roaming around Brazilian favelas. It is suggested that Quico is running from someone or something and has created this dreamland as his own way of escape.
Early in the game you will encounter a strange girl named Alejandra, who's mysterious but playful with you as well. Little information is given about her at the start. She sees Quico as a threat or a curse but eventually Quico grows on her and she acts as a guide for him.
Lula is your awesome robot who helps you in the game. He can be worn on your back to give you a boost when jumping larger gaps and can activate switches in hard to reach places.
Monster is like a great big puppy that Quico finds amusing and playful. You can use him to your advantage by finding coconuts around the environment and placing them in locations that require the monsters weight or presence to proceed further in the game. At some intervals in the game you will also need to wait for the monster to fall asleep, allowing you to jump on his belly and onto higher areas that your little human legs couldn't let you reach. Unfortunately though, if Monster eats a frog, he will become enraged and chase after Quico to hurt him until you are able to feed him a rotten fruit to calm him down.
The way you interact with the environment to proceed is very interesting. What looks like a typical Brazilian house quickly becomes a set of stairs or a platform to cross over. It's truly amazing the way you interact with the puzzles and the environment. At one point I found myself pulling on a glowing rope to open and split apart a large wall, giving Monster enough space to walk through. There was also one instance where there are blocks that are connected to houses and by moving these blocks you end up moving the houses. This is all in real time to, as you move the block the house moves with it. These types of interactions are great as it emphasises a child's imagination at work, making you feel a little more in touch with your inner child.
You can also interact with certain objects in the environment, like a soccer/football for some extra amusement that will last you next to 5 seconds, you can pick it up and kick it, or kick it while it's already on the ground and there's your 5 seconds gone. If you want you can even play with Monster, if you kill the ball he will chase after it and throw it back to you, allowing you amuse yourself with both characters. And if that isn't to your liking you can always find a tutorial box to pop over your head to run around and play make believe Metal Gear Solid. At some point you can chase frogs and pick them up, but sadly, unlike the football, you cannot kick them, although you can throw them at walls to watch them splatter on it. For me this is probably the darkest point in the gameplay even though there's no blood and gore, but again this creates an attachment with your inner child, as it's absolutely hilarious chasing after them just to throw the poor suckers at a wall. Sadly they don't respawn enough, but just as well, as you probably don't want to overdo it, since Kermit and Fredo might band together and seek revenge.
The tutorial boxes are a great touch to the game especially for people who hate tutorials. The reason? Because they are optional. The concept is that you walk up to a tutorial box you find in the environment, pop it over your head and inside on each side of the box are some childish pictures and text giving you hints. Otherwise you can ignore them completely and figure out the game on your own. The in the game puzzles aren't overly difficult. They will make you think but not so much that you'll want to replace your brain with a better one to finish the puzzle.
The visuals in Papo & Yo are great, they're thriving, vibrant and very easy on the eyes. There are some clipping issues (although some are necessary for puzzle solving) and the occasional frame rate issue that can be an annoyance. Keeping in mind this was played on a 660Ti, on very high settings. But if running the game on max settings isn't an option for you, you won't be left out running it on lower settings as you can still take in the breathtaking visuals.
The sound effects work well, but is nothing state of the art. Grass makes grass noise when you walk over it, tin makes tin noise when you walk over it, roof tiles make roof tile noises when you walk over them, and frogs make splat noises when you throw them at walls.
The environment is thriving with wildlife noises, you will hear things like crickets chirping near grass patches and birds chirping in the distance. Interestingly on top of this the dialog is in a different language. This actually helps maintain the characters ethical backgrounds, fortunately though there are speech bubbles that also add to the games art style. The attention to detail with sound is much appreciated and very noticeable in Papo & Yo.
The music is a nice touch and is very melodic at times. It adds great atmosphere to game ranging between fun and quirky to dark and thrilling.
The game sadly doesn't offer much in replay value, but it definitely is a great once through and well worth it. For some, the games difficulty make lack some greater challenge. The difficulty was easy but in a good way, allowing the player to take in everything else the game has to offer.
Papo & Yo offers more than just gameplay. In fact the games merits rely solely on the story, visuals and interactions, and this helps to overlook any of the flaws you encounter in the game. Papo & Yo not only does well to convey a story about a child trying to escape from something dark but it also does really well to delve in the mind of child and how differently they (or we did) see things in the world and how their imaginations can concoct the most bizarre contraptions and fantasies you will ever see.