Kunai

Definitely my most favorite robot game! If you liked Cavestory or Metroid I'd give this game a try!
Pros:
-Great artwork, from splash screens to the sprites. The limited palettes leaves some to the imagination! The music was lovely and enhanced the atmosphere of the environments. The characters are really cute too, I have a weakness for monitorheads hehe... The dialogue was also charming, I had few chuckles!
-The areas were fun to climb!
-Simple combat, kill to heal. Your sword is pretty much all you need to deal with enemies although the side weapons can make things easier! There's certainly some power progression as you get further along. I really appreciate that you can attack in 4 directions!
-Many things to collect! Especially hats which allow customization
-The upgrades are all optional and are surprisingly priced so that you could buy all of them by the end of the game if you are looking to 100% complete it
-The marker system was handy to keep track of old places where you could use newfound abilities! I appreciate that the markers can be set to different colors
-The call function is useful if you forget what you were supposed to do
-The bosses felt adequately challenging!
-Death is a slap on the back! You don't lose your currency or anything when dying!
Cons:
-Some areas were narrow so it became less fun to traverse since you couldn't grapple around as much
-Combat may feel clunky when trying to weave sidearms and your sword
-Lack of a fast travel system, which could make it tiresome to walk from place to place
-There are some instakill spots, but save points are plentiful enough that there isn't much of a problem
-It may take some getting used to the grapple range before it becomes second nature
-Some cutscenes play after every death once you reach a location (but at least you can skip)
-Lack of locations where chests have been opened may cause you to backtrack to the same chest more than once
-You can't select a different area of the map to look in to see its markers/chests looted
Minor Complains:
-Lack of a codex, I'd love to read more about the world and its inhabitants! If only the call function commented on more specific areas too!
-The story is a little shallow, but I love it nonetheless!
-There was a cutscene that didn't run all the way, causing my game to softlock
-There was a hat that is easily missed >:(
-One npc blows up but keeps respawning. Hmmm...
-One enemy gets stuck on a ledge and keeps making a sound
-I feel like the sidearms could be used more against enemies, perhaps some that require you to use a certain one before you can use your sword?
I hope this game gets a sequel, it was really well made! It was definitely worth the purchase!

Kunai is one of many newer Metroidvanias to hit the indie market. It may draw comparisons to Hollow Knight, but I believe it's a bit different but still good.
Kunai is an extremely well polished game visually. All of the actions feel good and everything that moves is running through a downscaler shader to fit the pixel art style with an interesting physics feel. Some of the character designs indeed seem to be using pixel art, but the objects such as cloth and hand movements appear to be using tweening and physics quite nicely.
I would give Kunai a positive for its visuals and themeing consistency. The theme of an apocolyptic future with a tablet robot (that is extremely expressive) that acts like a 1980s kung-fu action hero when weilding his weapons is hilarious, and while the story felt arcade-like moreso than deep (the game does have an interesting premise, but the lore is not that deep) I still went away appreciating it as it stayed consistent. Over-the-top action with good comedy relief. Not a long game, but still plenty to do.
Now what's the negatives of Kunai?
-The controls "felt" off because I never seemed to get much chance to experience the full arcs that the tether effect of the Kunai gave to your movement when swinging on ceilings. As such, when I was given harder tether platforming challenges, I didn't immediately feel like I was guided in the difficulty curve to understand them. The early areas were all cramped and tiny, keeping me from seeing all of the capabilities of the Kunai until later, making me feel as if I wasn't "progressing" at mastering the Kunai tether mechanic.
As such, it will take you some time to get used to Kunai's movement mechanics
-While I loved the choice of limited color pallets in Kunai, the constant use of the dull tan color for background and some foreground elements made seeing wall spikes hard to see in my peripheral vision. I'd take damage and ask "what hit me?" Turns out it was wall spikes I did not see because they didn't have enough color contrast with the floor, spikewall, and backgroun all having the same tan color.
-I did not feel like the map layout of Kunai was that fun to traverse. There is no fast travel in the game at all (or if there was, I didn't ever run into it from beginning to end) It made trekking levels backwards an absolute pain, as I simply wanted to proceed to a new level, but got held in one place too long with no quick way to change locations. Because of this map travel issue, and coupled with map layout that didn't feel like it guided me in a certain direction when exploring, I also had no desire to obtain extra collectibles. While I loved the hats as a nice collectible, it just felt like a hassle to go collect them. The reward didn't fit the massive amount of time of traveling and attempting to find illusory walls.
-upgrades were neat, but felt too expensive to complete. Since each common enemy would only drop about 1-3 coins on death, I didn't feel like I could easily collect 300 coins for the next upgrade. I appreciated it kept it from being too easy, but it was just enough that I wish there was a reward to get that much. I wasn't able to find those challenges to earn more to be rewarded with the extra upgrades. Coupled with the hassle of exploring the map, I didn't feel the desire to go to search for challenge rooms to find more, as I felt like reward chests I'd find would only produce about 20 coins. It was easier to spam farm coins from a few of the games bigger enemies.
Overall, I believe the game is good as a metroidvania. I don't feel as if it hit the masterpiece level wholeistically, but it was still fun to play despite its weaknesses and flaws.

Underappreciated little Metroidvania game that has never bored me during its 5-7 hour playthrough. Traversal is so smooth, the frequency of finding new abilities is just right, and I also liked its visuals/sound. Nothing to complain about here. If you like Metroidvania games, give this game a try. Don't expect the next Hollow Knight or Ori in terms of general quality. Nevertheless, as a Metroidvania fan, I enjoyed this game more than Bloodstained ROTN, Shantae 5, Metroid 2 remake, or Dandara.

A fun, short, metroidvania with some good swinging mechanics. 7/10 would recommend.

Recommended because the gameplay and art are great. Level design is really bad though. A lot of backtracking and no option to go between save points even on the later part of the game.

Metroidvanias have been around for just about 34 years or so. Majority of people are familiar with it but in case you aren't, A metroidvania is typically an action oriented game that takes place in one large map, usually having you backtrack after obtaining new abilities. Up there with rogue-lites, it's a very popular game genre, especially in the indie scene. So without wasting too much time, lets dive into the recently released Kunai, developed by TurtleBlaze and published by The Arcade Crew.
Majority of people I feel aren't going to play a metroidvania for its story, while there are narrative based vanias, it isn't really my thing when I want to dive into one. Kunai's story is fairly straightforward and one you've heard before. Human life is on the brink of extinction thanks to an evil genius, and it's up to Tabby to save humanity with the help of the resistance to restore balance. What Kunai lacks in narrative it makes up for in its execution. It's a very quirky and actually kinda funny game. It doesn't really take itself too seriously for the most part and I feel it's an advantage. Other than that it continues to be fairly standard for the genre with some lore scattered here and there with computers and other robots.
Actually playing Kunai I think it'd be hard for a person NOT to have a good time. Not too far into the intro you get a set of Kunai that you use propel yourself forward and grapple onto certain surfaces. It gives the game a unique momentum that helps it stand out on its own. It plays well into the combat of the game and of course the majority of the boss fights. You do get some more movement based abilities later in the game but the kunai is the main thing. You get a small arsenal from a trust katana to a pair of dual p90s. All of which is upgradable. The enemies are nice and varied to keep you on your toes, but sometimes can be a tad bit tedious in my eyes. You never are without the appropriate tool though. On top of all that, there are a bunch of hats to collect to make your own personal Tabby. Who doesn’t love hats?
The art style of Kunai fits the vibe it's going for. The cutscenes have this cutesy anime feel to them, but I do feel as though monotone-esque colors in the background can take away from the world they crafted. Arguably the most important part of a metroidvania is its map. It's a whole other character the player gets to know. So it's unfortunate that a lot of the places tend to blend together after a while. The accompanying music and occasional lack there of certainly help the atmosphere, but I can't really find anything sticking out regardless if good or bad.
I had no issues with the performance at all. A constant 60FPS, no crashes, no game breaking glitches, nothing. Which is always a dope thing.
The experience I had with Kunai is a short but for the most part good time. You can complete it in about 5-6 hours. My hours representing a regular playthrough in which I did NOT go for 100% completion. Which I feel is fair for the $16.99 asking price, though I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to wait for a sale. I felt as though Kunai peaked just before the final segment. I had a good time with every boss except the final one, which is always a bummer. In the end though I feel that Kunai has enough going for it to be worth your time, and would recommend for you to pick it up if you wanted a quick romp through a quirky metroidvania.

Very beautiful graphics and music. Cute and simple metroidvania, not as complex as say, Hollow Knight but enjoyable overall.
Controls are not really good if you play on a keyboard but I suppose this game is meant to be played on a controller. If it had more precision platforming or combat in it, it would have been almost impossible with a keyboard given how confusing it can get.
Game design was overall okay. I enjoyed the boss fights a lot except for the last one, where the difficulty increase is substantial. And one could argue that the other boss fights were far too easy. Other than that, no complains.
Upgrades are OK, not much to say about them. Not great, not terrible.
I had a nice ride with it. Recommended and would definitely buy a sequel.