Xbox Reviews

Kyurinaga’s Revenge Review

Review Kyurinaga’ s Revenge | Developer RECOtechnology is a fine example why you should give indie-developers time and faith, after Yasai Ninja and Toro on Xbox One I didn’t have much faith in Kyurinaga’s Revenge. I’m not afraid to say that I was wrong, they have surprised me and deliver a pretty good experience! Read more about it with this review! 

THE GOOD!

  • The only positive thing about Yasai Ninja was the funny and well made character design. Because lets be honest, in what other game do you play as a broccoli and an onion?  It’s great to see that the developer didn’t abandon the characters after the negative waves from Yasai.
  • One major difference is the switch for 2D platforming, making it easier for the developer and player to have an understanding of the environments. You can expect all the basic 2D platforming gameplay. Collecting coins, surviving a big enemy running after you and timing jumps to get around. The gameplay isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. I would call it a pretty average experience, things do get better when playing with two players though.
  • One thing I loved about the platforming is the sneaky use of foreground objects, making it realistically more difficult for making a jump.  It is always perfectly placed so you never feel like you had a cheap dead because your view was obscured.
  • Playing with two players is always fun, and that’s not different in this game. Things aren’t completely positive for co-op players (read more at the bad) but in general there is fun to be had for you and your friend.
  • You’ll hate or love it and I loved it, Kyurinaga’s Revenge has some special combat parts. Enemies come left and right and the player needs to press the right button and select the fitting character. A pretty cool concept, that gave me some Guitar Hero vibes. These gameplay parts might take a little too long and can become repetitive but overall I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Mixed Feelings

  • I don’t get the optional checkpoints, I’m not really sure what the developer was thinking this would do but you don’t get a single in-game reward for completing a level without using checkpoints. You do get an Achievement for completing a level without checkpoints though. Anyway, it’s not a bad or good thing to have this option, so I guess it doesn’t hurt to have this feature.
  • Visually the game doesn’t look really great but the artwork is spot on. Each and every level gives you the right theme feeling. The game suffers from some extreme ugly textures though, but the level design barely manages to safe that.

THE BAD! 

  • With the developers past I didn’t have good faith, and things didn’t really start well for Kyurinaga’s Revenge. Right from the start I thought I had a sound bug, you start the game and a cut scene starts with no sound at all. Absolutely nothing.. I restarted the game, thinking it was a bug but no.. the cut scene doesn’t have any music or voices. Weird, luckily things went a little better after that.
  • One thing I really disliked when playing the game in co-op was how boring it was to play as mister Onion, Kaoru. brocoli Joe had many sections for shooting his ability and for those parts the second player couldn’t do anything… pretty boring and some levels focused way too much on Joe’s ability. Forcing the second player to watch and hope that the other player finished it quickly.
  • No voice over for the story lines, missing music, weird audio pops and repetitive hack-and-slash sounds. It’s obvious that the developer RECO can highly improve in the audio department.

Score 62% | While Kyurinaga’ s Revenge is pretty average it still positively surprised me. It’s way better than the previous efforts from developer RECO, giving me renewed trust for the developer’s future.  For now, this latest game is recommendable for local co-op players and 2D platforming fans.

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