Sumea makes some of the best platformers on the market, but it seems to recycle a good portion of code and graphical elements from game to game. Yo-Yo Fighter closely resembles several of its previous games--namely, Zoy's Rescue Mission and Santa's Rush Hour.
Your hero in Yo-Yo Fighter is named Yozo, appropriately enough. He and his friends were transported trough a mysterious portal into a World of Stone. Yozo's quest is to find his friends, using only his trusty yo-yo for self-defense. When enemies--such as bats, golems, or robots--are close enough, your yo-yo automatically targets them. Pressing 5 will send the spinning disk of death on its way. You can never miss, so the game is very easy in this respect.
Along the way, you can collect more energy and some nice bonus items, like rocket sneakers for flying. There are 17 levels, but some of them are exceedingly quick. Twice you encounter a boss monster: a large stone golem that can take a severe beating before giving up the ghost.
Yo-Yo Fighter looks really good: sharp graphics, nicely animated characters, and a good choice of palette. Sounds are few--just some short tunes and a sound effect when your yo-yo hits something. Yo-Yo Fighter imparts a definite feeling of déjà vu if you've played Santa's Rush Hour, but it's still an excellent game.
Unfortunately, Yo-Yo Fighter is terribly short. If you die, you can continue from the same spot. Doing this, you can go through all 17 levels in about half an hour. Just when you are starting to really get into the swing of things and have managed to find nice stuff like rocket sneakers, it's all over. Had the game been, say, twice as long, I would have given it a very high score. You get to rescue only one friend; the other one is apparently trapped on a different world, which will likely be featured in Yo-Yo Fighter 2. So, you're probably going to have to buy the sequel if you want to complete the quest. One game for the price of two, eh?
