Meet Tabby, Kunai's mute anthropomorphic tablet in a kimono hiding an arsenal and some slick moves. With an attractively rendered limited color palette and a superb sense of game-feel, publisher The Arcade Crew’s newest release offers up keen platforming in a metroidvania template that excels, thanks to considerable attention paid to movement and combat. It’s pixelated parkour with swords and explosions, and that’s all any players should need to now.
The titular weapon in the game takes the form of two rope darts which are somehow always fun to mess around with. Certain areas may require you to grapple up to higher points to proceed, but you can actually thrust them into almost any surface to add some kinetic oomph to each jump. To be honest, character movement in Kunai handles even better than that in Bloodstained, a metroidvania peer which itself set a high watermark for the genre by its master, which is a point of comparative praise. Kunai is nowhere near as large or complex as Igarashi’s momentous return to the genre, but it holds its own in terms of charm and playability, adding twists to the formula that usually work in its favor.
As Tabby, you navigate maze-like interconnected sections on a ravaged Earth, first escaping an experimental lab and soon venturing into deserts, mines, and high-tech caverns and airships. The somewhat minimalist visual aesthetic keeps everything clean and readable, with tremendous attention paid to lighting and detailed shading. Entering new areas applies a shifted but limited palette—slightly reminiscent of Downwell but distinctly more-than-monochromatic—all cut with beige, red, and navy blue, and always introducing an additional color or two. Its initial minimalism feels much more like an artistic flourish the longer you play, and it really works to Kunai’s favor.
For anyone raised on Newgrounds’ seemingly endless community-crafted catalog of hyperactive platformers back in those halcyon days of Flash game development, some remnant energy persists in Kunai. The limbless main character seems like a high-def rendition of some former stars on the platform, and swapping between quick katana slashes and double uzis feels somewhat inspired by its hundreds of uber-violent stick figure flash games, brought to high-polished modernity.
As a reactivated robot (tablet-bot?), you’re first tasked with escaping a lab, then seeking out the help of a resistance movement of fellow automatons. New tools and powers are doled out judiciously throughout the game, and though Tabby’s full arsenal isn’t enormous, every piece of it feels great to experiment with and nothing is a unitasker. Shuriken can stun enemies and also trigger door switches, uzis help you hover over short distances, and a rocket launcher can blast apart boulders blocking your way or trigger a super-jump.
Sadly, there is no fast travel option whatsoever, which does end up padding out the length of the game. Certain junctures require a lot of timely backtracking—for instance, an NPC may tip you to an area which is blocked off at all entrances except for one, forcing you to re-try different approaches until you luck out. It doesn’t help that the in-game map leaves a lot to be desired, and putting the game down to pick it up a week later may result in some head-scratching as to where you were headed to next. There’s no quest log or anything of the sort, but you’re also rarely faced with multiple goals at the same time. In other words, while Kunai’s world is technically open, you’re invariably tasked with only one thing at a time. Rewards for exploring beyond that straight path's boundaries only amount to some swappable cosmetic hats or an occasional heart container piece to increase your maximum health.
The above paragraph would draw a severe cost on a lesser game, but Kunai's focused philosophy makes it an all-taste, less-filler arrangement. Boss fights are challenging but never unfair, the story's brisk pacing and light humor keeps things moving along, and there are some fun surprises that subvert the slight chance of monotony. Tabby's mute protagonist shtick is never really a drag, and his emotive "screen-face" grimaces with every swing of the katana or gets cute and glassy-eyed when opening up a secret chest.
Kunai’s levels offer a solid series of mazes through various biomes, with certain areas admittedly more interesting and dynamically presented than others. There’s sadly only two complete air fortress levels to explore, but each of them are delightful death traps, even inclusive of a charming reference to Super Mario Brothers 3 in their musical theme. The overall soundtrack is also worth a hat-tip, presenting a jaunty selection of chiptunes that complement the scrappy robot narrative, blending perfectly into the crunchy sound effects, with all fallen enemies exploding in a loud flourish of glitchy tech noise.
We reviewed Kunai on the Nintendo Switch and experienced absolutely no issues or bugs whatsoever (something of a godsend after Bloodstained’s notoriously rocky run on the platform), and the dimensions of the screen make the game feel even more ideal in handheld form. Loading times are brief, characters are clear and easy to spot, and the color palette feels especially gentle to the eye on a small screen; it's not clear if this part was intentional, but it makes the portable Switch version an especially attractive option.
Though its color palette is limited, nothing in Kunai feels like a cut corner. The silky animation, refined control scheme, and creative options for decimating your foes presents a highly polished metroidvania with wide appeal. There's a specific late-game city area which feels like the best application of its strengths—if there are any significant criticisms to angle here, it’s only that the game really reaches its full potential right before its over. There’s no apparent New Game+ option, boss-rush, or challenge modes, so a single play-through is all you really get. Upgrades are somewhat limited and it’s easy to obtain them all by the time ¾ of the story is done, so there isn’t much reason to return; the only reason this seems critically relevant is that the mechanics are so finely polished that you’ll probably just not be ready to leave Kunai’s world by then. Maybe more attention will prompt some content updates or DLC? Either way, Kunai is a trip worth taking by any and all lovers of action-platformers.
Kunai releases for PC on Steam and the Nintendo Switch eShop on February 6 for $16.99. A digital copy for the Nintendo Switch was provided to Screen Rant for purposes of review.