Yerba Buena from Focus Entertainment and Mad About Pandas is a first-person puzzle adventure set in the 1970s. Check out our Yerba Buena review!
Yerba Buena from Focus Entertainment and Mad About Pandas is a first-person puzzle adventure set in the 1970s. You’ll be placed in the role of Barb, a currently unemployed woman who moved to San Francisco from Wisconsin in search of new opportunities. The good news? You’ve at least managed to make some new friends over the last few months. The game takes place in San Francisco in 1976, and gets its name since Yerba Buena was the name of the settlement from which San Francisco eventually developed. Oh, and you’re an NPC in a now-abandoned gameworld. You know, the usual.
When an unusual glitch threatens the very existence of this digital world you know as your home, you will need to jump into action by making the most of a peculiar tool: the Oscillator! The Oscillator will allow you to copy the movement and physical traits of the world around you, so that you can then reapply them in order to manipulate the environment. This is how you’ll be able to take on the different puzzles that Yerba Buena will throw at you.
I previously had a chance to work on a Hitchhiker review, a game from Mad About Pandas and Versus Evil, a story-driven experience in which you’ll be hitchhiking through different areas as you try to find the clues needed to unravel the mystery that lies before you, so that you can make the most of your past as you try to have a future. It was an interesting one, so I was definitely up for checking out what Yerba Buena was all about.
Once the intro cutscene is over, you’ll be taking control of Barb by using the left analog stick, as you use the right analog stick to look around you as needed. You’ll jump by pressing the X button, and you’ll be able to interact as needed by using the L1 and Triangle buttons. Use your Oscillator with the L2 button to scan everything around you that has glitched, so that you can more easily locate the things that you can interact with using the Oscillator’s ability.
You can then copy and paste a trait by pressing the R2 or Square buttons. If needed, you can reset a trait by aiming at the object you copied it to and then pressing the R1 or Circle buttons. Your journal will have valuable information for you to consider, so you should definitely check it out by pressing down on the D-Pad. This is how you’ll learn more about the people you meet, the things you learn about, the items you find, and the different chapters you play through.
You’ll be jumping into action after a bike gang member grabs you from inside of Russell’s taxi and then takes off with him. After the taxi crashes into a brewery, you’ll need to find a way to help Russell before it’s too late. After you grab a pair of wirecutters from the basement of Jorge’s convenience store, you’ll finally gain access to the powerful Oscillator. All you’ll need to do then is complete a short tutorial so that you can learn the basics!
This will include, for instance, being able to copy the energy from a moving object and then pasting it onto a static, glitchy object so that you can move it out of the way. The direction in which the original object you’re copying is moving will determine the direction in which the object you paste the trait onto will move. Another option would be to copy a spinning object to, you guessed it, paste that trait onto a glitched object to make it spin right ’round, baby, right ’round. Since the Oscillator has a limited range and can only carry the copied trait over a short distance, you’ll need to find the right way of solving each of the puzzles that you’ll run into.
The game does not feature a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy, which feels odd since the list is a long one. It’s split into 35 Bronze trophies, 4 Silver trophies, and a single Gold trophy for you to work on. What will you need to do to 100% this trophy list? Along with the different trophies that will pop as you progress through each of the game’s story chapters, you’ll also get trophies for exploring everything in Rusell’s taxi, exploring everything in Jorge’s store, examining everything in Wanda’s glovebox, disabling all power generators, ringing a desk bell 10 times, reaching the underside of the map, trashing $5,000 worth of property in the OmTech office, reaching downtown without dying, finding 20 collectibles, and reaching the highest spot in the map, to name some examples.
Yerba Buena is a first-person puzzle adventure set in the 1970s. You’ll be placed in the role of Barb, a currently unemployed woman who moved to San Francisco from Wisconsin in search of new opportunities. The good news? You’ve at least managed to make some new friends over the last few months. The game takes place in San Francisco in 1976, and gets its name since Yerba Buena was the name of the settlement from which San Francisco eventually developed. Oh, and you’re an NPC in a now-abandoned gameworld. You know, the usual. Yerba Buena is out on PlayStation 5 with a $24.99 price tag.
Disclaimer
This Yerba Buena review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Focus Entertainment.
