Kero Blaster Reviews

Simple, challenging, short & sweet.

another studio pixel banger. another 11/10. peak.

10/10 controls and gamefeel

This is one of the best indie games of all time. One of the best 2D platformers of all time. It's kinda like Mega Man, albeit linear and less weapons, but that just means it's more tightly balanced. It's also the perfect "action RPG" platformer where you can upgrade the weapons and increase your life count, but you never have to if you're skilled enough, so every challenge is achievable. If you aren't good enough to overcome it now, you'll be good enough soon to overcome it when your frog guy's a bit stronger. Anyone can finish Kero Blaster, and anyone can be challenged satisfyingly while doing it. Splitting the game into two campaigns (Normal and Zangyou mode) was also brilliant. You can blast through Kero Blaster quickly like the 8-bit games of yore, but you still have lots of content to sink your teeth into. Kero Blaster is a humble game, but that undersells how much effort went into it, into hand-crafting each pixel of these sprites and perfectly pacing every mechanic of these stages. If you like retro games or 2D platformers, play Kero Blaster. You won't regret it.

Huge fan of Cave Story here I have played this game and cave story, and I can tell the difference of gameplay is just really huge. The +: -Pixel made a better NES-like game than Cave Story was supposed to be (it ended being more like SNES / PS1 quality) -The characters are barely interesting but are still very cute -The music is, well, made by pixel, so of course it's good -We can feel a progression story / gameplay -All weapons have their own utilities The -: -I understand the game is made to be really NES like and so provide a decent amount of challenge, but don't play this game if you haven't done Cave Story. This is one of the less friendly possible, and is nearly like playing Cave Story on hard mod. -Don't even bother with the achievements, you'll better pass your time doing something else. -The Jetpack difference between Cave Story and Kero Blaster is hugely a downgrade. You can easely miss a jump and lose your life like an idiot in a cliff. Really miserable because it was what I was the most excited to have. -Life system absolutely useless, especially when we face bosses, we don't know the patterns and we only have few life left. If you die, you're getting send back to the entrance of the level, yaaay. -[spoiler]Hardmod that is more masochist than whatever you can think of, despite proposing a new story. Please don't do this ever again in a video game, this is stupid to mix story with difficulty.[/spoiler] -[spoiler]I died so many times in the hardmod level 4 that I'm rich as hell and has no way to spend my money out of health. Really bad choice again[/spoiler] Conclusion: Is Kero Blaster a better game than Cave Story? No. It has its own charm and propose a really fun gameplay (if you're insane), but other than that, this is most likely a small downgrade from their previous entry. If I could mix it to another game, I would mix it to celeste and bleed games. Too bad this game is now +10 years old and won't ever receive any update concerning balancing or quality of life. Final grade: 7/10

definitely doesnt live up to the standard of a "cave story 2" or a cave story spiritual successor but its still a pretty decent game

this game is fun af. Pixel does not miss. the best part is that Nicalis didn't publish it. if you compare it to cave story its ok. its very linear and the story and writing are very basic compared to cave story but its still really fun and the music is really good. one gripe I have, the mechanic where you continuously fire in one direction while moving around is a good idea, but it feels a bit finicky. I know on ios, you can choose which way you fire without having to first move in the direction but I don't think that would work on controller. maybe on keyboard and mouse but not on controller. something like having 2 fire buttons, one for shooting forward and one for shooting in the last direction you were facing, would be a good idea. it doesn't completely ruin the game but for a game where you can't afford to get hit on the harder difficulties it gets rather annoying and it kills momentum