Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo (2025)

The second pair of abilities you get from the dungeons aren't quite so much fun as the first pair, and the puzzles built around them aren't quite as clever, but I still had a great time with the back half of Pipistrello. There's some excellent bosses (especially the fight against Link!), the dungeons are all solid, and I appreciated how the endgame pretty much completely takes the busywork out of finding the last few secrets you missed.

Just a super impressive effort in a genre we almost never see anymore.

Never in a million years did I expect a game to draw inspiration from NES homebrew classic Super Bat Puncher, but I'm glad to see that Pipistrello's done it! The wall-punch dash in that old indie is just too cool to be stuck in an unfinished demo forever, and it feels really fresh here. Love how it gets strung together with the pegasus boots in the tougher challenge rooms, too!

Still early days with Pipistrello, but I'm having a ball so far! Tackled the excellent southwest dungeon first, picked up the pegasus boots, and found a secret path that skips the southeast dungeon entirely by poking around the overworld.

It seems like such a small detail, but both the combat and the puzzles are making stellar use of your yoyo's ability to reflect off angled walls. Challenges that seem tough to face head-on can almost always be solved with a little lateral thinking and a well-placed ricochet trick shot, which feels exactly right for a game about an ultra-magical yoyo.

Pretty much every aspect is working for me, there hasn't been a top-down Zelda this good at least since A Link Between Worlds in 2013.

I've never felt so bad for wanting to drop a game before. I like a lot of what this game is doing from conceptual standpoint, but I really don't think it comes together quite the way I'd like. I can't escape the feeling that the control scheme never feels second nature, always reminding something that feels unintuitive and clunky. And while the analogue stick controls feel better for mini-direcitonal movement, they really tend to fail the player when you're trying to;ull of a lengthy sequence of tricks. The d-pad is the obvious choice, but for some reason it feels less enjoyable for standard movement around the map.

I really I wish I was enjoying this as much as I feel like the ideas that went into the game deserve.

Another great demo, this one's a classic 2d Zelda where instead of collecting a new gadget each dungeon, you have one super versatile tool (your yoyo) that gets continuously upgraded.

Your yoyo is a sword, a bow, the hookshot, the pegasus boots. It can richochet off walls for combat and puzzles, it can bounce Pipistrello off walls for platforming, it can walk on water; it does a million things really smoothly without ever needing to delve into menus to readjust your gear.

Dungeon design in the demo is pretty strong, with a perilous trek through an unfinished skyscraper. And instead of boring ol pieces of heart for upgrades there's a nifty, Paper Mario-style badge system, that lets you find and equip unique passives. Love the vibrant GBA aesthetic, too.