Title: YesterMorrow
Developer: Bitmap Galaxy
Publisher: Blowfish Studios
Genre: Action, Adventure, Puzzle, Platformer
Number of Players: 1
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: November 05, 2020
Price: $19.99
Each one of us has wished to be able to travel back in time to change something in the past. We all have made mistakes that we regret, and that, if for some sort of miracle, we could go back to the past make them not happen, we would. But alas, we could not. Maybe in video games, we could live such fantasy, even for just a short while.
YesterMorrow is a 2D puzzle platformer, where you play as Yui, a girl who has lived several years of her life with the burden of regret, when her village was attacked by evil forces, referred in-game as Shadows, during the Festival of Light. Her relatives got kidnapped, her father has gone missing, and her village left in ruins. One day, she discovered that she could travel back to the past, and thus she embarked on a great adventure with the help of her newly found ability so that she can bring her life and the lives of others to how they were to amend the present. You will need to free the guardians of the four main islands of YesterMorrow to get their help in winning over the evil forces once and for all.
The game is presented in a beautiful pixel art style with a complementing soundtrack. The game really looks and sounds good. The level design is top-notch and the puzzles, though frustrating at times, are generally well-designed, too. They are not too complex that will leave you baffled for long, though some of the sections are that dark or peppered with obstacles and enemies can be quite tedious and frustrating to traverse, but they are few and far in between. The game also provide lots of save points where you respawn in case you die, so will not have to redo a lot of the puzzles.
You will have to travel through different areas by running, jumping, climbing, and using different abilities. The time travel mechanic is not as complex in Chrono Trigger, rather, you will only have to switch between the gloomy present day and the serene past several years prior at certain points of the game to solve puzzles and open new paths and areas. Along the way, you will meet several NPCs that will provide you information on what to do next and where to go. Your main goal is to free four guardians from four different islands to prevent forces of evil from invading the world in the past. To do this, you are required to explore temples and solve various area puzzles while traversing platforms and avoiding enemies and obstacles. Various animals in this world have been possessed by Shadows that make them extra aggressive towards you. To free them, you have to throw a light bomb at them so that the Shadows will let them go, and then you have blast the Shadows themselves to destroy them once and for all. You cannot kill the animals themselves, though, as the light bomb only affects the Shadows, and some of them will still attack you if you go near them. By the way, the light bomb is one of the different abilities that you will learn as you progress into the game, which also include classic platforming abilities like double jump and dash.
The puzzles in this game are not too complicated, and you pretty much follow a linear path all throughout. At various points in the game, you will be required to travel back and forth through time in order for you to proceed further, since some paths are available only in the past or at present. When you go back to the past, you become a little girl again, but there is no change in how you jump or run or perform abilities.
Platforming is the main highlight of this game. Here, you traverse platforms with various enemies and obstacles to block your way. You will be required to do precise jumps and dashes while avoiding said enemies and obstacles, which could be very tricky at times and even quite frustrating due to the requirement of very precise timing on some moving platforms. You could even respawn right in front of an enemy as it throws projectiles at you, and there is no way that you could avoid them. It doesn’t happen too often, but they do. If your platforming skills are on point, you wouldn’t have worry much about dying often. If not, then you will spend quite some time having to do some precise jumps and memorize patterns in solving the puzzles.
For you to not die, you have to make sure that your HP does not get depleted. You can get hurt by some animals that will attack you at first sight, with some of them being more aggressive when possessed by evil shadows. You will also encounter some obstacles, like spikes and lava pools. As you progress into the game, you can collect heart pieces, three of which will add a heart on your HP gauge. Yes, the game calls them heart pieces, exactly like in Zelda. Other collectibles are animals to pet, which are located at certain harder-reach areas of the game, and Everlight crystals, used in activating switches on some puzzles. Aside from Zelda, the game also incorporate some metroidvania elements, specifically the use of certain abilities to get past challenges and traverse platforms. Despite this, the game itself cannot really be considered a metroidvania, since there are no interconnected areas that loop back to one another. Though you will need to backtrack at certain points in the game, the narrative is very linear and the plot will always point you forward to where you have to go. Maybe you will have the itch to go back to previously visited areas to get to those animals to pet, but as far as I know, they really do not unlock any post-game content.
Overall, YesterMorrow is quite a good platformer. I enjoyed my time playing it, despite some frustrating sections. This may be an indie game, but it has a high production value. Though it was plagued by performance issue at launch, it now performs rather well on the Nintendo Switch. The random flashes of light, framerate drops, and game crashes are no longer happening, so kudos to the developers for following up on the patches to make the game better on the console, though if I were them, I would have consider delaying the release if the quality is not met. Anyway, the game now looks, sounds, and plays quite good, and it deserves its moment in the sun. Go give it a try to experience what this game has in store for you.
REPLAY VALUE: Medium
PROS
- Beautiful pixel art style that make characters and the different environments pop
- Oriental-inspired soundtrack that complements the visuals well
- Excellent level design
- Easy to navigate menu system that keeps track of all of your collectibles and progression
- Most enemies in the game can be avoided and you have the option to free the possessed ones
- Fun yet challenging boss battles
- Performs rather well now, after getting patched after launch
- You can pet animals that are located at certain harder–to-reach areas
- Ideal for handheld gaming
CONS
- Platforming can be very frustrating at times due to somewhat unfair enemy and obstacle placements
- The time travel mechanic could be better, as it is only there in the game to open up alternate paths that really doesn’t impact the story much as you really have no choice but to travel in time when you encounter a time travel pedestal
- Animals that attack you cannot be killed
- The map is not very helpful
- Cutscenes cannot be skipped
RATING: 4/5 lights and shadows
No comments:
Post a Comment