Papo & Yo - My Froggy Favela

The Playstation Plus 'Instant Games Collection' is a bit of a weird area with a rather combustible membership group. It seems like everyone waits near the end of each month for information on whats going to be free with Playstation Plus next, all making outlandish predictions and then when news of the games finally does arrive, its followed by a comment wave of 'OH MY GOD. RUBBISH INDIES' by childish members which causes certain titles to be lost in the discussion and Papo & Yo sadly seemed to be one of these lost titles. Its a bit of a shame that this is the case as this title fits the Playstation Plus collection to a tee... which is both a good and bad thing at exactly the same time...

First lets hit upon the good points and thankfully there's quite a bit to talk about when it comes to positives. One: The general look of the game is very unique, set in a South-African favela, the game showcases a world which generally isn't touched upon in video games or even in most media with shack houses serving as walls and floors and giant colourful artwork murals daubed across the walls. The characters too follow this unique art style, straddling a rather memorable line between reality and fantasy with the realistic main character contrasting against the giant orange monster. Its clear that a lot of effort went into it all.

Positive number two: The gameplay itself is very fun indeed. Papo & Yo is a puzzle platformer where getting from A to B is usually the nature of each level. Thankfully the playable character Quico controls easily without any issues, jumps are usually simple to make and they manage to avoid being irritating and if mistakes are made, they never feel unfair and checkpoints are placed around in helpful locations. As far as the puzzles go as well, none of them employ any nasty player tricks and all can be worked out without too much hassle while still providing enough challenge to make finishing them feel like an accomplishment.

Here's where things start to sour however. The first issue is the actual game length, its pretty short coming in at only around the three to four hour mark. This is however where the Playstation plus subscription actually works in the games favour. Usually the game has an asking price of £6.50 on the Playstation 3 and a heavier price of £11 for the Steam version and while some people do believe that length shouldn't determine a games value, its pretty obvious that a short game time can kill public reception of a title (See some of the recent reactions to Ps4's 'The Order: 1886' for a great example of this in action) so placing it here alongside several other 'free' titles definitely helps avoid this stigma.

The much bigger problem however that this game has is the story and the message its trying to convey. The story revolves around the lead Quico and his adventures. Along the way he meets up with a mysterious girl, is joined by a small robot friend and then there's the large orange Monster character who Quico is trying to save from an addiction to poisonous frogs that turn Monster into a violent and vicious creature. The reason it doesn't work very well is because the actual symbolism behind everything is made painfully clear from the very moment you turn on the game to the moment the game ends with Monster representing the characters father and poisonous frogs representing alcohol and abusive rage. As the last couple of chapters of the game arrive, these points are hammered into the ground to the point where it just becomes irritating instead of scary or poignant. While the idea is a noble one sure, the execution isn't and the 'solution' given to all of this right at the very end is very debatable.

Thankfully this doesn't totally derail the game and while it does have its flaws, it still stands up as a memorable little indie gem in the Playstation 3's back catalog.