Review taptwo 3/5 · Mar 8, 2026
Cute, not very polished, too long.
Let me start by saying I considered giving this game four stars instead of three. It's an enjoyable game with fun puzzles, decent combat, and fairly challenging platforming. It has Earthbound vibes and Link to the Past gameplay. What's not to like?
For one: The yo-yo theme is a bit too niche. I imagine someone who has spent time learning …
Let me start by saying I considered giving this game four stars instead of three. It's an enjoyable game with fun puzzles, decent combat, and fairly challenging platforming. It has Earthbound vibes and Link to the Past gameplay. What's not to like?
For one: The yo-yo theme is a bit too niche. I imagine someone who has spent time learning yoyo tricks themselves will appreciate it, but overall it's just not relatable enough to go deep on.
Next: The graphics. I love 16-bit pixel art, but it's not done well here. After 18 hours with the game, I'm still not sure what our protagonist is. A bat maybe? Everything in the game is also just extremely colorful, but without any discernable palette. It's not great to look at.
The combat is fine, but the limitation of having a single axis main attack felt weird when all your other attacks operate smoothly in both dimensions. The base difficulty is slightly above average, which contrasted poorly with these limitations and the game's otherwise beginner-friendly vibes.
The platforming was overall great fun. There are some very clever move sets that all seem to fit well within a Switch controller. It has a touch of the same clumsiness that I found in the combat, which occasionally got annoying in some of the longer and more punishing challenges, but generally this is clearly the game's best strength.
Finally, it runs a little long. I beat it at 85% completion in about 17 hours. The first 3-5 were terrific fun. By 12 or so, I was ready to move on. They keep it interesting throughout with good pacing of ability progression, but the whole package just gets a little stale after a while. The final boss fight, however, was great.
In this genre, two years ago I played Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, and last year I played Minishoot Adventures. I adored both, and gravitated to Pipistrello because it looks like it's trying to do both those things.
Overall, this game is a novel experience and does a relatively good job at tying together all the things it set out to do. The final package is enjoyable enough that I'm curious to see what this dev releases next, even if I wound up a bit lukewarm on whether I'd recommend Pipistrello to friends or not.
