Pilo and the Holobook

Genre: Misc.

Players: 1

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Review:

Pilo and the Holobook, released in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, is a family-friendly game that puts players in the titular role of Pilo, an anthropomorphized talking fox and assistant to a kooky professor who seeks to prove himself by exploring and cataloguing various planets in space, and by “exploring and cataloguing various planets”, I mean he has Pilo do it all for him. This is done through the use of the Holobook, a book that can scan nearby objects and turn them into stickers which then get placed within the book itself.

In the various locations you’ll head to in the game, that’s pretty much all you’ll be doing, is scanning things, and placing stickers. There’s little in the way of any variation or puzzles to be found, and mostly you’ll just be scanning, and scanning, and placing stickers, and more scanning. You’re not timed for any of this, not judged on your placement of stickers in any way, and there’s no real challenge, beyond finding those last few objects in the area that you’ve missed.

This actually ties into one of my main complaints regarding the game, other than the repetitive nature of the gameplay – this game doesn’t offer players any sort of guide or hint system to indicate where they’re missing those last few scans. When you reach a point where the game forces you to get to a certain threshold before proceeding, this can be tedious to the point of infuriating, especially because your walking speed is slow and makes looking around for that thing you missed feel even more like busywork than it already does.

That said, one element of this game makes it more than pure tedium, and that’s the presentation. Pilo and the Holobook uses gorgeous 2D visuals for its characters and environments, with a beautiful, colorful art style that breathes life into the game’s odd locales. This is backed by a lovely orchestral soundtrack, with some examples including the Title Theme, Peaceful Home, Stellar Map, Blobs, Frogs, and Rain, and Shifting Sands.

Still… a tedious and mediocre game that looks and sounds great is still a tedious and mediocre game. I suppose if you don’t mind a game that’s shallow and filled with nothing but busywork, the great presentation may be enough to make this worth your while. But for most players, I think it’s better to find a game that has more to offer than just “it’s pretty”.

tl;dr – Pilo and the Holobook is a family-friendly game that has players going around various planets and scanning everything into a stickerbook. The gameplay here is repetitive and tedious, which is mitigated somewhat by a beautiful presentation… but that can only take the game so far. Unless you really don’t mind dull repetitive busywork, I suggest you play something else.

Grade: C

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