Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom Review: Jesus, Take The Wheel

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; You’re woken up by a strange noise in the middle of the night. You walk to the kitchen to grab a small glass of water after you’ve stealthily checked to make sure no one broke into your house. After you’ve downed the sleep-mouth refresher, and turned to walk back to your room, you find that your gods have abandoned you, and now find yourself in a void of technicolor hellscape where everything is distorted and can’t stop moving even for a second.

Also you’re a wind-up taxi and a voice from beyond is shouting at you, “GO! GO! GO!” in an increasing speed and pitch.

Just me?

Nostalgic Fever Dream

Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is that aforementioned Technicolor Hellscape, sporting in varying degrees of insanity. Crunchy 3D models and fun low-res paintings sprawl these worlds that you’ll find yourself in. From a safe and familiar island/beach-vibe world, to tongue-in-cheek caricatures of real-life places, developer Panik Arcade is not afraid to push the boundary of what is acceptable or in “Good Taste” for the sake of the audience’s reaction. Mouths will surely be agape with both smiles and fright at what’s on offer here.

I don't normally speak at length about a video game's audio outside of specific callouts, but Yellow Taxi’s wide breadth in particular deserves special mention. From the distorted speech and screams that come out of NPCs, to the immaculate car sound effects, a lot of work went into making the world feel alive, even if it's not a world you may want to live in. The music though, that’s on a completely different level. To say the score is varied would be as obvious as saying the game is trying to emote nostalgia. There’s cozy music, fun and frenetic tracks, but more often than not the score will surprise you, and maybe even scare you at times with its relentless BPM.

With all these working in tandem, a world was truly created, and transports you straight into its veins.

Itsa me, Morio.

Without divulging too much of the game’s story, because there also isn’t that much to speak of, Yellow Taxi goes places.

It's never the prime reason to keep playing, and won’t keep you up at night trying to think of what something might have meant, but it knows what it’s trying to set out to do and it absolutely did it.

The titular Yellow Taxi is the creation of “Morio,” an obvious nod and joke at the famous Nintendo mascot. Morio informs the taxi and you as the player at the same time that strange gears created by “Alien Mosk” have infected the world’s oil. Things are erupting in chaos and disarray. It's up to you, the wind up, sentient Yellow Taxi to set off and save the day.

Wearing Many Hats

While Yellow Taxi is described as a Platformer, that is and isn’t true at the same time. The taxi itself does not have a jump button, so calling this game a platformer would be like saying the Souls series (Elden Ring excluded) are platformers. There is a way to perform a jump-like maneuver, similar to sprinting and then dodging in Bloodborne, but it’s absolutely not as straightforward as pressing a single button. Instead, traversal is done by going vroom, driving up ramps, and boosting either before launching or even mid-air to get to your desired destinations.

There’s also a few different types of gameplay on offer, from the standard car platformer collectathon to Crazy Taxi inspired levels complete with fares to pickup and further their respective world’s meta-story. There’s also mini-stages with their own objectives to complete, and some levels where the perspective shifts to a Top-Down view where you control the car just by changing direction on the analog stick and pushing.

This is where Yellow Taxi absolutely excels, but could also be where most players will take an issue with. The game will not hold your hand for even a second. From the offset that fact is presented to you, while yes there aren’t lives so you can continue forever, there is a real consequence to dying; you’ll lose 30 Coins every time you die. It’s a travesty for any hat-collection soul.

Depending on the level, it is very easy to lose the bankroll you’ve been saving up. While the currency is only used for the most noblest of purchases, hats, it can be upsetting seeing your well earned money drain away as you’re struggling to figure out an environmental puzzle. This is where I believe a good handful of players will not completely love Yellow Taxi Goes Croom as the game can be quite challenging.

Anyone who’s gone for 120 stars in Super Mario 64 or collected everything in Super Meat Boy knows that it’s possible to do most of that collecting without too much of a headache. But, it’s the latter legs of the journey that turn anyone bald. I don’t think it’s hyperbole of me to state this, but Yellow Taxi feels like it flipped that ratio with having more challenges than not. As fun and funny as the game can be, it may not be for everyone.

Breakdown

Game: Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom

Developer: Panik Arcade

Publisher: Those Awesome Guys

Availability: PC (Steam)

Reviewed on Steam Deck // Both handheld and docked with Xbox Series controller; used GE-Proton7-48 Forced Compatibility

Pros:

+ Lovingly crafted retro/acid-inspired worlds

+ Score that is all across the board

+ When it’s not being too tough on the player, its extremely fun

+ Plenty of content to keep players coming back for more

Cons:

- Can feel too challenging for a large portion of the game

- While there’s an accessibility menu, easier options to pull off the tricks would be appreciated as opposed to solely relying on timing

Final Thoughts

Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom excels at being a retro-inspired throwback while also being it’s absolute own, original creation. While it shares a lot in common with well loved games, both its gameplay and style are inherently its own. The varied worlds and characters coupled with the surprising mystery box of a score created an unbelievable fever dream of a game while still feeling like something that could have been made decades ago. While the brutal difficulty may deter many players, what Panik Arcade has achieved with Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is no small feat.

Reviewed by MC Wright