Kunai

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KUNAI is a side-scrolling action-packed 2D platformer with a bit of metroidvania mixed in as well. Some hidden rooms with treasures, special weapons, H.A.T.S. you can wear, and more! The fluidity on controller was really exceptional as well, so I’m quite happy with my overall experience playing through it.
The premise of the story centers around your controllable character, lovingly called “Tabby”, who escapes a facility, and is then deemed to be the one and only “chosen one” from prophecy, who can set things right and get the world back in order. There’s an evil entity out there, and your job is to power up and stop it! Settings and plot are nice, and while it’s not heavily story-based, the extras you can buy for upgrades along with appearance changes, and the relatively lighter difficulty make this an excellent choice for anyone looking for a game that kind of fits into this kind of a category. You will make use of your kunai, as the game title hints at, which is kind of like a grappling hook. You can get this enhanced later as you go, acquire a few extra side weapons, and then buy some upgrades to make your life easier as you progress.
Don’t forget to check out the map once you get it! While secret rooms are not on there, it’s still helpful for finding other stuff, and will tell you how many treasures are in each zone. I wish it were more specific on what each treasure has, or broke down into detail kind of what that zone has left to acquire, but the layout is still pretty decent.
Overall not too hard - I did find the final fight a bit frustrating, and without spoiling anything, wasn’t able to perform an action I should have at one point, which was a bit annoying. Mostly had a good flow with it though, focusing on moving around the map, acquiring new tools to make more progress, and then gradually building up your health/gear/sword powers and so forth. Definitely a likable game here for me!
Pros
Controller feels great with this. Very responsive for the most part. I had little trouble at any point. Much smoother than a lot of games with jumping and the timing of various aspects. Sometimes charge moves didn’t register though, for whatever reason. That’s really the only thing that bugged me with controls as I played.
This is not very difficult compared to some metroidvanias and other genres I played. Final battle is a bit challenging, as it took me a handful of tries to get used to, but otherwise not too tough in general. I like that about it… Some games I’ve played will make things too difficult, and I will lose interest if it doesn’t feel like it is worth the effort, so I am glad this one is fairly balanced. I think most people would fare pretty well overall in this game as they got used to it.
Nice little cutscene animations here and there. I liked that. Kept the game interesting having slight change of pace things like that going on in battles, or in the story bits and so forth. Just a few on certain things, but it was mixed in well.
The upgrading system was nice for your weapon and also for skills and gear you get. While you don’t have a ton of various items, they are all useful in their own way here and there for random stuff. Pretty good balancing - making them all fairly functional depending on the situation.
Levels were all fun, and I felt the overall layout was good. Music fit the game well, and everything clicked for me. I thought the overall effectiveness of the character, the scenery, other npcs, and bosses was nice. It was not super-immersive story-wise, but it has its charms.
Cons
It’s a bit convoluted. Like I mention about immersiveness, on the flip-side of the nice settings, the story elements were kind of light. Go here and do this. Now that you have this thing, go over here and do this. Stuff like that. Not enough details on why I needed to get things, how they knew about them, and other reasons make me feel the story could be worked on to be more detailed so that it all makes a bit more sense as to why I am doing what I am doing as the game moves along.
The price is pretty high for the amount of time I put into the game. I think there should be a lot more content to warrant paying anything near full price for this. Maybe half the price is pretty reasonable though. Even then it’d be a coin-flip kind of deal for me on half price.
Needs more weapons, gadgets, upgrades, and levels, or a lower price tag. It’s just a little under-developed for my liking on all fronts there. Still in and of itself a good game. I just feel like there should have been maybe double the amount of stuff in the game itself on all fronts. Something like that anyway. Maybe in the future there can be more additional content to balance it out with that asking price.
The final boss area has something around the second phase where you have to press a button. This did not show up for me one of the times I tried fighting. Not sure if anyone else encountered this issue, but it may have just been a one time glitch for me for whatever reason. Still kind of frustrating at the time, especially since the controls were very good throughout the rest of the game overall.
Conclusion
While I do recommend playing this just based on the game, I do not suggest paying full price, or anywhere near it. Great fun to be had, but I’d aim for around the halfway mark. Still one I would suggest getting at a good sale, if it drops that low or lower. You will not regret it if you’re into this type of game style. It has a good mix of action and some small RPG-like elements on the upgrades. The metroidvania isn’t too intense, but it’ll make you have to hit up various areas multiple times if you are looking for all the treasures and such.
It’s pretty solid, but just needs more content. I recommend this at the right price zone. The grappling is great, the weapons are fun to use, though I mostly used my base sword, and the maps have a lot of secret areas in each zone. Environments clicked, controls are responsive, and it has a nice simplicity to it. Nice little hidden gem though! Put it on your list of games to play, but if you really have an itch to slash up some bad guys, make sure that asking price is “slashed” a bit first. You’ll get at least five or ten hours out of it if you’re an avid explorer, and it doesn’t give you too much trouble along the way. I do not regret playing this one bit. Deserves a bit more attention! Very fun game!
Special thanks to Simetria League for their support!

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

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.

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.

I was browsing the Steam Store page today, bored out of my skull, hoping to find a gem of a game amidst all thepassable junk. When looking through what was on sale, I noticed KUNAI, a game with a simple enough title and a brilliant art style from the jump. Naturally pulled in by the pretty presentation, I gave the demo a try. Before I had even cleared 5 minutes worth of the demo, I knew this would be an instant purchase. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of metroidvanias, but I was sucked in impossibly deep by KUNAI. I couldn't put the damn thing down. The gameplay is fast-paced and delightful, the kunai grapple feels wonderful when traversing, and the game is packed to the brim with metroidvania secrets. The progression feels natural and the layout of the game's different environments makes moving between locales a breeze. I finished this the game in two sittings on one day but, honestly, it felt like the perfect length. My only complaint is that some of the boss fights were less of a challenge and more of a chore, but the rest of the games many perfect traits make up for this in almost every way. My final score for KUNAI is a 4.3/5, 100% recommendation to anyone you know