It is a little-known fact that the city of San Francisco used to be called Yerba Buena before California was taken over by the U.S. The city was named after the abundance of plants growing there that were simply known as good herbs, something that remains fitting considering the city's vibe nowadays. All of this knowledge makes the name Yerba Buena a perfect title for the latest game from Mad About Pandas and Focus Entertainment on several different levels.

The game takes place in San Francisco sometime during the 1970s. You play Barb, a transplant to the city who isn't exactly having the best luck. A flat tire on her bike has caused her to miss her latest job interview. Barb and her cab-driving friend Russell notice that a strange phenomenon called The Glitch is spreading through the city. At the same time, the city is becoming more gentrified because a local tech billionaire buys the city park to build a TV tower and more office buildings. Suddenly, a member of a biker gang carjacks the cab, throwing out Barb and taking Russell hostage. As things start to look bad, Barb discovers that the gang member has left behind a suitcase containing the Oscillator, a device that changes Barb's outlook of the world.

The big twist in the story is that this is all a video game. Aside from the presence of glitches, this becomes more apparent when you see some markers trying to stop you from going out of bounds and when you hear things like the fact that you're driving in circles or that you can't ever seem to leave the city. You're just an NPC while the person that kidnapped Russell happens to be the main player character. In a way, you're going through a story that is a variation of the one told in the movie Free Guy which is still a pretty novel concept despite that movie having come out several years ago.

The game's twist is novel enough, but the tale gets even stranger as you progress, such as old hippies who create platforming puzzles from old carnival assets, audio logs from the game's fictional developers about the game world, and the bigger plot dealing with AI that feels especially relevant at the moment. The story goes to lots of different places, and while it can seem haphazardly put together at times, it provides some incentive for the player to push through to see what plot twist will pop up next.

Yerba Buena is a puzzle platformer shown from the first-person perspective, but don't expect too many hallmarks of the genre to show up. For example, you can jump, but you can't duck. You can't safely fall from any great heights unless you're landing on something bouncy. You also can't physically move any objects on your own. While you can interact with some objects, it's mostly done so you can get more lore for the world, and you can't interact with any other objects until the accompanying audio section for the previous intractable object is finished.

Like many other puzzle platform games, the Oscillator is the main hook, as it has the power to change up the properties of objects in the world. Movement is the first ability you can copy from one object and graft onto another, and that movement is based on the direction the copied object is moving relative to the world. For example, copying an object moving upward means that you'll apply upward movement to another object. If you copy an object moving left, then it means you'll also make the target object move left — provided you're facing in the same direction as the object you copied from. While the concept may be tricky to understand at first, the gun shows you a helpful arrow when you copy movement, so you can better understand which direction the target object will move or spin when fired upon. You can also apply multiple properties to any one object at a time, so you can make a platform move to the right and then fire at it again to make it spin in place.

The second ability you can copy is whether you can make an object have gaseous properties, eliminating its solid state, so you or other objects can pass through them. Later on, you also get the ability to make an object bouncy, so you can jump on or off of it. The bounce properties are governed by some basic physics, so approaching a bouncy object from the side means that you get bounced from the side, while the height of the jump is determined by the height of your starting point.

There are limits to the gun to ensure that you aren't creating chaos from the get-go. For one thing, the only objects you can affect are glitched-out ones, which are highlighted in blue if you're using your scanner. You can take attributes from orange objects. You can only copy one attribute at a time, and ones you capture are stored in your gun for a limited amount of time, but the duration is long enough that you'd be forgiven for thinking that the ability is permanent. Only movement abilities overwrite one another, so while you can make a platform move up and be bouncy, you can't make that platform move down while spinning at the same time.

The first half of the game gives you the impression that it's going to be very lighthearted. One of your early tasks is to get past a police blockade, so you can access a space behind a building to rescue Russell. One solution would be to move a bunch of cars to create stepping stones, so you can reach a room to jump into a nearby alleyway. Another solution is to use movement properties to move half of a nearby apartment building across the street, so you don't need to jump far to reach another roof. Finding strange things like that works in the game's favor to give it an unexpected source of humor, and this tone continues through some fairly short sections where you go through office buildings wrecking everything or make a car chase go more smoothly by moving stuff out of your way with the Oscillator.

Reach the game's second half, roughly around when you start to learn about the bounce ability, and Yerba Buena takes a diabolical turn. The playful environments give way to lots of multistep puzzles that sometimes require some dexterity to solve, since you must get ability acquisition and deployment in the right order to progress. Some of those puzzles require visiting different areas rather than working with whatever is in the room, and other puzzles involve dealing with bottomless pits and lasers and grinders. The vibe shifts from being playful to being more serious, which fits the story but makes you miss the earlier tone of the game.

The premise and execution are solid, but there are some pretty notable issues. The game has enough loading screens that appear in the middle of cut scenes with no change in scenery, briefly breaking the flow of the scenes. The difficulty increase in the back half is greatly amplified by the fact that the levels are far longer in length than in the first half. The latter half also features several puzzles where you can place yourself in an unwinnable situation through no fault of your own. You can restart that section, but you have to quit to the main menu and then elect to continue, so you can reset the area to get a second chance to correct the situation. The moments really stand out when you manage to create a blunder that's major enough to require restarting a section.

This is a video game world, so the graphics are quite good. You're getting a painted-on look and character design that's reminiscent of Telltale Games' The Walking Dead games. You can place screenshots of each next to each other, and a person unfamiliar with the titles would say they're both from the same game. It is a nice look, and while some of the animations can look stiff in their transitions, the game's conceit of this being a video game world inside of another game makes this less of a shortcoming and more of a possible aesthetic choice. The one area where this doesn't look right is with some lip animations; a few of them look like their movements are unnatural, especially when you're viewing Barb in cut scenes. The particle effects are good, with the added comic-book flourishes adding to the overall stylized look. The frame rate holds up well, but the lack of more granular graphical options can be disappointing for those who love to tinker.

The sound is generally pretty nice. The soundtrack is good, but it avoids the typical 1970s musical vibe that games set in this era tend to favor. It's surprising but a good decision, since some people expect that to happen. The voice work is also nice with, some very good lines in the script and solid delivery. There are moments when the delivery seems a tad stilted, but it doesn't happen often, and most people may not notice.

Yerba Buena runs without a need for any modifications on a Linux PC. The game also runs fine on a Steam Deck but with a few bumps. The game runs at the device's full 1280x800 resolution while running at the game's Medium graphical preset. The art style does a great job of ensuring that any downgrades from the higher graphical presets are practically invisible, and while the game does try to hit 60fps most of the time, there are moments when things briefly dip to around the low 40s. This lower frame rate isn't detrimental, since this is a slower-paced puzzle platformer. As expected from many newer titles, the battery life takes a hit, as a full charge on the LCD version of the deck nets around 90 minutes of playtime.

Yerba Buena is a flawed but fun puzzle platformer. The gun is fun to use, and while the puzzles in the latter half can get maddeningly difficult in levels that can start to feel like they run for too long, those puzzles can also feel satisfying to solve. The story can be a little bonkers at times, but it is compelling despite some issues that can mar the experience. With a solid presentation, Yerba Buena ends up being a fun experience for those craving a puzzle platformer that feels both different and familiar.

Score: 7.5/10