Yerba Buena Is a Portal-like Set in a Glitchy ‘70s San Francisco | IGN Preview

Apparently the settlement that would become the city of San Francisco was once called Yerba Buena, which is where this quirky physics platformer got its name. Set in an alternate reality 1970’s version of the City by the Bay, my 90-minute demo had me rushing to rescue a friend, discovering the first seeds of a government conspiracy, and scratching my head over a lot of the writing decisions. On the plus side, the art in Yerba Buena is quite charming. It reminds me a bit of some of Telltale's older games, like it was torn out of the pages of a graphic novel. The characters are richly designed with clothing and hairstyles that ground everything in the ‘70s. The colorful streets capture an almost mythological ideal of SF, a city I lived in for years and still feel very fondly about. And the jaunty soundtrack is fun, too. The writing doesn't exactly complete the illusion, though. The main character is Barb, an out-of-work Midwest transplant who’s likeable enough. But nothing in Yerba Buena's plot seems to flow naturally from what came before it. There are simply fixed moments it wants to get to and it will make any excuse to jump from where we are to where it wants to be, even if it re