LogFAQs > #932439630

#52





Years of release: 2014 (PC), 2015 (expansion), 2017 (PS4), 2018 (Switch)
Beaten?: Yes

There is extremely little of importance that I could really say about Kero Blaster. It's nothing groundbreaking - it is a little run-and-gun platformer about a frog. It's fantastic. It's Pixel's 'followup' of sorts to his much more famous game, Cave Story, and I think Kero Blaster got a little overlooked, for some reason. I actually remember that this wasn't originally on Steam, but I just bought it directly off his website or something like that, I think; maybe that had something to do with this game's relative obscurity? I'm not sure. It's not as much of a classic as Cave Story, but it lays claim to being just as good.

It ditches the Metroidvania-lite aspects and goes straight for a level-based Contra sort of style, which I think works. I've speedrun this - it's great fun. The level design's solid; the boss fights are great. As par for the course for Daisuke Amaya's stuff, though, the art style is extremely charming and the music is catchy as all fuck, which really brings the whole thing together. It still blows my mind that both Cave Story and this game are the sole creation of just a single person; how can that much talent possibly be concentrated in a single person? It's not fair. This game looks great, sounds great, and plays great. I dunno how he pulls it off. Maybe the fact that it's just one dev is why the whole game feels so cohesive, being that it's just one person's unique artistic vision.

I haven't played the 'updated' version of this game but I hear that it definitely adds a lot. It's funny how many of these games I've listed so far have gone on to add more content after I already played and finished them, haha - this isn't the last one on the list either. But I liked Kero Blaster enough as it was anyway. It's a short little romp but it's a damn solid platformer oozing with charm, and that's enough to earn my attention.