In Yoku’s Island Express, you play as a Dung Beetle who is tethered to his err... “ball”, in this cross between Pinball and Metroidvania. Yoku arrives on an island, ready to start his job as a postman.
Sometimes you are navigating like a sidescroller and other times you are placed in a mini table until you unlock the next route out of there. You will be required to do a certain number of ramp shots, spinner rotations, or destroy rocks with some exploding slug-like creatures.
You control the Blue flipper with L, Yellow with R, then A interacts or blows a whistle which can cause some objects to react.
You collect fruit which unlocks extra flippers. Many flippers cost 30 or 80 and a Travel point is 100 fruits. Some flippers will give you access to a platform above which may lead to a character who gives you a sidequest, or some kind of treasure like an upgrade. Other flippers will be required to proceed to the next area. There aren’t that many travel points but they do allow you to quickly move across large parts of the map, but there will be some backtracking involved to reach one.
There are some occasions where it is hard to work out how to get to some areas, but it’s otherwise well designed. The graphics are nice and colourful, and I’d say a higher standard to what you would expect from a game like this. The combination of Pinball and Metroidvania is an interesting one, and it has to be up there with the best “Pinball Adventures”.