Yoku’s Island Express is a pinball metroidvania. It is easily the best pinball search action game I have ever played, and the fact that Nintendo has failed at this concept so many times makes me terribly sad that Villa Gorilla basically released this eight years ago, and then stopped existing. Yoku’s Island Express is so good! I could spend the entire rest of this article talking about how this is one of the best and indisputably most unique metroidvanias of the last decade.
But I’m not going to do that.
You see, Yoku is the official postmaster of his island. And, because that means that Yoku’s fruit budget must be federally funded, we are going to talk about something very important to this moment in American history:
Taxes are good, actually.
I am a child of the 80’s. The first political anything I can remember was George H.W. Bush stating, “Read my lips: no new taxes”. This was his promise to voters in his 1988 campaign, and then judgmentally repeated by Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992 to prove Bush’s duplicity. I remember hearing the phrase (and parodies of it) roughly 80,000 times until the Y2K bug thankfully wiped it out. And, while that specific phrasing has fallen by the wayside, its moral remains: taxes are the most important thing in politics. Or, to be particular, bad politicians raise taxes, while good politicians lower taxes. It is the only thing that matters! Your president of choice may drone strike weddings or tell you to dunk your face in bleach, but, end of the day, what you want to see is lower taxes. If taxes go up, your suffering goes up, and we elect presidents that reduce suffering 60% of the time.
Here is a funny bit of anecdotal evidence: I surveyed my 30-40-something peers, and not a single one could quantify if their personal taxes have gone in either direction in the last two decades. Due to switching jobs, raises, randomly being unemployed, and the occasional need for federal assistance, not a single person I spoke to could quantifiably say, “I paid less taxes under x administration” or “y president really hiked up my taxes”. The best I could find were a couple of small business owners who could measure some deductibles that had either been reduced or eliminated in the last decade or so… But these were also items that appeared to be… Well, let’s call ‘em “government discounts”. Did you know there was a time you would get a tax break for buying a vehicle large enough to be considered farm equipment? And that that led to the boom of Hummers and other vehicles that could mow down entire neighborhoods of children? That was technically a tax break, and some people remember it. That’s about all anyone seems to be able to recall.
But! Everybody knows they hate taxes. That wily government is taking between 40%-50% of earnings right out of your poor, deflated paycheck. While nobody I surveyed could recall exact numbers on if they paid a greater or lesser percentage of taxes any given year, 100% of people noted that they disliked paying taxes. And that wasn’t even one of the questions! The overwhelming feeling seems to be that local, state, and federal governments are stealing earnings from us hardworking Americans, and they only thing we ever get out of it is a big, fat nothing. It all goes into some fat cat’s pocket, and then those funds are spent on anchovies or the finest yarn.
Wondering why I was asking this question in the first place? Well, in response to some bonkers responses to “why did you vote for Trump?” that were published in the New York Times, I learned that there are people that believe that once you have paid off your home’s mortgage, you should get to stop paying property taxes. And, in researching the origin of this thinking, I found that Ron DeSantis (editor’s note: I spoke to a Florida resident in preparation for this article, he asked that I denote Ron DeSantis as a “noted fucking evil asshole”. 
I shall adhere to this style guide going forward), who is a noted fucking evil asshole, wants to eliminate property taxes for residents in Florida. This is already on top of an existing Homestead Exemption that caps tax increases, and (as has been noted by many people who understand math) would require the lost revenue to come from somewhere. Florida already does not have (state-based) income tax, and, to be frank, you can only tax Disney World so much before Disney Co. decides to simply launch Orlando into space (where there are significantly less laws). But noted fucking evil asshole Ron DeSantis has said, “You still get a lot of revenue, probably have to phase it in, do some other things, make it work. I’ve even said we’ll give some of our surplus to help with the transition.” Go ahead and read that again: it is magical, Gamestop-buys-eBay thinking, offering no actual solutions, just expressing a longwinded variation of “make it work.” This is the statement of a noted fucking evil asshole that knows he will not have to be holding the bag when the authorities start asking why all these bridges are collapsing.
Because that’s the thing: taxes make the world go ‘round.
Here is the fun thing about your city, state, and federal governments: they should not create profit. A government is not a business. At its absolute most basic, a government is funded by taxes for the purpose of doing stuff, and not necessarily profiting from whatever is done. This means that children are taught in schools even though those children might never go on to benefit society. This means that libraries loan out books even though readers may simply be consuming those books for idle entertainment. And it means mail is delivered even though the greatest beneficiary of mail service right now is the advertising department for BetQueens, the only website where you can bet your entire life savings on local fights between alley cats. But the same service that is shoveling spam into your mail slot also delivers a toddler’s Happy Mother’s Day card to their grandma, so it is considered a public good. Because it is! Even if you do not have kids, it is good that children are educated. Even if you do not use the library, it is good that people have the option of finding entertainment somewhere that is not sponsored by Wal Mart. And, let’s be real here: it is a good thing for that precious economy full of companies that do create profit that the people who perform these services are paid. Librarians are autistic as heck by nature, so you better believe they are buying up all the model trains they can find. Mail carriers love wacky t-shirts about their profession. If there were no taxes paying teachers, the international apple market would collapse. Iatrophobia cannot support that fruit alone!
And speaking of supporting teachers, let’s talk about what your taxes pay for. Are you one of the 226,050,000 Americans (actual number, look it up) that support the idea that your taxes should pay for healthcare? Great news! Your taxes are already paying for healthcare! Just, ya know, probably not your healthcare. Here, I made this chart
So maybe print that one out and pin it to the fridge in case you forget why taxes are important. From teachers at the elementary school down the street to Food and Drug Administration inspectors that are doing their best to make sure you do not get E. coli, your taxes are not only paying people to be able to afford new videogames, but also keeping them alive with healthcare and retirement plans.
And why is that important? Because if we only had for-profit businesses, then we would all be dead.
Well, maybe we wouldn’t all be dead. But a healthy portion of the population would be six feet under. It is simple to understand: if there was ever a time in history that “businesses” had a social obligation to the average human, that time has long passed. You can make excuses about the past not knowing the full ramifications of their overtly harmful practices (did you know trading cards were invented to sell cigarettes? And “cigarette cards” were sold through the 1940’s? You know, to children?), but we are firmly in the epoch where verified science is constantly relaying truths like “stop doing that or the planet will explode”, and various companies are replying “we would, but that’s gonna cut into our stock options”. And that is the biggest problem: companies operate like they owe their customers nothing because “companies” do not make decisions, the people in charge of companies do. And people that find themselves in management positions almost universally are playing hot potato with the entire planet Earth. Sure, this gasoline firm or that plastic manufacturer might be doing irreparable harm to the planet, but if a CEO deploys his billion-dollar payout parachute, then it is the next guy that has to deal with the P.R. nightmare of kickstarting the apocalypse. And if you naively believe that these robber barons still have to live on the same planet as everybody else, I assure you, the science is there: those billion-dollar payouts can pay for a life extension you or I could only dream about. They can have a staff with a compound. You will be underwater. The men still breathing will not lose a moment of sleep over that.
… Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest…
Assuming you are not having this article read to you by your staff before the big board meeting, you likely do not have much to do with the previous paragraph. In fact, you may believe “big businesses suck” have literally nothing to do with you. “I am just a smol bean, Goggle Bob! If the world is going to end because a data center was set up atop my child’s kindergarten, there is nothing I can do about that.” And there is some truth to that. You should do everything you can to make your local community better, but affecting the kind of global change that it takes to avert climate change is daunting. However, here is one basic way “companies do not care” could impact you: it may not be profitable to keep you as part of society.
It is a simple matter of math. There are many, many homes that are isolated compared to their denser, city-based cousins. In some cases, there are entire towns that are inaccessible, and only a handful of them got this way due to being haunted by malevolent fog. Regardless of whether we are talking about a single letter or a box of unusual size, it costs money to get a package to someone. In a situation where there are a hundred people all receiving packages in the same area, it is financially worthwhile. When there is just one dude 50 miles north of nowhere, well, that is not so much a profitable venture. But! That one dude might be ordering a thousand anime statues (they are all Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is always Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion) from Amazon, and that makes a lot of money for Amazon. They absolutely want a company that will deliver to their paypig out in Nowhere, North Dakota… But Amazon is not super into the whole “lost profits” concept. They have tried to work out drones and alike to solve this problem, but, if UPS or FedEx has determined a delivery route is literally not worth the trouble, you know who picks up the last leg of the trip? The good ol’ federally funded U.S. Postal Service. Amazon makes billions, private carriers do not want to risk losing a dime, and it is the federal service that “loses” on seeing AnimeFan6969 get his deliveries.
So, yes, your taxes are subsidizing global good services just as much as those of gigantic businesses.
And that is okay.
There are always going to be unworthy recipients of “your” tax money. In the above example, Amazon makes out like a bandit. But some guy in a remote region gets what he wants. The producers are rewarded for producing such, and they pay their employees. And there are postal workers all along the line that receive money to live, too. If the world was bound to a profit-only balance sheet, this Example Man sits alone in his anime statue-less world, and a variety of people along the way do not have jobs. It is only through taxes that companies and people survive. You paid for that! Your taxes paid for that! And that is a good thing! Taxes are good!
So enjoy paying your taxes. They pay for services that help everyone. And it is the only way pinball beetles can save the world.
FGC #732 Yoku’s Island Express
System: Available for Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows, and… Amazon Luna? Did Amazon try to buy the moon? Was that subsidized?- Number of players: There is no competitive pinball here. One player, thank you.
- Speaking of taxes: The fruit tolls for unlocking extra bumpers and paths along the way appear to be flawlessly calibrated to match local fruit availability. And that’s good, because I have always had the damndest time aiming my pinball to escape from any given area. I will collect every fruit available!… mostly because I am going to bounce around any given board for the next half hour.
- Additional Praise: Whoever came up with the “Obtainium Mine” should receive a Nobel Prize of some sort. Any one of ‘em should do.
- Favorite Character: In much the same way this metroidvania makes the entire concept look easy, the clay-esque weirdos running around Yoku’s Island are delightful and memorable. And I want to see more of Posterodactyl! I feel like that kinda-dinosaur must lead an interesting life.
- Favorite Powerup: Miraculously, I am not going to choose the grappling ability this time. The humble bomb is my choice, because sticking to bugs and releasing them is a fun task onto itself.
- 12 Months Go Fast: Yoku’s Island Express was recommended by Even Worse Streams commentator Cassandralyn, and is the second of twelve games I have been asked to play through the year.
I am patently not making good time on that goal.
- Say something mean: I hit the marker for 50 “deaths” during the final boss of the story. While it was fun to see the little related cutscene, I do think it interrupted the flow of that epic moment just a tad.
- Did you know? Kickback being useless as an “item” is foreshadowing. No, I will not be forgiving that maniac.
- Would I play again: Resounding yes! I feel bad I have not played this game more during my life! Believe the hype! Yoku’s Island Express is incredible right down to the lighting and particle effects! They get so much right here! Pay your taxes!
Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: I apologize to everyone that I ignored for the last few years that said, “this is the best pinball adventure game ever made.” I thought it was an exaggeration! I am a veteran of Pinball Quest and Metroid Prime Pinball! I thought I had seen the most “a pinball adventure” has to offer! I was so wrong! This is a perfect metroidvania with an excellent escalation of powerups, story, and characters. If it were a “regular” metroidvania with those stats, it would still stand out from the pack. As a pinball game, it is a gift from God. I am saying I like the game.
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… This is Fine: Maximum Cope! That should be fine! Please look forward to it!
Is it on Steam?