Decently fun. A lot slower paced of a 2D shooter then I was expecting, but it gave a more tactical feel to the gameplay. Picking off each obstacle one by one was just as satisfying as any other game where you're killing hundreds of enemy ships a second. It also has a really clever life system where a game over results in restarting the entire stage but you keep all your upgrades and coins. Not only that but mini-bosses don't respawn either. You still have to redo the stage, but it doesn't feel deflating in the slightest. You may wonder "Then why have a live system", but I feel it adds tension to the boss fights that makes them a lot more rewarding to beat then if you could just brute force them thoughtlessly. Very short but doesn't overstay its welcome. Only had real issues with some of the boss fights on hard mode, namely since it felt that taking damage seemed inevitable. You get a decent amount of health, but it ain't a good sign when you get hit due to bad luck. That is the exception though thankfully.

I got it for $3 and I honestly would've been satisfied if I paid full price even with its short length.

From the creator behind Cave Story, here's a small action-platformer starring a frog fighting against dark "thingies", Kero Blaster!

I've known about this game for many years, but now, I've finally been able to play it!
The gameplay is simple. You jump, you shoot, you unlock more weapons, you can upgrade said weapons with coins you find throughout the stages, and you can also upgrade your health... and that's it.

It's very simple, but it's pretty fun! It did get kinda hard by the end, especially because if you get a Game Over, you gotta restart the whole stage again... but thankfully, if you've already defeated a mini-boss, you don't have to defeat again, so that's nice.
You can also see this as an opportunity to get more coins to potentially upgrade more stuff.

The story is quite interesting. While nothing too complex, I like seeing the characters interact with each other and was curious where the story was going. It's nothing ground-breaking, but it was nice.

The graphics feel like they are a mix of Commodore 64 graphics and NES graphics. It's a very simple art-style, but I think it works! And it also helps that the music is very nicely composed.

All in all, Kero Blaster is a nice little blast from the past, and I would recommend it for anybody who likes these types of games.

Hey.

You wanna play a videogame.
Like, a fucking videogame.
Play this one.
No fat.
No brain dead story, which tries way to hard.
No microtransactions.
Just mechanics.

Almost perfect as far as I'm concerned.

Nesse jogo tem:
- Exploração do proletariado
- A revolta do proletariado
- Patrão babaca
- Prevaricação
- e muito mais

tudo isso dentro de 1h25m

Incredibly charming in just about every possible regard; the music, the visual aesthetic, the various different character and enemy designs, the adorable little jacket you get to wear. The game is also just impeccably paced, throwing new levels, mechanics, weapons and boss designs at you at a good rate over its modest run-time, presenting a regular feed of new, fun content without overstaying its welcome. The weapon upgrades are particularly great for this changing your relationship with how you're playing very meaningfully generally at least once per level.

I was expecting to be done with Kero Blaster after my first playthrough, but the hard mode you unlock upon completing the game is basically a whole new game in itself; all the levels have the same base theme but are otherwise completely redesigned, bosses introduce whole new mechanics compared to their normal mode versions, there's a whole new story that builds upon the normal mode story, and to top it all off there's even a whole new, just outright excellent multi-phase final boss fight.

I've seen some complaints about the lives system in this game where if you die too many times in a level you're sent back to the start of the level, but I think it mostly works as being forced to play the level again will often gather you enough coins for that next weapon or health upgrade you need which can make all the difference in whichever fight you struggled on earlier, and the second run through a level is typically much easier than the first. It's only towards the end of hard mode, especially on the final level, that this lives system starts to get frustrating especially as hard mode largely lives up to its name and the final level of this mode is quite long.

I do wish the story was slightly more comprehensible, it definitely feels like something was lost in translation here, but regardless I appreciate the anti-capitalist sentiments the game presents. I also think the movement is just the tiniest bit too slippery for a few of the more precise platforming challenges towards the end of hard mode. For the most part the game was a true joy, though, and one I may even return to for New Game+ at some point.

Successor (or not) to Cave Story, Kero Blaster goes against what one might expect from a sequel: the storytelling simplifies, transitioning from a semi-open metroidvania format to a linear game, and the lifespan is half as short. Yet, this shift isn't truly a subtraction but a refinement. Kero Blaster is much more enjoyable to play than Cave Story: the physics, the gameplay, the progression, the enemies, the weapons, etc... all come together in an organic and thoughtful manner. Instead of indulging in the grandiosity of levels and storytelling, it seems Daisuke Amaya worked on his game like a miniature.

Many somewhat pompous terms from me for a game that's essentially fun from start to finish. I'm really a fan of the difficulty progression: if you're stuck in a tough passage, you keep accumulating gold coins which grant access to extra lives and other upgrades. Even in defeat, you make progress.

A great "small" game to absolutely experience.

Cave Story was a highly influential cult classic due to its nature as a lone man's passion project that evolved into a fleshed out, genuinely great game. How did Studio Pixel follow up on its success, on the 10th anniversary of the game no less?
By releasing a completely mediocre, uninspired, restrictive platformer.
Even when you deprive Kero Blaster of its context and accept it as its own thing, the game is painfully basic and uninteresting, with not much thought being put into the level design, the evolution of the layouts and mechanics, or simply introducing newer players to action platformer fundamentals (which is a niche an easy game like this can and should fill). A lot of KB plays itself, which is made worse by the fact that air control is so restrictive. There's some moments where that restrictiveness leads to some decent on the fly decision making as you're forced to dodge things, but it rarely actually matters due to the extreme straightforwardness.
Unlike many similar retro games, KB doesn't have overarching systems that at the very least acknowledge better play, either- no timer or score based ranking to be found anywhere, let alone performance-based upgrades and powerups (for clarity an example of that is Mario's Fire Flower) - so it ends up not being very replayable.
I do have to praise the improvements related to accessibility when compared to Cave Story. There's no tedious difficulty spike needed to get the true ending, and the permanent upgrade system paired with the abundance of money means that even if you do lose all lives and start the stage over a few times, you'll be able to upgrade weapons fairly quickly and go through the stage smoother. But in the time this game was released in, this is nothing new, either.
There's some fun moments every now and then, and the final boss was fairly good, but it's too little, too late.
I hear that Hard mode is quite a bit more interesting, and I suppose I'll get to it eventually. In the meantime, I'll be charitable and round the game up to 2.5 stars, I guess. Which might be too kind, it's probably closer to 2, but it's not like I actively dislike KB or anything. It's competent and mildly entertaining. The game has a pretty grounded design philosophy that doesn't contradict itself much. However, I would definitely call that design philosophy underwhelming, especially in context.

Proudly declaring that the max jetpack, the bubbler, and the fire were the greatest buttons to press in Cave Story. The greatest moments for me are really intense about examining those tools, but the mostly pantomimed plot and lush set pieces are also total home runs. Addresses the problem of Cave Story's true ending being behind very difficult content by making the additional story content extremely slight instead of making the play less difficult. I think this move says very constructive things about access and capability.

On paper, Kero Blaster isn't anything special. It's a back-to-basics run-and-gun shoot-em-up with a japanese vibe/aesthetic coated over it. It doesn't innovate on anything - everything you see in this game has been done to some extend.

Yet this is the first game in years that I bothered to "Master". I don't 100% games or go achievement-hunting - it's just not for me. But for some reason, this game compelled me enough to suck all of it's content dry in just a few days. Is it because of the classic-inspired combat? Is it because of the artstyle and it's charming characters? Or is it because of it's tightly-crafted levels? It's all of it combined: Kero Blaster isn't elevated by just one stand-out quality, but by the sum of it. However, you can say that to any video game. I think Kero Blasters accels in two aspects quite well:

1. The game respects the players time. The game feels (and is) small and the game knows that. Because of that, it doesn't dwell and waste it's time on a lot of stuff the player already knows about. This can be seen in the level design: Instead of a Mario-like process of babystepping the player a level mechanic throughout the whole level, alot of the tutorialization or learning process happens at the same screen the level mechanic gets introduced, thereby avoiding the common pitfalls a lot of other short games tend to fall into, where the whole game is a glorified tutorial and the player doesn't truly feel like playing the game. What get's worse in these games is that once the game is finished doing that, it just ends. Kero Blaster avoids this by making every moment count and not dragging the game wastefully out. Even the story goes straight to the point: We don't know the names of the characters, but the few lines they speak already gives us the gist on what's all about. There are only 4-ish weapons, but each feel distinctly different. The upgrade system isn't just a plain stat booster, it keeps the weapons fresh as they transform and extend their characteristics. The bite-sized delivery of encounters, rewards, progression empathizes every moment without feeling fatiguing or boring. Even the different "modes" aren't just cheap reskins: The Zangyou mode, titled "Hard mode", is just a lie - it feels more like the 2nd act of the game, with remixed stages, different encounters and even new content. Even the NG+ mode (Omake) introduces something new. It's just great.

2. The game feels non committal. This is more a plus on my end then I assume for anyone else. For me, it's hard to get invested into games, films or stories purely because I have to commit to it. Errant Signal talk about that in his "Gaming In the Quarantine Years" video and it perfectly summarizes my dilemma. It's hard to force myself to "consume" something without having a deadline or reason to. (This the reason why I didnt play all them popular games yet) Kero Blaster's "familiar from a distance" aesthetic combined with moment-to-moment arcadey gameplay eliminates that problem. Coupled with the short playtime, it was easy to get into, because I didn't have to commit to it for 20+ hours. It doesn't look that special and the gameplay pleases my "peanut brain" and the short length allowed me to chip away at this game without havin' to really "invest" myself in this game.

By and large I am just so suprised by this game. I highly recommend this game for bite-sized, cute fun.