From time to time, a games comes out that shows just how inadequate the current industry standard for reviews is. While high marks are given for shiny regurgitations of iteration over iteration of the same franchise by what seems to be across the board acclaim, games that take chances are much more discrepant in their scores. Papo & Yo is one such game.

I’ll start by saying that I had, in fact, pre-ordered Papo & Yo, but didn’t plan to review it. I have a huge backlog of games, and I was going to wait and play it later. However, curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to read other websites’ reviews of the game. As usual with indie games, I found myself questioning the validity of other reviews. Were they too low? Were they too high? One thing I know, and that’s that they were all over the place. So, I decided to play the game and write my own.

Papo & Yo tells the story of a boy, Quico, who is attempting to take Monster, a fantastical version of his abusive, alcoholic father, to the Shaman in search for a cure for his anger and malady. A girl, who seems more adept at navigating the world than Quico, guides him in his quest. Lula, Quico’s robot, offers to help and keep him company. The journey to the Shaman is conflicting. The world is vibrant, most of the soundtrack is cheerful with a hint of melancholy, and there are various endearing moments between all of the characters. There is, however, also tragedy, pain and violence.

The game itself is a maze. You traverse the world, a colorful characterization of a Brazilian favela, solving different puzzles to advance between areas. They are all very straightforward, requiring no more than a couple of tries each, which is good because the puzzles are secondary to everything else happening around you. Papo & Yo’s goal is not that of a brainteaser. The goal is to tell a story just as much intermittently in the cutscenes between areas, as from character interactions during puzzle solving.

Monster seems to treat Quico with some care when he is not deranged by poisonous frogs (the allegory for alcohol during the game). You can see instances of that when Quico uses Monster’s belly to get to higher places, or when, during one of the puzzles where Quico can get crushed underground, Monster pulls you out of the hole giving Quico a stern wag of the finger, or when find a soccer ball by chance (they are all around the world), and you decide to have Quico play with Monster. After a couple of passes between the two, Monster laughs and taps his belly. Those are very paternal experiences, all of which can be completely overlooked if the player is just trying to go from point A to point B.

In contrast, when Monster eats one of the frogs, he becomes truly vicious. Black and red with flames pouring out of his skin, Monster wants nothing more than to attack Quico over and over and over again. Throughout the game, I found myself dreading the croaking of frogs. Scrambling quickly to get them out of the way, hide them or kill them. If I missed one, and Monster came after Quico. I flinched with every hit he gave Quico.

Quico doesn’t die. Since the story is based on real life experiences of the game’s creative director, it seems like the idea is not to fall within normal gaming conventions, but instead force the player to endure the abuse; to come to terms with the love Quico has for Monster, while forcing the player to acknowledge that love is not enough.

Papo & Yo is not winning awards for graphics and what most of us would call polish. Colors are vibrant, yes, which adds enormously to the charm of the game, but there is screen tearing, the character modeling is not super crisp, etc. Honestly, it doesn’t matter.

The music is superb. The story forces the player to come to terms with some very difficult choices, to both gain and lose things he loves. And everything else works just fine to tell this tale. This isn’t a game that purports grandeur. It’s not a blockbuster, and it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s a game that wants to tell you a story. It’s catharsis. It’s human.

If you are still unsure about the game after some of the lower review scores, download the demo. Play that instead, and see for yourself whether this game is for you. For me, while it may not have been as pretty as a game like Journey, it did provide a completely unique and highly emotional experience.

Papo & Yo is not for everyone, but if you are looking for something more adult, more emotional and more intellectual from your games, then I highly recommend it.

85/100

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