7 Pointless Video Game Characters (Who Were Actually CRUCIAL)
4. Kickback (Yoku's Island Express)
The best way to describe Villa Gorilla's criminally overlooked Yoku's Island Express is like a cross between Sonic Spinball and Ori and the Blind Forest, with a touch of Paperboy flung in for good measure.
You're the eponymous Yoku, a little red dung beetle who arrives at the tropical island of Mokumana to take up the vacant position of postmaster. With the aid of your ever present ball of sh*t, it's up to you to flip and bounce the mail to all the atoll's residents - oh, and stop its gods and very existence being subsumed by a suddenly awakened evil, whilst you're at it. It's first class stuff.
About 20 minutes into the game, the frustration of falling into the game's various organic gobble holes (albeit only at the cost of some fruit) is alleviated when you meet Kickback, a weird flying pufferfish thing whose effectively an anthropomorphised ball saver. Kickback isn't a character as such - more a handy gameplay mechanic contextualised by being, well, a weird flying pufferfish thing.
In fact, if you're particularly dexterous with the flippers beneath your thumb, it's theoretically possible to save Mokumana's deities from the Cthulhun 'God Eater' without ever again spying your little spiny helper... except it isn't, because naturally it transpires Kickback was said God Eater all along.
He even sprouts nasty little claws to drive the point home, before you flip him down the drain for good.