Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo Review – Zelda Meets Metroidvania in This Yoyo-Wielding Indie Hit
Pipistrello and the Cursed YoYo is a top-down pixel art metroidvania where animal gangs meet Zeldalike yo-yo combat. Explore a retro-inspired city, unlock abilities, and uncover secrets.
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Game: Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo
Studio: Pocket Trap
Publisher: PM Studios, Inc.
Platforms: Steam
Completion Time: 10+ Hours to Complete w/ 3+ hours of extra exploring.
Price: $19.99
Genre: Top-Down, Action-Adventure, Retro, Zelda-Like
✅ Steam Deck Verified
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Good Game Lobby Review of Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, the latest release by Pocket Trap and published by PM Studios. It’s a 2D top-down Zelda-like metroidvania—or as they have aptly named it, a Yoyovania. Now let me share with you why I think it’s one of the best games of the year.
Family Feud
Pippit, the main character, is on a routine visit to their well-off aunt, the owner of the family Pipistrello business. Pipistrello Industries provides energy to the city, controlling most of what people can and can’t do. Rival gangs are fed up with the Pipistrello family’s control, and that’s when they decide to crash the party and steal the main energy batteries. They kill your aunt and get away, but your aunt is smarter than them. She may have lost her body, but her spirit inhabits your trusty yoyo—giving her a chance to live again if you collect all the batteries, and restore her physical form. With Auntie by your side, you must fight off the gangs, collect the batteries, and bring the city back to normalcy.
The Back and Forth of Yoyo Mechanics
The movement and control feel smooth, and the fighting is easy to get the hang of. It only takes a couple of tries to pick up new abilities for your yoyo. It’s straightforward, you use your yoyo to attack enemies and unlock a parry to throw back projectiles. Your yoyo is used to hit against the diagonal sides of walls and will bounce off of them either by you throwing it out or releasing it to fly across the fighting area. This gives you time to move around enemies while your yoyo does the heavy lifting.
Bouncing off of walls isn't just for your yoyo. You unlock more abilities as you progress that will let you ride your yoyo, following it as you bounce off walls, ride over water or sewage in the sewers, and, in the late game, you get a wall ride that serves as the sort of final ability to find all the secrets hidden in the world.
It’s the puzzles you need to solve and time correctly with all of these newfound abilities that make this game so much fun. It’s constantly pushing you to think beyond what you’ve used up to that point. Throwing your yoyo out to collect a battery that bounces around until you jump to another platform, catch it, and then place the battery before a switch turns on and blocks your path gives you enough of a challenge to keep wanting more.
When visiting your lair, you can turn in blueprints for upgrades or pay toward making upgrades cost less BP. You are loaned new upgrades from one of your cousins, who at times will apply a tax by removing one heart or reducing your attack power. Once the loan is paid back, you will upgrade with no tax on you. These have a branching upgrade path, and you can choose one of four different lines. My favorites were those that increased health, collected coins like magnets, and boosted the damage output of certain abilities.
This whole system is built on collecting coins, finding hidden items, and solving tons of puzzles. This really does keep that gameplay loop fresh from beginning to end and never once felt like it was overstepping. Upgrade on your own, or don’t upgrade at all—it’s all up to you.
Pixel Perfection
Picture a Game Boy Advance that is high definition, and that’s the art direction of Pipistrello. It’s easy to visually get me hooked on a game when it has the Zelda-like look, and what makes this stand out is that its approach, though GBA-style, is extremely detailed in character designs and items. The character designs are all animals, so the people you meet around town are birds, dogs, and cats. In fact, the dogs look like they’ve been ripped right from Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines, which is a fantastic platformer you should check out.
The deep purples, blues, and burgundy used in the game’s marketing also stand out in the game itself. The four unique areas of the city are similar, but it's the shops, sewer systems, and hidden areas you explore that bring a fresh outlook to the visuals.
Great Sound Design & Infectious Soundtrack
The sound design in these types of game have a pretty standard collection that will be similar, and not much is changed here with only subtly changes to enemy hits or sounds of items. It’s the music that I truly loved. The soundtrack by Leonardo Lima and Henrique Lorenzi is a standout here. I loved that each battle sequence had its own music and that winning the battles was accompanied by a mini success jingle that complemented the battle song. The lair song was revitalizing—not only when you needed to refresh your heart, but just to hear that song again. Here is one of my favorites from the game: Old Rattalia Town – Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo. Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments!
A Must-Play Game of The Year
Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo is one of the best games of 2025 and a must-play for me. The smooth gameplay and progressive unlocks of abilities continually bring a fresh and inventive way to move, battle enemies, and explore the city. The pixel artwork is some of the best you will see in a game this year—from the detailed character design to the introductions of items and the abilities you unlock. New enemies will push you to your limits, forcing you to master the timing of parrying projectiles and use the aforementioned abilities to keep them at bay. The soundtrack continues to evolve with each new boss battle and shop you discover—all coming together for a truly perfect Yoyovania.
It’s honestly one for retro Zelda enthusiasts, but I can say that Pipistrello stands on its own and will go down as one of the best top-down games in history. Adding the call-back of the Yoyovania provides more thoughtful exploration and puzzle solving. The game offers a ton of accessibility features too—so if you aren’t looking for a difficult time, you can increase your heals, battle points, and many, many other settings to assist you for a smoother run. I hope the game sees tremendous success because I want a series of these games.
Now, considering I’m based in Europe, how can I get my hands on the physical version and get that Pippit plush? PM Studios, help me out!! Just look at Pippit😭
Pricing and Completion Time
I spent roughly 10 hours completing the main game and 3 more hours looking for secrets around the city—with plenty more still to be discovered. It’s $19.99, and with the length, great story, and fun, inventive gameplay loop, it is well worth it for Zelda and Metroidvania fans alike. The games of the past I harken back to constantly are getting so much love with these new takes on old classics, and I’m all here for it.
If you see any new Zeldalikes I haven’t reviewed, let me know in the comments—because I think I want to make a list of the top Zeldalikes of all time.
Thank you to Renaissance PR for the key to the review from PM Studios on behalf of the developers Pocket Trap.
Between this and Animal Well, I’m glad to see the mighty yo-yo making a comeback as a video game weapon!
In all seriousness, this game looks like so much fun and I had genuinely never heard of it till now. Thanks for putting it on my radar with this great review!
Wow, this looks cool. Not sure if I'll pay $20 for it, but I'll keep an eye out for a sale.