Yuma Nest, developed by Piokou, is a vibrant 2D sandbox action RPG bursting with character. Set in a magical land inhabited by monsters, players must learn the ways of the powerful Yumanite, while uncovering dark secrets in the underworld. The larger than life characters feel right at home in the world, and despite the challenging combat, Yuma Nest feels quite cosy.
You’re a Yumanite Now
The story starts with you, a Shini Academy student, experiencing a vivid dream on the day of the Yumanite exam. When you wake up, a strong monster prevents you and your friends from making it to the exam on time. After single-handedly defeating the monster, however, the Yumanite Grandmaster promotes you to novice Yumanite. As fate would have it, you’re now on your way to harnessing the power given to you in your dream by the divine creature Yuma.
From there, you train, farm materials and upgrade your gear to complete missions, beat tough monsters and unlock new areas. Classmates go missing, pockets of cursed mana become prevalent and monsters start showing up out of nowhere, so you set out to discover who’s behind it all.
Defeat the Elite
Players must choose a specialty class once they become a Yumanite. The Psychic was the only option available during my playthrough but I can’t complain — it was awesome to wield a yoyo and have solid stats for enemy targeting, mobility and survivability.
Combat is in real time, so predicting enemy attack patterns and attack cooldown management is vital. Your primary attack is your class weapon, along with secondary class abilities, more of which can be unlocked through an ability tree. You have three lives per day, generally respawning where you died, but if you die at night the day instantly ends.
The elite bosses in Yuma Nest are nothing short of chaotic, and the reason you need to grind so hard in the game. It’s quite common to be fighting a boss (or bosses) in the same room as constantly respawning, lower level enemies. After you defeat the elite bosses in the overworld, the next time they respawn they’re tougher and have a different buffs.
Consuming the soul of an elite provides an Enhancement, a perk unique to the slain boss, that you can mix and match with others for different combat strategies.
Build, Grind, Craft, Repeat
The game operates on a straightforward day-night cycle, with materials and elite bosses resetting each day. When it comes to power-levelling and farming materials in the game, Yuma Nest heavily rewards players for ruthless efficiency.
The game strongly encourages you to build training simulators (Manasims) and strategically position contraptions that kill swarms of enemies at a time. If you don’t utilise this mechanic properly, you will be spending extra hours of real time doing nothing but farming experience points and materials! The devices are limited in their current state extremely tedious to use.
An Enchanting World
I was a MapleStory kid growing up, so the chibi sprites and pretty fantasy world of Yuma Nest instantly brought me back to those sweet, innocent days. It’s an adorable world filled with cute details, like being cheerfully greeted by a fairy every morning!
Additionally, Yuma Nest had some delightful quality of life features such as healing at food stands, drinking tea for temporary stat boosts, and teleporting between homes for faster travelling.
Is Yuma Nest Worth Diving Into?
The rich world-building and lovely aesthetics of Yuma Nest captured my attention, then the games’ strong gameplay bones made me stay. I would like to see the training mechanic refined, as well as more classes, materials and crafting items, but it’s a promising start.
Yuma Nest is out now in early access on PC via Steam.
Access to Yuma Nest was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this article.
