As we play offers the thought strands of the reviewer as they’re going through the game. This offers unique content for the reader so they can come to understand the conflicting feelings of the reviewer as they’re playing a game for the very first time. All feedback on this concept is welcome.
Xbox Indie Games is one of the oddest places to find games. The sheer amount of user-created content that has been pushed through the system being the main reason; a sea of cheap titles ranging from ‘fart-simulators’ and ‘Rumble Massagers’ and so on. Despite there being a lot of rubbish however, several titles have emerged from it and done pretty well. And, with the changeover from Xbox 360 to Xbox One – not including the Xbox Indie Games channel – many developers have tried to bring their games over to the PC. Aqua Kitty is one of those games that not only make the jump from XBIG to PC, but has also managed to get through the Steam Greenlight process.
At first glance, the game seems very much a retro-throwback with large amounts of score-chasing, colourful explosions and effects, as well as nice crisp pixel graphics that gave me flashbacks of playing Metal Slug and several Taito titles.
However, the game itself is less run and jump and more along the likes of Defender. In Defender, each level is a looping area (so the entire playspace is one big left to right loop) with various things to save. To clear each level, you must destroy all the enemy ships before they either destroy you or kidnap/kill all of the things you have to save.
But where Defender had you flying spaceships everywhere, Aqua Kitty is a little different. That difference takes the form of cats in submarines and cats in scuba-suits collecting underground milk. Yes, the game is rather odd in this sense and the plot equally so. The game is all about claiming milk which has all, but vanished on earth, forcing cats to head underwater to get their fix, their inquisitive nature leading them to discover naturally formed full-fat milk under the surface of the earth.
Starting up the game throws up a small problem straight away and that is screen-sizing. Place the game into full-screen and it locks itself to a 1280 x 720 resolution with no other options available. Only having the game as ‘windowed’ seems to give any option for screen-sizing. Options-wise, there are the usual music/sfx sliders and nothing else. I didn’t honestly imagine there would be any other options, but the lack of resolution options is a bit of an issue.
Getting into the game reveals a large set of grid squares, each one representing a new level to play. They’re mostly all blocked out until you clear the adjacent square. It’s a simple enough map system, with the early-unlock aspect likely helping out players who get stuck on the odd one or two levels, letting them carry on through the game via another route rather than struggle endlessly against the same area.
Each stage is quite simple, though. As I mentioned before, the goal is to shoot down every enemy in sight, all while defending the Cats and avoiding getting shot/blown-up by enemies in the process. As it stands, the game is very clear thanks to a helpful minimap at the top of the screen. Allies appear as white dots, standard enemies are blue, power-up ships are green and enemies that try to capture the ally cats appear in red. Action is quite fast and furious with new enemy types being regularly introduced.
Me being a very picky sort, I like to try and clear every level with a ‘Perfect’ score. In this case, that requires saving every single cat in each level. However, on losing one, another issue popped up and that’s an issue with the control system. The game hasn’t really given much thought to keyboard users when it comes to displaying commands. Hitting the reset option in the main menu takes me to a ‘Are you sure?’ screen with indications for Xbox controller buttons. There is no indication of which keyboard button goes to which menu screen, leaving a very confused player the first time around. Hitting various buttons at random and playing guesswork isn’t fun and that needs to be sorted. Unfortunately, continuing on this theme is the fact that everything is button controlled; mouse-clicking for menus and the like is not supported. That’s not as big of an issue, though, given how smoothly most of the UI works.
There is a nice amount of tactical choice with weaponry in the game. Firing can be done in one of two ways, either firing off normal shots or using a multi-bullet secondary weapon that has a limited amount of use. It’s worth pointing out that firing slows you down, so if you need to get to an ally in danger, you are better holding off shooting until you get close. The other weaponry choices come from two different ‘Power-up enemies’ who, when destroyed, give varying powerups. The power-up they drop depends on where they happen to be on the screen at any given time. For instance, Goldfish either give support shot, a quick bomb-explosion or add extra health onto your meter. Silverfish, however, drop various, different style-weaponry, such as adding firepower to both above and below you, or adding extra shots from behind.
All of these power-ups are well and good, but there’s no visible timer for any of them, meaning that choice and usage can occasionally just boil down to luck.
Aqua Kitty is very fun and a real throwback to arcade classics, both in its gameplay and graphics style. The music also heavily reminds me of Amiga tunes, with a bit of a new-kick to keep them from being completely stuck in the past. There also happens to be plenty to do, with lots of levels accessible through the main mode, each with easy, medium and hard variants, as well as an ‘Endless’ survival mode to really extend things for score-chasers. The price also happens to be at a good and cheap point too.
Areas for Development
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Certain menu screens and areas only showing Xbox inputs and no Keyboard inputting
- Limited screen-sizing options
- Power-ups timing out without any graphical or audio indication
Final Analysis
This game definitely is a very fun, light and colourful retro-kick back to the Arcade-scene. While it doesn’t exactly try and change things too much, it does give enough options and variety to keep things interesting and fun. It’s very much worth picking up and giving a go, even if just for short quick blasts.
Technical Competency – 7/10
Graphic/Sound Quality – 8/10
Network Stability – N/A
Overall – 7.5/10
(These grades assess our playthrough, taking into consideration how many (if any) bugs were encountered, whether there were any interruptions in gameplay and the product’s final technical state. These scores, coupled with the Final Analysis and Areas for Development, are suggestions for future patches and updates which the developers could (and in our opinion, should) explore. These scores are separate to our DLC/Expansion Reviews but link into our Patch/Firmware Reviews.)
(These scores are not designed as a grading system to determine the entertainment value of a product and should not be treated as such..)
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