This game is great!
The cute art style and dialogue, great character, and cool enemies and bosses make this a must-play for fans of action platformers. The movement and some weapons can be a little bit clunky at times, but overall the character maneuvers pretty smoothly.

My only big complaint is the checkpoint system. In my opinion, I shouldn't have to redo the whole level that is leading up to a boss I died to three times. However, running through the level a second time is not really a daunting task after having completed it one time already.

The different weapons could've been a bit more thought out too for my taste. While the yellow and green guns were the main options for combat, having different strengths and weaknesses, the design of the bubble gun and flamethrower was a bit more on the nose. Those two weapons are intended for specific types of enemies and aren't really useful on many other occasions. The only times I found myself using those guns when they were not clearly intended was for cheesing groups of enemies.

While this sounds like a harsh critique, I still enjoyed the game and would recommend fans of the genre to play it.

Fun little game. I haven't played Cave Story in a long time but from what I can remember Kero Blaster is weaker in nearly every aspect. Still a nice game with satisfying weapon upgrades, some atmospheric areas, nice music and fun bosses. The story is okay but the game's short length kind of hampers it. The mutated president did genuinely unnerve me somewhat and the ending was cute. The gameplay is generally fun but I often had some small troubles with the controls that could get annoying considering how quickly you can die. Sometimes my character would keep moving without my input and changing directions while shooting/switching between shooting up and forward was pretty clunky. I like that the unlockable hard mode has remixed levels and a new story but my issues with the gameplay and the fact that I already had some trouble with the end of normal mode makes me not really want to go through it.

This is a great little run & gun that does little to innovate but nails the execution. That's all that really matters anyway. Good study material for level designers. It looks nice and the music & sound design is great.

There is some crust in staying so true to its roots. The control scheme is pretty awkward. Switching weapons is a pain, and sometimes turning around while shooting doesn't work the way you'd expect. You also have to retread the entire level on a game-over, which can get a little annoying in the later levels (which are relatively long) but the game is only about 2-3 hours anyway so this is hardly an issue.

Bottom line is that you should play Kero Blaster if you've ever enjoyed a game where you shoot a gun and "side scroll".

Honestly - a perfect game.

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Got all the achievements :) - Apr 9th

Seems I'm late to the party for this game, I had no clue it released in 2014. Regardless, I played Kero Blaster for the first time today on my Switch and beat it in only three hours. Its a simple arcade style game that follows the run and gun formula mixed in with platforming elements, similar to a Mega Man game. You even get more weapons later on in the game that you can experiment with, though with all of them you can only aim straight in front of you or upwards. A big part of Kero Blaster's charm in my opinion is the visual style; its very simplistic with little to no detail and it almost looks like an Atari 2600 game but with sprites that aren't blocky, which I feel looks cool. The soundtrack is great, too, and it emulates the sound of retro games nicely. Kero Blaster has excellent controls, I've never felt like I was screwed over because of the way it controls. Overall, its actually a pretty challenging game, too. It wasn't quite as difficult for me as other retro style indies I've played, such as Cyber Shadow or The Messenger, but I did still die quite a few times. Everything still felt fair and achievable, in part due to the many upgrades you can buy for your weapons. These upgrades make the game much easier, but its balanced out by the fact that the prices of upgrades ramp up quite dramatically after you've already bought the cheap stuff so you have to wait a while before you can afford the other items. The game has a few progression unlocked upgrades, as well, such as the coat that lets you take one extra hit and the jetpack that lets you double jump, which I felt were neat additions. The jetpack in particular was nicely implemented into the level design, although I found it a little awkward to have to stop dead in my tracks to propel myself straight upwards instead of at an angle. It does make sense for it to work that way, though.

I feel its worth noting that there's an extra mode called Zangyou Mode that you unlock after beating the game normally, which seems to be some kind of hard mode. Chances are that I won't be playing that, since there aren't many games that I replay, but considering how short this game is maybe I'll give it a shot later.

Kero Blaster is self-consciously retro to a fault. While the music and graphics are well-executed in a low-bit style, the gameplay itself does not improve on the flaws from that era. The varied weaponry combines with level and enemy design to create tense action sequences that challenge both your tactics and reflexes. Unfortunately the outdated checkpoint system only tested my patience. Repeating an entire level because I died on a boss is not fun. Nor is losing a life or starting a level over due to cumbersome, unresponsive platforming controls. Fans of early platformers may find the stiff controls nostalgic, but I just found them irritating.