by Tanner Kinney Disclaimer: This review is of the Nintendo Switch version of the game and was played primarily in portable mode. YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is a game I’ve been following and anticipating for quite a while now. This game was never on Kickstarter, being mostly a passion project built by a small studio over the duration of five years. The game showed promise and was picked up by a publisher relatively quickly, and many people have been eagerly anticipating the game. Through much hardship and even a death in the family, the two brothers at Ackk Studios have done a ton of work to make their dream game come to life. And it shows; this game has a lot of genuine and honest heart and it was clearly constructed with love. That makes it all the more painful that the end result is a game that is so charming and captivating in presentation, but is also such an absolute trainwreck in writing that it came under a number of controversies within the first few days of release. It’s tonally inconsistent, frequently cringey, occasionally misguided, but absolutely captivating to watch in motion. A lot of games are described as trainwrecks, but only YIIK has been able to capture the “can’t look away” element of the equation. To sum it up in a way the game itself would: the two parallel universes where I love and hate this game exist in this universe at the same time.
The charming exterior
The skeletons in the closet
YIIK YIIKes.
The compelling disaster of it all
YIIK getting stuck in walls opening shop menus during combat having the Switch version ask me if I’m using an Xbox One controller bugging out puzzles so they don’t work who is a reference to a real life tragedy in a somewhat insensitive wayGOG GOG
