i'm surprised how genuinely solid and well-made this was! it's very obviously heavily inspired by the donkey kong country returns series, and while it never quite reaches the level of innovation, level design quality, and exhilaration highs of especially tropical freeze it's a pretty good alternative! you might think tropical freeze is a bit of an unfair comparison considering it's like THE gold standard for 2d platformers (at least in my opinion) but the level of inspiration kinda demands that comparison in my opinion. I don't think any other donkey kong country inspired indie game really comes close to this one though. it looks pretty good, has some decent music, and movement feels really solid! i don't really have much negative to say, i wish the dojo levels weren't on the map since they just reuse the bonus stages from the real levels and while the controls are pretty great, it feels like the wall jump takes a second to activate and it caught me a couple times.

i'm mainly knocking off points because it's a little TOO DKCR inspired and it could benefit greatly from a few more worlds and a bit more of a ramp up in difficulty within those worlds. i had a pretty consistently good time but it never really had those big over the top and exhilarating moments i love in 2d platformers, especially tropical freeze to take it to the next level for me. considering you can get it for $20 max and often on sale for way less it's a super worthwhile pickup and i'd like to see more from this team, it was a lot of fun!