Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Review: Papo & Yo's dreamlike fable will stick with you

Review: Papo & Yo's dreamlike fable will stick with you:





I just don't understand modern architecture.



Minority Media



When a game starts off with a dedication “to my mother, brother, and sisters with whom I survived my monster father,” you can be pretty sure it's not going to be your run-of-the-mill, disposable piece of thoughtless entertainment. Indeed, the sparse, dreamlike fable told over the course of Papo & Yo is likely to stick with you long after its short running time is complete.
The game's delicate balance between childlike wonder and much darker fear is set early on, with protagonist Quico cowering in a closet as a lumbering shadow stalks in the background. Quico escapes through a convenient wall portal that opens into some disquietingly empty slums, densely packed with realistically dingy shacks with thin plywood roofs.
These favelas are almost a character in themselves, creating a space that is at turns imposing and surprisingly awe-inspiring. Everything in the world is suffused with an undertone of magical realism, where seemingly ordinary objects can take on new forms. This is a world where tugging a glowing thread can pull a stairway out of the side of a building, where lifting a cardboard box can cause an entire building to come unmoored from its foundations, where shacks can sprout legs and scuttle into place to provide a handy bridge. There's a sense of childlike imagination at play in the way the game adds a layer of magic into the rundown world, and it's likely to make you look at your own surroundings a little differently after you play.
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