Knight Terrors is one of my favorite indie games ever. I strongly recommend looking into it if you’re into infinite runners, or a ‘not so scary’ game to play on Halloween. Knight Terrors for the time and enjoyment I got out of it, is well worth the small asking price. FreakZone themselves are a very talented developer and I’ve had my eye on them and their projects since I first played Knight Terrors. If you don’t like short games, you should probably skip Knight Terrors, but if you’re fine with length for the asking price, hop on it as soon as possible.

Ittle Dew 2+ is a Zelda inspired 2D action-rpg with lots of puzzles and combat. Developed by Ludosity and published on Nintendo Switch by Nicalis. I received a review code when the game first came out, and it will be how I take a look at it now. Personally, I didn’t get very far when making a series on it, but I enjoyed my time then. Let’s find out how it holds up on a complete play-through. I have never played the original Ittle Dew, so let’s see how newcomer friendly this game is. This review will contain images of later parts of the game, but not story spoilers. You have been warned.

You play as Ittle, a spunky little girl adventuring with her sidekick, Tipsie; the both of you have crash landed your raft on an island. The island’s caretaker splits your raft into 8 pieces and hides them among the islands 8 main dungeons. Ittle and Tipsie have these cute interactions throughout the game, both inside dungeons and before fighting bosses. You’ll notice lots of similarities between Ittle and Link, though silence is not one of them as Ittle’s personality gets to shine quite a bit. Tipsie mostly acts as your guide, marking locations on your map and such. The game has a self-awareness to it, never taking itself too serious, and keeping to a general world rule-set, whilst breaking the fourth wall with quips like, “It’s so the developers can save time”. I enjoyed Ittle and Tipsie the most, but they aren’t the only characters. The bosses have their own personality that get to shine as well, as you can find them in the main world living their lives as people. They get paid to be dungeon keepers, but they don’t take it too seriously. The island caretaker, Passel, was another favorite of mine. I enjoyed his grumpy demeanor, and his attempts to kick Ittle and Tipsie off the island.

Ittle Dew 2+ controls about the way you’d expect it to: move around, swing your sword, use items, and the works. A major issue I have is Ittle can move in 360 degrees, meaning aiming your weapon or sub-weapons with the analogue stick can be a chore. When Ittle swings she stops dead in her tracks which got me hit sometimes, but it was never really a huge detractor for me. In most of the dungeons you can collect a main “dungeon item” such as a magic wand, ice ring, or flaming sword. Each dungeon can be finished exclusively with the dungeon item found inside, which sounds like it could be an issue. However, I barely noticed it in practice, I found most of these dungeon items alright to use.

The game puts a huge emphasis on its puzzles, the problem though is that there’s not many types of puzzle. Puzzles in the game range from killing every enemy on screen, to hitting one or more crystals at similar times, to pushing blocks and standing on top of switches, or to gathering keys; all of this stuff is done to unlock doors, that’s it. Those are the only types of puzzles. It felt repetitive near the later parts of the game, especially going for optional puzzles. There are hidden caves all around the island for you to discover, but they don’t usually diverge much from what a typical dungeon room is though and, at worst, they’re just kind of a slog to get through.

Ittle Dew 2+’s combat is a bit of a rough around the edges. Most enemies in the second half of the game take multiple hits to kill, way more then it feels like they should. Enemies also hit like Ganondorf’s forward-smash in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, meaning you will die, fast. Ittle starts the game with 5 hearts, but collecting crayon boxes increases that number; they work most like Zelda’s heart containers. You can max out your health at 10 hearts, something I didn’t do myself. I probably should’ve expected Final Fantasy 6 instead of Mystic Quest, so I sorta dug my own grave there.

All of these elements make an experience I wouldn’t call ‘bad’ by any means, but it definitely could have spent more time in the oven if you ask me. Starting with the controls of Ittle, I think it could’ve benefited with more restriction of the angles, and provided the ability to move while swinging your sword. Overall, it made for an enjoyable time, but one heavily outclassed by the likes of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and likely the upcoming 2019’s Link’s Awakening remake. I’d really like to see a future game fix these issues, It was really close to being amazing, but not everything is perfect.

Ittle Dew 2+ goes for a cell-shaded, 3D style, and it looks good. It captures the childish nature of the characters and designs while still keeping a foot in the serious side. Not as stylized as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but definitely better looking than what I’ve seen of the original Ittle Dew. Ittle Dew 2+ also has many 2D assets, especially in cutscenes which are brilliantly drawn, and stick relatively close to the 3D models. I overall enjoy how the game looks, how it sounds… I feel a bit different about though. Many sound effects got on my nerves as I continued playing, most certainly a byproduct of having so few puzzle types repeated over so much of the game. The combat effects don’t fare much better, even if you can avoid most encounters. The music just seems ‘off’ to me, like it’s trying to appeal to a different type of game. I can imagine walking into Club LOL with K.K. Slider playing an acoustic version at 8:00 P.M. on a weekend, not terrible, just odd and unfitting to me.

Ittle Dew 2+’s length is decent for a game of its type, it took me eight hours to play through the main story though I wasn’t collecting or doing much outside of the required dungeons and bosses. For me, this left me content and happy with the time I spent playing the game. There is lots of post-game content I’m aware of, the main one being a dream-world with more dungeons which allow you to collect cards. I didn’t bother with much post-game stuff, just did a bit of messing around. I think it’s well worth the price-tag if your into this kind of game and waiting for the Link’s Awakening remake. I just hope you don’t go in expecting a game on the level of The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past.

I got quite sick of the same puzzle types by the late game, it robbed me of the feeling of rejoice when I completed them or got to bosses. The dungeon bosses themselves also felt a bit too hard for the sake of just being hard. I didn’t enjoy fighting many of them past the fourth boss. Combat and traveling through the world was also a big thing I stopped enjoying within the last quarter. Aside from those big ending hang-ups, I really enjoyed the time spent with Ittle Dew 2+, and I don’t regret beating it at all. If you’re looking for a hang-over, or just want to see the root of the Slap City cast, Ittle Dew 2+ might just be for you!

Tiny Barbarian DX is a 2D platformer built on the foundation of “difficulty for the sake of it”. It borders on being a rage-game, so there is no way for me to be fully objective in the review. I originally played a bit of the game when it came out on Switch. Nicalis sent me a review code, and I hated it. I couldn’t walk into this game without an unbiased mind-set, no matter how hard I tried, but I wanted to lay every card on the table before reviewing this properly. What do I think of Tiny Barbarian DX? Well, let’s get into that.

Tiny Barbarian allows you to run, jump, grab onto ledges, and ride specific animals. You can swing your sword in different directions and do a sort of, diving drop move. As a platformer, the movement feels fine enough. Combat, while it doesn’t feel terrible, it certainly feels off to me. Levels are long and grueling, and traversing them can be either kinda fun or meh depending on how much stuff the level is throwing at you. That’s the big issue of Tiny Barbarian DX to me, I never had fun, but I was never enraged either. I felt bored, like the game was wasting my time and like my attempts at beating it were useless. Tiny Barbarian also has boss fights which usually provide a decent challenge, and have easily readable patterns, but they still require a bit of skill to dodge.

Levels try to be “well designed” but usually end up flopping on a few basic principles. You get introduced to a singular trap or enemy in a safe environment, which should make things easy to learn. However, in practice they progressively make those things harder to deal with. You go from, “You shouldn’t take a hit of damage” to, “We’re going to kill you cheaply and without any chance of survival”. The Barbarian has a health bar, which is fairly large and usually it gives you enough hits, however, the levels love bottomless pits. There are many places where the game wants you to climb on vines or jump across the sky, but the issue is that when you take a hit, you go flying until you hit the bottom of the screen; there’s no chance of saving yourself.

Tiny Barbarian DX feels like it wants to be Castlevania, except it throws a no-ranged Arthur from the game Ghosts ‘N Ghouls into a Castlevania designed game and says, “Done.” The levels don’t feel designed around the character and there are many instances where I found getting hit entirely unavoidable. It stopped me from having fun outside of the boss-fights, and it kinda sucks since I’m a fan of most of the rage-games that this game takes inspiration from.

Tiny Barbarian DX’s presentation is actually really good! Sprites and animation are fluid and easy on the eyes, only sometimes do they blend in a bit too much. This creates scenarios where you see things you shouldn’t or don’t see dangers right in front of you. Sound design is brilliant; the music is great, and sound effects are crunchy. Everything feels satisfying and happy, sort of like Super Meatboy’s music though, for me, Meatboy’s music propels your determination, Tiny Barbarian’s doesn’t do that at all for me.

Tiny Barbarian DX’s length entirely relies on the skill of the player. It has 4 levels for you to attempt, but I didn’t bother beating it. Tiny Barbarian DX failed as a rage-game, and never allowed me to enjoy it the way I would Castlevania, Super Meatboy, or Mega Man. I felt as I’ve said earlier, like I was wasting my time. So, I decided to put that time into other things. Rage-games are hard to rate since everyone has their own tastes, so I recommend you look into I Wanna Be The Guy or Super Meatboy instead. Tiny Barbarian DX as a rage-game makes me say to myself, “I’m not mad, just disappointed.” I can’t call Tiny Barbarian DX a terrible game, but the seal is entirely dependent on if I had fun with a game. I had fun a total of three times in seven hours of gameplay.

Kuso is a 2D platformer that prides itself in being “challenging yet fair”. Kuso is the sequel to 2014’s LOVE and, to it’s pride, Kuso doesn’t mess around in its difficulty, but at the same time, it keeps puzzles and platforming fair. There’s no Castlevania-esque hardships for the sake of it. I received a Steam copy to cover back when the game out, but for this review I played on the Nintendo Switch. I also have not played LOVE at all, so let’s see how well a newcomer can jump in.

Kuso begins by giving the player a simple tutorial, it’s non-intrusive and can be returned to at any time from the menu. After that you’re given a few different games modes to choose from: Unlimited, Arcade, Hard, Speedrun, and Level Select. Most of the modes allow you to play the same levels in slightly different ways. Such as with limited lives or a time-limit. This is appreciated for replayability, but not something I’m personally into. Kuso has twenty-five levels for you to play, it also includes LOVE which is another sixteen levels, and lastly there are ten bonus levels.

Kuso as a platformer plays fine enough, the character immediately moves whenever the stick is tilted. This should create fluidity, but it ends up feeling too snappy, which is not good for a platformer. You, as the player, can create a singular check-point anywhere in the stage, but there are quite a few restrictions to this, which makes it fair. For example, you can only be on the ground to generate check-points. If something that would kill you touches your check-point, it destroys the check-point. So, you have to be careful where you’re placing your lifeline. If your check-point is destroyed, your spawn is set back to the start of the level. As such, if you die you’re restarting the level, however, if you survive to place another check-point, no penalty is dished out. There is also a remote kill button, I found absolutely no use for it, and its existence absolutely baffles me. Kuso does a good job keeping you hooked though, even with the odd controls.

Kuso begins by giving the player a simple tutorial, it’s non-intrusive and can be returned to at any time from the menu. After that you’re given a few different games modes to choose from: Unlimited, Arcade, Hard, Speedrun, and Level Select. Most of the modes allow you to play the same levels in slightly different ways. Such as with limited lives or a time-limit. This is appreciated for replayability, but not something I’m personally into. Kuso has twenty-five levels for you to play, it also includes LOVE which is another sixteen levels, and lastly there are ten bonus levels.

Kuso as a platformer plays fine enough, the character immediately moves whenever the stick is tilted. This should create fluidity, but it ends up feeling too snappy, which is not good for a platformer. You, as the player, can create a singular check-point anywhere in the stage, but there are quite a few restrictions to this, which makes it fair. For example, you can only be on the ground to generate check-points. If something that would kill you touches your check-point, it destroys the check-point. So, you have to be careful where you’re placing your lifeline. If your check-point is destroyed, your spawn is set back to the start of the level. As such, if you die you’re restarting the level, however, if you survive to place another check-point, no penalty is dished out. There is also a remote kill button, I found absolutely no use for it, and its existence absolutely baffles me. Kuso does a good job keeping you hooked though, even with the odd controls.

The LOVE levels are good, but noticeably less quality than kuso’s original levels, they attempt and succeed at the same basic fundamentals. These levels make me want to attempt LOVE, something I may do in the future. The bonus levels are generally decent. You have a mix of LOVE+ levels, remixes, and a credits stage. All around, it’s not terrible to play through, but I enjoyed the other forty-one levels more. One major issue in general is that some hazards are hard to see because of the art style, because things blend in and patterns bleed together since most objects are white. That being said, it is usually not too bad.

Kuso is a very enjoyable experience. It’s not a particularly long game, but it’s got a lot more going for it in length than other games I’ve reviewed. The main levels will run you about fifty minutes, though they’re not all kuso has to offer. There’s also two player co-op and other modes like Speedrun. Your enjoyment of those modes all depend on your taste as they aren’t much different than the regular experience. If you’re looking for challenging and meaty game, this may not be for you. If you want something tough but fair, and don’t care about length, this might be right up your alley. If this review intrigued you, there is a free demo on Steam, I recommend you check it out if you’re at all interested.

Bleed 2 is an action-packed, shoot-em-up platformer. Released in early 2017 by Ian Campbell and published on consoles by Digerati Digital, Bleed 2 is the sequel to 2013’s Bleed. I really enjoyed Bleed and my review is very recent. So does Bleed 2 hold up as a sequel to the original? Digerati provided me a code when it launched on Switch, so let’s compare.

Once again, in Bleed 2 you take control of Wryn who is now the world’s greatest and only hero, to fight a new villain named Valentine who has emerged; it’s up to you to put a stop to her evil plans. This time you team up with The Rival to do so! Bleed 2 introduces many things to the series and breaks specific conventions, one way it does this is that it has a two player co-op mode. A second player takes control of a Wryn recolor and you can both clean house together. I wasn’t able to try it for this review, but doesn’t seem like it would be bad based on my solo experience.

The original Bleed sometimes felt too much like Mega Man X but does Bleed 2 improve on that issue? Bleed 2’s gameplay feels very similar to the original. You still can fire in any direction, you still have three mid-air dashes, and you still have the ability to slow down time. However, Bleed 2 gives Wryn the sword right at the beginning. You have the ability to reflect bullets of your sword’s color, Wryn’s sword is purple so she can reflect any purple bullet or object flying her way. It’s a really interesting mechanic for how simple it is, it provides many great moments in boss-fights as well. After completing the story you gain access to other playable characters, The Rival for example, has a yellow sword as his only difference which means he can reflect yellow instead of purple. This feels very much like a classic Sonic game or the difference between X and Zero from the Mega Man X. For that type of game, it works rather well.

Bleed 2’s level design is brilliant. At absolutely no point in my adventure did I feel damage was unavoidable, or something wasn’t obvious when going through a regular level. Some assets and designs bleed together across levels, creating a less memorable experience, but that is sort of unavoidable if you wish to tell a story using gameplay and level design. Bleed 2 also has an “Endless” mode, which auto-generates levels in a world for you to fight in. I don’t particularly enjoy this mode though, with auto-generation comes many potential issues, and in Bleed 2 they put a damper on the experience of the mode. That being said, it’s a side-mode so it’s not important for completion. I prefer developers put time and effort into designing brilliant and fluid levels instead of an algorithm to mix and match puzzle pieces. Your enjoyment of this mode will depend on if you enjoy these types of things in other games. Bleed 2’s generation can sometimes create unfair situations though, which nobody enjoys, but overall, it’s not too bad of a system.

Presentation overall is good and much better than the original’s. Sprite quality is improved throughout the game; they fixed odd looking sprites and animations from Bleed 1. Bleed 2 also reintroduces some enemies and bosses from Bleed 1; they look better than ever with a heavier emphasis on shading and a “less is more” focus. Specific visual effects, such as the dash, look brilliant in this style too. The music is always amazing, there are little to no repeating tracks, and the music feels much more prominent on your adventure sort of like the music does in Classic Sonic or Mega Man games. The music itself sounds like something you’d find in a Genesis cartridge. Sound design is great the sounds are satisfying, crunchy, and never get grating. All of them are a definite improvement over Bleed’s.

Bleed 2 is a very short game. The campaign took me just over an hour and a half to complete. Some may not like that length for the price, but Bleed 2 rewards your skill at gameplay with more gameplay. You can easily sink 10-15 hours into Bleed 2 collecting every achievement or getting the highest scores in Endless mode. If you’re the person who beat Sonic Mania, then hopped in again as Knuckles and Tails you won’t be dissatisfied with Bleed 2’s length or it’s extras; this is especially true if you’re a completionist.

Overall, Bleed 2 is an improvement over the original in almost every way. If you enjoyed Bleed 1 and are on the fence, I recommend jumping off of the fence and go to the “buy game” button immediately. Bleed 2 is one of my personal favorite indie games of all time and I believe it deserves the praise I give it. You can pick up Bleed 2 on most modern platforms and I highly recommend you do when you need something to play.

Miles & Kilo is an action platformer developed by Mike Burns and Four Horses Limited. Miles & Kilo is a sequel to Kid Tripp which you can read my review of here. It’s a more recent release compared to the other games I’ve reviewed so far. I enjoyed Miles & Kilo my first time through, but do I share the same thoughts I did when giving it my first go? Well, here I am writing about it.

Miles & Kilo changes quite a bit of Kid Tripp’s formula. You can control two characters, the rocks you could throw are now fruits and in limited supply, and the game is a platformer not an auto-runner. Each character has a variety of differences. Miles can throw fruit, punch, surf in specific levels, as well as cling onto vines and most platforms. Kilo can lock onto enemies to do a homing-attack like move. He can even roll through specific blocks destroying them. Sadly though, he auto-runs through levels. Kilo is exclusive to only a few specific levels, something I’m not a big fan of; I’d rather be able to switch to him in any level.

Miles & Kilo’s level design suffers from the exact opposite issue Kid Tripp’s do, they are built for an auto-runner, though there is an auto-run option that you can turn on which implies the devs knew this was an issue. With the auto-run option off, some levels end up feeling really unenjoyable. It hinders the game and it’s potential quite a bit, which is something that feels kinda sad to see due to how good other sections of the game are. Miles & Kilo also introduces boss fights and a world map. Bosses are generally well designed and thought out, but I feel they suffer from trying to accommodate both the platformer and runner settings. Sadly, it feels like that’s an unavoidable casualty.

I feel gameplay heavily suffers because the auto-running option exists. In order to get S-ranks on some levels you have to be in platformer mode, however the levels are better suited for auto-running. Thanks to that, the game sacrifices its potential as both a platformer and a runner. Because of that, I don’t agree with the decision to add it in as an option at all, but it’s better to have a good game with no focus than a terrible game dead-set on an idea. Miles & Kilo seems to go for at least one uniform idea though, “Kid Tripp but better”, but that focus doesn’t work well. I believe in trying to be better than Kid Tripp, it ended up making itself worse. This is especially true with the hit detection. A lot of things I hit, and even things I missed really felt like I shouldn’t have. This especially causes issues on certain jumps later in the game.

The presentation is amazing, much better than Kid Tripp’s. The music is a lot more noticeable in game, something I appreciated since Kid Tripp felt like it didn’t have any music. Sound effects in Miles & Kilo never get grating, but they can get annoying after a bit. Overall, everything is improved from Kid Tripp as it’s fairly basic with games presentation. There are a lot of repeating tracks though, which could be a negative or a nice little throwback. Sprite quality all around is a lot better this time around as well. There’s more emphasis placed on shading, creating less blending of sprites in motion; I appreciated that as it was one of my huge gripes with the original.

Miles & Kilo is a bit longer than Kid Tripp. It took me fifty-three minutes to complete the story. After beating the story you unlock a Time Attack mode which will just about double your play-time. On top of those two modes, there are many achievements for you to collect. It’s something not everyone will be doing, but something well worth noting. Some are a lot harder to get than I would have thought too. Overall, you’ll get a good four to six hours out of Miles & Kilo and it has decent replayability. Each world is seven levels and now there are five worlds instead of the just four in Kid Tripp. It’s not a whole lot more, but I think it helps in the decision making process.

I don’t believe Miles & Kilo is better than Kid Tripp and don’t recommend Miles & Kilo over Kid Tripp. If you are a fan of Kid Tripp and are looking for something similar, there are better options as far as runners go, but Miles & Kilo certainly isn’t the worst option either. For people who are trying to decide between the two or fans of Kid Tripp, I’d say be a bit wary. It’s by no means a terrible game, but not a great one either. One major issue I had writing this review was “Do I give this game the seal?”. On its own merits, Miles & Kilo is an enjoyable romp that I enjoyed more than I disliked. As a sequel and continuation of Kid Tripp, it fails in various ways that I think made it a less quality product. Don’t be discouraged or turned away completely, as that’s not my intent, I just think you should look over a few videos or wait for a sale.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a physics based adventure where you control an octopus masquerading as a human father. Originally released in 2014 by Young Horses, the game is actually a sequel to “Octodad”, which was developed in 2011 before the official forming of Young Horses. Octodad, as I’ll refer to it, is very hard to explain properly, however, I shall do my best to do so for this review. I’ll be taking a look at the Nintendo Switch version, provided to me by Young Horses.

Let’s start with addressing the concept and controls. You’re pretending to be a human father while running from a chef who’s a war veteran. It’s not your typical story in a game, but it works in so many different ways. In Octodad, going about your life as an octopus is not very easy. You control each limb separately, which makes simple actions like walking around or mowing the lawn a bit of a chore, but not in a way that makes them uninteresting or not fun. The way controls feel are very subjective in games, but the way Octodad is designed means if you don’t enjoy them, you won’t enjoy the game. I, personally, have mixed feelings about the control style, it isn’t accessible to newcomers at all. However when you get used to it, it is fluid and fun as you get into all sorts of shenanigans. Because of the style, no two play-throughs feel the same, but your enjoyment of said play-through is rooted in whether or not you enjoy mastering games.

Octodad has a variety of different levels that feel interesting to explore such as Octodad’s back-yard, an aquarium, and a fishing boat. On a second play-through, such as mine, they can feel a bit “empty”. The joy of the levels come from figuring out solutions to your issue. Once you’ve beaten the game, the lock never changes but you always have the key. For those who enjoy a good easter egg hunt, there are many collectible ties for you to grab in each level, but they don’t really change a second play-through much. This leaves me wishing there was more variety, such as a New Game + mode. Octodad features a 2 player co-op mode, but I wasn’t able to test it for the review.

Octodad’s basic level design is alright. Each level and every section in them are designed to have multiple miniature puzzles and issues within them. Like I brought up before, this hurts replayability for me, but I know some will love playing and mastering it. Octodad’s sound design is brilliant from the blubs and blurbs Octodad produces himself to the sound effects of moving and hitting things. It’s all very satisfying, and it rarely gets annoying unless it’s deliberately designed to be. The music is oddly relaxing, and I would definitely listen to this to sleep or de-stress. The graphics do show their age, but I don’t believe this hurts the game too much. For a 2014 indie, it still looks relatively good today.

The humor is something I have a hard time explaining. The game prides itself by taking most of its characters entirely serious while Octodad and The Chef are played for laughs. This works well and jokes are usually played pretty well. Octodad loves its visual humor and laughable concepts. While I can’t necessarily call it bad, it can feel immature at times. That being said, it also genuinely puts a smile on your face. I can’t help but love how the game handles itself.

Alright to those who read my reviews, say it with me now, “The game’s length can be an issue for some”. This phrase feels like a pattern in these reviews now. My play-through was forty-one minutes long, less than a full hour isn’t great even for a second play-through. According to howlongtobeat.com the average play time is just under two and a half hours for a first play-through. The game is short and you definitely feel how short it is, and the collectable’s don’t do much to extend this either. I do enjoy smaller games, but this feels too small for me, a definite downside.

Overall, I enjoyed almost all the time I spent with Octodad. From concept, to gameplay, to music, it all just felt great to me. A fun, quirky little title for those looking for physics based challenges or a nice laugh on an afternoon. If you are a fan of shorter stuff or are looking for a good game for you to play with your kids, you can’t go wrong with Octodad: Dadliest Catch.

Bleed is an action heavy shoot-em-up platformer. Developed originally by Ian Campbell and published on Nintendo Switch by Digerati. Bleed takes inspiration from classic platformers like Mega Man X and arcade shmups. For this review I played the Switch version of the game. Much like Kid Tripp, this is my second time through. Originally I loved it, but I’m not sure it holds up after playing the sequel and many games like it. Now let’s see if taking such heavy inspiration helps or harms quality in the long run.

You take control of Wryn, a girl with many weapons and large dreams. Your goal is to take down the world’s greatest heroes in order to become the greatest hero of all time. Bleed is very much a boss-rush game, very similar to Mega Man. Wryn starts the game off with a rocket launcher and dual pistols, these weapons are enough to get through the entire adventure. You have the standard fanfare for Mega Man X inspired platforms: running, jumping, wall jumps, and a nice and fast movement speed to dodge anything and everything without losing pace. You can also slow-down time and do mid-air dashes. There is a shop to buy more weapons upgrades to your abilities. The game calls the dash a “double jump” but you can do it three times before landing. While dashing you have control over your trajectory than you do with standard jumps.

Interesting concept right off the bat, but is it fun to play? It very much is, but there were a few times I felt like it was the game’s fault for me dying or getting hit. Sadly, that made those scenarios stick out like a pony in a pigsty. You never get overpowered bullets spammed at you from all directions, so for a shmup things are pretty calm most of the time. For some this could be great and for others it might be kind of an issue. It also feels very much like Mega Man X, which isn’t bad in my opinion.

Level design is pretty good for the most part. The fore and background don’t typically blend together and it follows the basic principles for great level-design. It uses the adage ‘teach by showing, not telling,’ in its tutorial and it does it rather well. Some sections of levels can stick out because of their low quality, but most of it is pretty good. Overall, some levels can feel short and leave you wanting more, but I’m not too sure if that’s even a negative for the game.

The presentation is decent, sprites are large and heavily detailed, the game never takes itself too seriously, and the sound design all around is pretty good. One odd thing in my experience was just how “empty” the sound felt. This was the case for bullets noises, dashes, and jumping. I never really realized that there was music in the background until I had finished the levels and went back to check some of them. While this is very opinionated, I think the music should feel more prominent, like it does in Sonic or Mega Man itself.

The story is mostly an excuse to get to gameplay, but what story is there is played for laughs. While never intrusive to the levels, the writing is self-aware and it knows nobody is taking it seriously. Because of that, I was able to enjoy the cutscenes even more than I did the first time through. It’s rare for a game to do that for me and I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like it among indies either.

The game is pretty short, it takes two to three hours to beat it on normal, and that could definitely be an issue for some. Your reward for beating it is more characters to use in extra game modes such as arcade mode. There four playable characters Wryn, Robo-Wryn, White MK 1, and The Rival. Each playable character feels similar to Wryn and, while I didn’t unlock them all, they seemingly have different attributes kind of like how in the classic Sonic games the other other characters have different attributes. Their powers didn’t change the overall gameplay but give you some new options while playing.

I heavily recommend Bleed to those interested in or are fans of Mega Man X. It may have a steep asking price for a short campaign. But it’s no worse than Mega Man. If you aren’t sure, wait for a sale on either Switch or PC. If you’re a fan of the genre, I doubt you will end up regretting the time or money put into the title.

Kid Tripp
Date: February 27, 2019
Author: supirorguy
1 Comment
Kid Tripp is a bite-sized 2D platforming auto-runner. Originally developed by Mike Burns and released in 2013 on the iOS app store. Critics and those who played the game loved it. In late 2017, Four Horses Limited brought Kid Tripp to both the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch. In this review, I’ll be looking at the Switch version. If you are interested. I recommend trying the demo available on both Nintendo platforms.

The controls feel a bit off as they were originally designed for phones. Across the controller there are about three ways to do any input, such as jump being B, up on the joystick, and ZL. While this did cause a few mis-inputs, it did not damper the experience. Of course, as an auto-runner, it should feel fast and fun, and it definitely does. The speed is just right for what the game was trying to be. The controls, while awkward at first, never felt like the cause of a death, nor a hindrance.

Kid Tripp looks amazing. The sprite quality is consistent. The animation is limited yet fluid. Together, the game looks really good. Being designed for a mobile device, I was originally unsure it would look great upscaled on Switch or downscaled on 3DS. I’m happy to have been proven wrong in that worry. Everything is crisp and blur free. The feeling I get while moving is that it’s right just for the system. The sound design and quality sells it as a arcade inspired game. Each world theme feels different, yet oddly similar in style. The sound effects feel ripped straight from the Genesis. It’s nice to play a game that tries to remind of the past while keeping its foot in the modern era. Some level backgrounds blend in too much with enemies and obstacles. A lot of the time it felt like the game was at fault for my death. Which is, under any circumstances, terrible.

Level design, for the most part, feels good. Most stages are fun, some are not, which is typical for platformers and auto-runners. Luckily, there isn’t an ice world and just a singular ice level. However, a surprising amount of levels feel like they were designed for a typical 2D platformer, not an auto-runner. Lots of levels also feel boring, with only one path that you have to complete exactly the same way or die. Overall, with them, I felt I enjoyed most of the game.

One major turn-off is the length. While the game was made with mobile gamers in mind, it feels a bit too short, with twenty levels that last around twenty to twenty-five seconds each. My playtime for this review was shockingly low. There are a large amount of achievements to collect, but for those not interested in achievements, you’re not going to find much more than an afternoon worth of game here. For the price, that’s not too bad in my opinion, but I can definitely see some people having issues with it.

In the end, I enjoyed a lot more than I disliked. I heavily recommend trying the demo if you think you might at all enjoy it! This was definitely a small review, but it’s an even smaller game. For fans of auto-runners or good sprite work, I would definitely recommend it. If you enjoy longer experiences or want more then an afternoon of playtime. I think you’re best off checking out something else.