Take on the role of a space doctor, explore the solar system, and make rad planetary friends in this adorable puzzle game! Alien invaders called “Yuso” have overrun every planet… and it is up to you and your medical expertise to take out the trash!

Developer: Vertical Reach

Publisher: Vertical Reach

Played 6-8hrs // Available on Steam, Switch, iOS, and Android // $7.99

Played on Nintendo Switch (Review Copy)



The game opens up by explaining the deceptively simple game mechanics. There are four colors of Yuso. When a Yuso has a like color cardinally adjacent to it, you may then tap it to pop it. Then, any like-colored yuso (cardinally and diagonally) adjacent to the popped one also pops away, while any with a different color take on the popped yuso’s color. The goal of each level is to clear out all the Yuso.



Sleepers & nightcaps changing things up! What would be your first move?

Seems simple enough, right? Well, you’d be wrong! The levels quickly build in complexity. Additional mechanics pop up as you progress through the levels, such as sleeping Yuso, bombs, and nightcaps. These do not significantly change gameplay, but give the level designs a bit more flexibility.

Sleepers are not changed by adjacent pops, which only awaken them. Bombs are like Yuso you can’t pop, but pop themselves after a set time. The nightcaps put Yuso to sleep once they blow. Ultimately, this means the player needs different strategies to conquer the plethora of levels. Additionally, you are given some quality of life features that ease your journey such as an undo button and open progression.



Yuso‘s “level” select screen. Very crisp & clean! I am still sad to see Pluto go…

The open progression allows you to advance to the subsequent planets without having to necessarily clear all previous puzzles. The game simply asks you to have clear a suitable number of levels to progress. I particularly appreciated this feature, common as it may be in puzzle games today. It allowed me to meet all the charismatic planetary guardians as soon as I wanted!

A question I asked upon first seeing Yuso and as I played was “Who is the intended audience?” Their previous game, Tangrams Deluxe, is aimed at children. The cutesy aesthetic gives an initial impression that this title is also for kids. However, the store page explicitly states that one should not judge this proverbial book by its cover – a warning I advise you to heed!

There are easily one or two dozen puzzles with which I struggled. Although, I was eventually able to solve these head scratchers upon revisiting them later. While I found it immensely satisfying to finally crack those puzzles, I could also imagine this being incredibly frustrating to a young, unsuspecting victim. Only buy this for children who particularly like puzzle games.



Your first friend in Yuso. Cleary, Mercury is the cool, laid-back one.

The soundtrack of Yuso is easy on the ears as you progress through each level. The soundtracks vary from planet to planet, but musical themes are common throughout. This makes each track sound fresh, but not jarring as you transition between planets. The pleasant songs are not repetitive, and as such, do not become grating while stuck on a particularly difficult puzzle! The soundtracks have that quaint quality shared by good Muzak and the Wii shop channel music.

Why YU-SO hard?!

Unfortunately, there are minor issues with the sound mixing. Some tracks are rather quiet while it is difficult to tune the sound effects to a good spot. I reached out to the developers about this though, whom are very friendly. They thanked me for the input and assured me a patch would be coming out soon after release to address this, and any other minor issues.

Summary

All in all, I was rather impressed by Yuso! I’m not typically a fan of puzzle games (except for Sudoku on my phone), but I found this one quite charming! It is the well balanced difficulty, quirky cast of characters, cute aesthetic, and fantastic soundtrack that really make this game great! I’m really looking forward to Vertical Reach’s next title, Apex Arena!

Thank you for reading! Want to check out some more aesthetic puzzle Nindies? Check out Semblance and Pool Panic! If you liked this review and want to see more like it, consider donating to our Patreon!