Developer: Bitmap Galaxy
Publishers: Blowfish Studios, Gamera Game
Platform: PC, Nintendo Switch
Tested On: Nintendo Switch
YesterMorrow – Review
Light against darkness and good versus evil have been a staple in story writing since forever. At this point, sticking to the bare minimum of this concept rarely leads to anything other than a bland story. Such is the case with YesterMorrow, which, despite great presentation and good gameplay, is bogged down by its plot.
Story
As already stated, YesterMorrow’s story is little more than good versus evil. The game follows Yui, daughter of the Forest Island’s Timekeeper as she attempts to rid the world of darkness that has taken over. Aided in her journey by the guardians of the different islands, Yui gains powers that allow her to manipulate the power of Everlight and eventually time itself.
Despite the early introduction of the ability to go back in time to when Yui was a child, this is never really used in the story. Other than a few sections where she attempts to warn the Timekeepers, only to be ignored for being a child, this plot device is neglected for anything other than gameplay purposes.
There’s also the rather annoying issue with cutscenes, where they completely destroy any sense of flow by being unskippable and automatic, preventing players from reading at their own pace. The game further destroys the pacing of its story by repeating information over and over, as if players were Dory from Finding Nemo.
Last but not least, it is worth mentioning all characters are utterly flat, experiencing no growth along the game’s flow and remaining completely uninteresting. Even Yui as the protagonist has no character arc or changes at all, despite all she goes through in the game.
Graphics
YesterMorrow’s graphics are quite good, with a highly polished and charming pixel art style. Enemies are quite unique and different from each other, while still sharing general themes, although the shadow versions of normal ones only sully the normal sprites. The same can be said about the different locations, all with different characteristics, although the different temples all look very similar to each other.
Sound
The game’s sound is well covered in quality, although not as much in variation. The soundtrack is comprised of a few melancholic sounding songs which more often than not play for enormous sections on repeat. Even after a new one plays, the sound is so similar it is often hard to pinpoint differences. SFX are also well made and more varied than the songs, with a lot of different effects for the different enemies and abilities.
Gameplay
YesterMorrow’s gameplay belongs to the puzzle-platformer genre, although “puzzle” is a generous term to define the challenges featured. As the game progresses, players obtain a few more abilities to solve puzzles with, although they’re fairly standard for the genre, such as a double jump, a dash or a stomp.
Throughout the different areas, Yui will have to fend off enemies, although the concept of actually killing them is nonexistent for anything other than shadows. Normal monsters will be able to attack Yui at any time, while she remains powerless against them. In the “future” sections, some monsters will also be possessed by the darkness, where dealing contact damage to them can purge them by Everlight attacks. That said, once they’ve been purged, the only thing Yui can do is defeat the shadow which previously inhabited them, letting the actual enemy remain. Some of these critters will at times be employed for platforming challenges, although the potential of this concept is wasted by only using it in a few inconsequential sections.
Other than mostly simple platforming and “puzzles”, YesterMorrow doesn’t have much to offer. There are 6 bosses in total, which pose somewhat of a threat despite all dying in three or four hits. These boss-fights generally require players to use their newest skill to beat them, although not in any way differently from the levels themselves.
The game’s difficulty is quite low as a whole. There are plenty of save spots which all restore the player to full health, at times at mere steps from one another. Later into the game, there are longer sections without checkpoints, but this increase in difficulty is quickly undone by the fact that cleansed enemies stay as such. The game is also done no favors by the possibility to skip through damage thanks to generous post-damage invincibility and hazards serving as normal platforms during it.
It is worth mentioning the Switch version of the game is riddled with plenty of bugs, mainly graphical ones. There are sections where bright flashes of light will invade the player’s screen as textures glitch out, as well as plenty of annoying fps drops throughout the game. These are minor compared to actual gameplay bugs though, such as the ones where players may clip through walls, become locked by broken mechanisms or even permanently hard-lock the game.
Conclusion
YesterMorrow is a game which could at best be described as harmless and mediocre. It lacks any fangs or attempts to innovate, neither with its setting nor its gameplay. For the $19,99/€17,99/£16.19 price tag, the game has very little to offer, without even taking into account the bugs and issues. The game could have already offered so much more with a solid storyline, or by bringing something new to the already oversaturated concept and genre.
Personal Opinion
“I found YesterMorrow to be the blandest experience I’ve had in a while. That is referring to the gameplay as when referring to the story, the word to describe it would be “slog”. The characters are cardboard cutouts with no personality, who keep vomiting the same information over and over in unskippable cutscenes which don’t even let players press to accelerate. Funnily enough, it was one of these cutscenes that hard-locked my game forcing me to restart. Right before the last level of the game a conversation between Yui and another character is happening, where at the end said character is supposed to hand Yui the last key. During my playthrough this cutscene didn’t load properly and I retained control; assuming I was free to go I just moved on, only to find out I couldn’t progress. After checking my missions, where I found out my objective hadn’t changed, I attempted to beat the boss I’d already beaten, to no avail. I ended up watching a walkthrough of the game to find out how it should’ve played, which confirmed I had to go through the five hours of game again to finish it. My reward? A predictable final boss which was little more than a combination of previous bosses and some of Yui’s abilities.”
YesterMorrow - Review,
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