Indie Games
If I haven’t said it anywhere publicly before, I’ll say it here: Playstation Plus is amazing! Every month I get at least 2 new games for each of my Playstation consoles for free. Sometimes, I get games that I heard of but never had the chance to play or I’ll get an indie game that I never heard of. Earlier this year, the indie game I didn’t hear of was a game on PS Vita called Kick & Fennick. I downloaded it because the image caught my eye as looking cute and I thought it could be fun. What I didn’t expect is that this game would become a contender for my personal Game of the Year.
This game is a has a simple premise, a small boy named Kick wakes up in what looks to be a post-apocalyptic/1984-esque world. Kick gets saved by an even smaller robot named Fennick who has a dying battery. The two, along with a big gun, then go off an adventure to the Core Tower to fix up Fennick.
The gameplay is a sidescrolling platformer where you use a giant gun to destroy robots and launch Kick like a tiny cannonball. The simplicity is shocking, because I’ve never played or heard of a game that has a mechanic like this through the majority of the game. It opens the game up to have tight, well developed levels, which bring the difficulty and the fun. It reminds me of an old school Rareware game in all of the best ways.
Throughout each level and world, it gets progressively harder and you have to really think about how to make each jump. It’s really interesting to have a platformer where you have to think strategically about how you get from one platform to the next. The levels also never overstay their welcome, which is something a lot of games fall into the trap of.
If I had one complaint, it’s with the combat. When Kick shoots an enemy, he always gets knocked backwards a bit. It’s not a flaw in the game design, because it’s clearly meant to be like that, I’m just saying it got a little frustrating. However, whenever you die in this game you never feel like the game cheated you. Since the player has to strategically make all of their jumps, the only person to blame is themselves. Despite the “meh” combat, everything else is amazing!
This isn’t a review, I just want to shine some light on a great game, but if it was I would give this game a 10/10. It’s a charming game made by a rad developer for a system that needs more great games. If you have a Vita, it is currently $7.99 on PSN and is totally worth every penny. As a side note, if any of the people from Jaywalkers Interactive are reading this, please know that you now have a ride or die fan in me because I completely adore this game. Good luck with everything, and I can’t wait to see what’s next for you guys!
