Kunai's premise is a familiar one. Humankind has reached
the pinnacle of technological advancement and brought about their own
downfall, inviting an army of AI-controlled robots to nearly wipe out
all life on earth. A small resistance of remaining humans and
conflict-averse droids begin fighting back, but without a miracle, that
battle is all but lost lost. Tabby, a cheerfully emoting tablet in ninja
robes, is that miracle.
Kunai is both outlandish and
endearing, starting squarely with its odd protagonist. Tabby--a
dexterous tablet in a world dominated by robots with CRT-like heads and
barely any traces of humankind--is on a quest to extinguish an AI
uprising and prevent humanity's extinction. Kunai's world is fragmented
into varied areas, giving you multiple paths to explore in its opening
hours, with your growing toolset opening up new avenues to explore as
you progress. Kunai features the familiar DNA of action-platformers and
Metroidvanias, combining satisfying platforming and engrossing combat to
great effect.
You start out with just a sword, and you can use it to
quickly carve through the metal exteriors of robot foes and stylishly
protect yourself from projectiles with a flurry of swings. You have a
generous jump, too, that allows you to attack from above and
continuously bounce between enemies after each swipe. Getting into a
rhythm of bouncing off one enemy and directly onto the next while not
missing an attack in between is both easy to grasp and satisfying to
pull off. Kunai's combat scenarios generally feature only a handful of
enemies at a time, too, giving you ample space to feel like a kickass
ninja consistently.
Adding to your airborne
maneuverability early on are the kunai, a pair of grappling hooks
equipped in each hand that let you swing around environments with ease.
Augmenting standard movement with the aerial freedom of your kunai
injects combat with a captivating sense of flow. It's effortless to
chain together swings to maintain airtime while bouncing between enemies
to attack.
A variety of layouts from screen to screen
challenge you to use your tools creatively. More open expanses let you
freely hop around, but don't offer many points for you to hook your
kunai into. Cramped pathways limit your aerial maneuverability,
encouraging you to deflect more projectiles and choose your attacks
wisely. Each area throws in unique elements that supplement this--the
dense forest features vines that you can use to climb on while mines
feature fragile walls that crumble if you swing from them--keeping
platforming and combat entertaining throughout.
You're
free to explore the multiple areas of Kunai's large map as far as your
equipment will take you. Each new item you find doubles as both a weapon
and a tool to navigate the world in new ways. Your dual machine guns,
for example, act as both a powerful medium range attack and a creative
means to float over large gaps, since you can use downward fire to
sustain your jump for as long as you have bullets to fire. Each new
item's use is also easy to understand from the get-go, calling to mind
locked doors or obstructed pathways that can now be cleared with your
new abilities, making it easy to decide where to push onto next.
Each
new item expands your limited moveset in exciting ways, but navigating
to each specific part of the map where they might be useful becomes
taxing quickly. Individual segments in Kunai's areas offer up enough
variety in their construction to encourage different combat strategies,
but they don't coalesce in a way that makes navigating the same spaces
as interesting on return visits. In some cases coming to the end of a
critical path and reaching its respective goal is deflated by the
realisation that you need to navigate all the way back to where you
started, sometimes without anything new in your arsenal to shake up the
return journey. It's disappointing to brush through an area with a fine
comb only to be contacted over radio and redirected without any real
narrative progression, especially when there are no fast-travel systems
to alleviate the backtracking.
This
is exacerbated in some later stages in which it can be unclear where
your next objective lies, with all possible paths requiring a tool you
don't yet have. The aimless wandering is especially tiresome because
poking around Kunai's world isn't incredibly rewarding either, even with
optional chests hidden throughout each area for you to uncover. Some
contain cosmetic hats for some visual variety while others hold valuable
in-game currency for upgrades, but it's the few featuring parts of a
health upgrade that are worth seeking out. The issue is that the
majority of the chests lie at the end of passageways hidden entirely
from view, only revealing themselves when you accidentally brush close
to their entrance and cause the textures obfuscating them to fade away.
It's a disappointingly basic way to hide them, making your discoveries
feel more lucky than well deduced.
Although navigating
each area multiple times isn't as fun as it should be, the gorgeous
visual shifts between them are a delight. Kunai's limited color palette
is used to accentuate its varied areas with subtlety. Each of the areas
features different muted colours for their backdrop, such as the flat
greys and dim blues of its opening factory and the bright greens of its
AI-infested forests. The variation makes shifting between each area not
only clear but visually delightful too. While most colors are muted,
bright reds are especially prominent. Not only does it help make enemies
and points of importance stand out from the background, it imbues each
slash of your sword and subsequent connecting strike with a powerful
punch that bathes the screen in sharp, contrasting red hues. It works in
tandem with a well-measured screenshake effect that gives Kunai's
combat a stylish look in motion.
This sense of style
doesn't transition, however, to Kunai's limited story. It sets up an
initial premise and gives you an understanding of what you're fighting
for, but doesn't leave much for you to uncover about its world beyond
that. The only avenue for learning more about Kunai's world is through
limited but surprisingly entertaining interactions with other resistance
robots. Usually denoted by their chunky CRT monitor heads and calming
blue shading, these side characters add some levity to the setting by
making light of disastrous events with silly puns and small, humorous
anecdotes. Although there are other important named characters that are
meant to add more to the narrative, they don't stand out as much as each
brief interaction you have when arriving at a new camp.
It's
disappointing that there isn't more to dig into when it comes down to
Kunai's set dressing, especially when it's paired with such a striking
visual style and engrossing combat. Kunai's level design pushes you to
keep adapting while affording you the space to finish off a group of
enemies with a series of pinpoint grappling hook swings, precise double
jumps, and intelligently integrated swings of your sword. Kunai loses
some of its momentum far too frequently, but when it hits a balance
between its engrossing combat and satisfying platforming, it's difficult
to put down.
