Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo

I went in expecting a cute retro novelty and walked out having experienced one of the most mechanically generous indie games in recent memory. Pocket Trap, a São Paulo studio with genuine GBA-era reverence baked into their DNA, built something that feels less like a homage and more like a lost cartridge that somehow never got released in 2003. The premise is pure urban mob-comedy: Pippit, a lazy bat nephew of energy mogul Madame Pipistrello, accidentally traps his aunt's spirit inside his yoyo during a rival gang ambush, and now has to traipse across New Jolt City fighting four crime-boss entrepreneurs to recover the stolen power batteries and restore her body. The tone is warm and funny, the villain lineup is genuinely charming, and the whole thing is wrapped in pixel art that earns the GBA comparison without flinching. The yoyo is the reason to be here, and it never stops surprising you. What starts as a slightly longer-range basic attack reveals itself as a traversal engine, a puzzle toolkit, and a combat system all braided together. You unlock named tricks over the course of the game: "walk the dog" jets Pippit along a straight line until geometry changes his course, "around the world" clears nearby enemies, and wall-bouncing lets you angle shots around corners to hit switches and foes you cannot see. Water traversal, wall-grinding, pinball-style ricochets off arena bumpers, a freeform throw for long-distance puzzle solutions, a parry for deflecting projectiles, and a charged heavy attack all stack on top of each other. The badge system adds another layer: equippable modifiers that can swap your attack speed for burst damage, turn all surfaces into ricochet planes, or unlock water-skimming far earlier than intended. Sequencing these abilities in optional off-path puzzles is where the game quietly becomes something special. The four districts of New Jolt City are yours to tackle in flexible order, each built around a distinct crime-boss dungeon set somewhere unexpected: a football stadium, a construction zone, a cosplay convention. The overworld map expands as your trick library grows, with locked-off areas calling you back once you have the right move, so the Metroidvania circularity feels earned rather than arbitrary. Boss fights are multi-phase, pattern-based encounters with escalating aggression as health drops, and they represent the clear highlight of the combat design. Difficulty spikes in regular rooms are real and can get punishing: dying costs you a percentage of your coins on respawn, which stings when a stubborn room asks for five or ten attempts. The good news is that difficulty options are freely adjustable, which takes the edge off without trivializing the core challenge. If there are grievances, they are minor but genuine. The city's NPCs are mostly decorative; the world of New Jolt City has personality without much reactivity, and a few reviewers noted unclear objectives during certain puzzle sequences where the sheer number of available moves creates ambiguity about what the game actually intends. The story skews straightforward, and players who came for narrative depth may find the world a little thin between bosses. Yoko Shimomura contributed as guest composer, and the soundtrack earns every mention: it shifts character with each new district and boss encounter in a way that genuinely signals handcraft at the sound design level. At roughly 10 to 15 hours for a main run, with a full completion pushing toward 20, this is a game that knows exactly what it is and uses every hour deliberately. That kind of focused design is what I advocate for. Pocket Trap made something with a clear and confident identity, a weapon mechanic that keeps paying dividends until the final dungeon, and a visual language so committed to its era that the options menu even lets you add a glass-screen texture overlay to simulate the old handheld feel.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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