A fantastic puzzle game! Great music and colors do some great window dressing around a game that really revolves around it's mechanics (no pun intended).

A player must navigate a rotating stick with 3 levels of speed while avoiding the walls, traps and hazards. It really is What you see is what you get here. It does feel that only certain personalities would even enjoy this type of game, but the light story, colors, music and small unlockables to decorate the stick do so much to push the player forward. A similar game on the PlayStation One, Irritating Stick, has nearly identical rules around its game play and achieves none of the charm.

The whole thing is rather short and mildly geared toward completionists. For those players, beating all levels without taking damage only gives a handful of levels as a reward. Achievable, but slightly lackluster.

Level design is great, but is lacks variety toward the end. Hoping to get some of that variety in later entries.

Kuru Kuru Kururin is a delightful game where you play as a constantly spinning rod that takes damage if you touch walls or projectiles, thus making the levels play like short obstacle courses. It's a pretty quick game to get through, but optional objectives such as speedrun goals, no damage goals, and cosmetic pickups add a bit more extra taste. If I had any complaint, it would be that the very final level feels completely overboard in difficulty to the rest, with the first segment having way more tight turns and the last feeling like complete nonsense with turret spam.

Overall, definitely a fun arcade-style game worth checking out, it'll have you spinning around!

I thought this was a cutesy little puzzle game I could play to fall asleep. It turned out to be one of the hardest games I ever completed. Around World 3 or so the levels start becoming incredibly long and tight. The final 2 levels took me about two hours to complete. The insane difficulty is leveraged by fairness, however. Luckily, there is no life system, so you can throw yourself at the wall over and over again without any setbacks. Additionally, most long levels have one or multiple heal zones, allowing you to focus on learning the next segment instead of trying to absolutely perfect the previous one. The game also has that classic GBA charm with it's vibrant colors and cute spritework. Unfortunately, some of the level design is a bit messy. There's one segment, for example, where the whole room is just chock full of springs and it does not look or feel good. I also think that it's way too easy to get comboed to death. Sometimes you get stuck between walls and die almost instantly, which I think is frustrating. This happens a lot too.

Kuru Kuru Kururin was not a game I knew about even with it being in Super Smash Bros. The way it's advertised, and looks just isn't as appealing as the actual game is. From it's whimsical story, characters, and puzzle like charm Kuru Kuru feels like a lost gem you find at an used game store more than an actual game Nintendo made.

I think the thing that sticks out most with Kuru Kuru is the simple fact it gets right down to business with it's game. You get a small intro of a family of birds walking, then immediately are told when starting the game that all the mother's kids are missing and you have to go find them. You get an option to do a tutorial, but aside from that, that's all the story really has to offer to you. There isn't some big boss or anything, just some missing kids, and you got to find them throughout the levels. Sure, there is a shot or two of the kids celebrating or the ending credits of them walking back, but that's all there is to it. Visually the game kinda feels like a coloring book, with a top down perspective, and a ton of levels with a lot of neat backgrounds. A lot of the music feels akin to other GBA classics like Golden Sun or Kirby with a very upbeat tone, and chip tune make up. Overall, Kuru Kuru's presentation is minimalist, but in a way that is still rather charming.

Gameplay is the main driving force of Kuru Kuru Kurin after all. Considering how many levels, worlds, and collectables there are; the game simply has a lot to do with it's premise. You basically pilot a varied sized propeller (pending on difficulty), and navigate the various levels without trying to damage it along the way. It's pretty much a game of the floor is lava, but instead it's the walls. What makes it extra tricky however is the propeller is always moving, and you have a timer on you to see how fast you can go too. Then in later levels a variety of obstacles and shapes test your limits on how fast you move and think while trying to keep your propeller safe. In a lot of ways, Kuru Kuru Kurin is a simple puzzle game in which you have to find the best route and timing. Sadly, I can't say it's all fun and games tho as a lot of what the game does in practice, especially it's later levels, demands near perfection from you. It's not so much "this game is hard", but rather it demands a lot of trial and error runs along with only giving you so many routes to take. This is somewhat mitigated with the difficulty setting, but I think many players will be trapped by going to far into normal mode without considering switching. If you are able to stomach how frustrating this game can be, you can certainly have a lot of fun with it especially considering what the tool gives you, but that's kind all there is to it. The game never goes too far from it's initial premise and gameplay loop, and if you're stuck I can see how the game can become unbearable to get through.