A Time-Traveling Jack of all Trades
Yestermorrow by Bitmap Galaxy is a mash up of the retro revives we have come to adore. Time travel, puzzle platforming, fluid pixel art, it is all here. It is a gorgeous world with clever designs to keep you moving forward, but the game never truly feels like it commits to any one design philosophy outside of mashing a few ideas as coherently as they could. That being said, the interesting character progression and fascinating story will keep you propelling through this nostalgic journey with plenty to enjoy.
A Link to Her Past
Yestermorrow stars Yui, a young girl who is preparing to celebrate a festival in her small village. Before too long into the adventure, a dark invasion takes over the festival and her world. After the horrifying attack we flash forward to a much older Yui, where we learn the world has not recovered. After a mysterious voice beckons her, she is once again propelled back in time to before the attack, where others around her believe she is dreaming. With her new powers, Yui must travel forward to the ravaged timeline and back to the pre-devastation to solve environmental puzzles and unravel a mysterious plot.
An interesting design choice here is the way shrines work. They take you to and from each timeline and are not really streamlined to bring you simply from point A to point B. The further you play on the more these shrines become vast and in some cases confusing. There isn’t always an obvious way to solve your problems, but that’s the beauty of it all. You need to experiment between timelines to progress to where you need to go. You are constantly traveling between timelines. This isn’t a case of going back to finish a temple and then back to unlock a door, but it isn’t an instant transmission like it is in titles such as The Messenger. Yestermorrow is much more open ended than that, which gives it a fresh feel when compared to other games like it.
The pixel art in Yestermorrow is reminiscent of many indie games such as Children of Morta, but the team at Bitmap Galaxy does a phenomenal job animating the characters. The game uses a day/night cycle to really lend depth to the visuals you might otherwise not notice, bringing the pixelated graphics to life. On its surface it may look like “another pixel art game” but Yestermorrow’s stunning presentation shows that this is how you drive the pixel art aesthetic home.
A Wrinkle in Time
The time travel is meshed together with precision platforming that takes front and center over its combat and puzzle design. The puzzles are typically how to use time travel to your advantage, but you still need to climb, jump, roll and bomb your way through increasingly challenging platforming. You have to do all of this while also juggling enemies scattered about, making Yestermorrow’s platforming a perilous endeavor.
The worst part of Yestermorrow is its execution of combat. You have so few options for enemy disposal and will find yourself in very familiar patterns often. You can use your bombs and dash attacks to beat the shadows out of beasts, but that’s the extent of your abilities. You might find yourself yearning for more of a marriage of combat and platforming, especially when the platforming is so nicely implemented. While the swift and smooth platforming is meant to encourage fluid pacifist-style gameplay runs, in practice this choice falls flat.
A Master of None
Yestermorrow cobbles together a few very interesting mechanics, but only really hits it out of the park in the platforming department. It unfortunately doesn’t quite nail any of the others like combat and character progression. If you want a decent platforming challenge, give this one a shot as there is a lot of fun to be had here for the platforming fan looking for something different. A gorgeous world and intriguing story is just added dressing to the precision platforming, but at $15 on Steam, it might be a hard sell to somebody looking for more than just a decent platforming challenge.
