Kero Blaster

Kero Blaster is a pretty simple stage based jump and shoot old school platformer. You have 4 weapons you can upgrade through out the game as well as being able to upgrade health. You can even grind if you want since enemies will show up again when you change screens and keep money when you die. Game is pretty straight forward, but levels have nice variety with lots of different enemies to fight and a good amount of bosses. I was using pretty much all my guns since they were all kind of good at various situation (strong enemies, vs crowds vs enemies in water or certain angles. When you are shooting it also locks your shooting direction, but you can move around which is also pretty useful. The gun upgrades also felt very substantial (especially for the spread shot) which was really cool. Jet pack is also pretty interesting because you have to not move left/right to get maximum height but go left/right for maximum distance. Makes for a fun little challenge to use. Difficulty is a bit on the hard side, but its quite forgiving. Very easy to upgrade health. Bosses stay dead even when you have to restart stages so you can quickly get back if you lost all your lives. Levels are short and fun and it gives you an opportunity to get more money so a run back didn't feel tedious. You can also find secret lives or even buy them in levels which also helps. Music and pixel art was very nice and pleasant. Not surprising given the creators previous game Cave Story. Overall, it was just a really good time, even if a bit short. EDIT: I decided to start and am mostly through Zangyou mode (in level 6/7), and it's been really good. It's familiar but also different enough that I can kind of speed through the levels a bit since I am familiar from the normal mode, but some sections feel really different and even the bosses have some really nice difference. Story and cutscenes in between levels is also completely different which has been awesome. Genuinely well made addition that doesn't feel like I'm just doing the same thing again. EDIT 2: Oh, so the last Zangyou stage and bosses was completely new. Unexpected, but awesome. Was the hardest level for me and had to do some run backs to the final boss but with some upgrades and getting good I finally got through it and it felt very nice. Called the game short, but honestly Zangyou felt like legitimate extra content to the game, so in the end it was a pretty good length

Another masterpiece from Pixel. If you come here from Cave Story you should know that this is not Cave Story. This game is a run and gun game with precise controls. It has grounded controls but it feels oddly satisfying even though I'm not used to it at first. This come from me, someone who have played platformers with a lot more airy and jumpy feelings like Mario, Hollow Knight and of course Cave Story. Even then, once you get the hang of it you'll feel masterful like you're in total control of the character physics. Then, there's the graphic. It is beautiful. It is simple yet the color choices in the background, characters and objects perfectly harmonizes with each other. Pretty much show simple graphic can look beautiful as long as you know how to combine the color to make it look nice. Also, I don't know how Pixel do it but the characters feels alive. The characters only talk a bit, a few doesn't talk and one character literally talks gibberish but all of them really feel real and like the main character's friend. It's not easy to achieve, lots of games even triple A games can have characters that feel dull just from how they talk but somehow each characters in Kero Blaster really feel alive and I love it. It makes me want to see them more, even the main character who doesn't talk at all. Lastly, this might be a bit of a spoiler but important if you're a kind of person who stopped playing after finishing a game. I will tell you, after you have finished normal mode you will have Zangyou mode. You will know it is the hard mode BUT it is also the continuation of the game. Not a connected continuation, the game modes literally feels like a standalone episode so treat it as new stage instead of post game. So continue on playing, the game haven't finished yet. To sum it up, it's a really fun game.

It's a great indie action shooter in the vein of Megaman, but it also has some balancing and control issues that keep it from being one of the all time greats, even though I think it could have been. Similar to Pixel's other game, Cave Story, there is a steep learning curve that gets a lot easier once you master the controls. I actually think the weapon balancing in this game is better than in Cave Story since each of the four weapons has a specific practical purpose and you will switch between them constantly if you want to survive. This game's achievements aren't hard as much as tedious since they basically boil down to a memory test and for some reason I found it super hard to focus while playing this. The final achievement, in particular, involves defeating all the bosses without taking a single hit. That alone is not too bad but one of the bosses relies partially on RNG to instakill and otherwise it's random probabilities as to whether you will kill it. Beyond that, I like that the "hard mode" is almost a completely different game with totally new bosses and a different story. The "Omaki" (Japanese for bonus) mode kind of killed the fun for me. It's totally pointless except for a new weapon and a boss gauntlet at the end. To get the new weapon you have to move through deliberately glitched looking environments, and if you upgrade the weapon too many times it's actually weaker so I had to play through a second time to keep the downgraded version. On the plus side, the music is absolutely brilliant and the combat is a ton of fun for the most part. The game is super easy in its default mode so the achievements are the only challenging part of it. I would have liked it if the controls were a bit tighter and the "hard" challenges to be a bit more fair, but this is still a wonderful linear platformer that does what it does very well.

Absolutely top tier indie game by the Cave Story dev! Buying it is the best way to support him (you can look up the trouble with the Cave Story IP and profits). Kero Blaster is an amazingly elegant accomplishment - great music, writing, pixelart, and mechanics in under 5Mb! Or you could buy an AAA game for 5 times the price, 1000 times the disk size, and maybe half the fun >:3

Diet Cave Story. Rather short, a bit hard. Managed finish it with only one game over one the last boss. Not going to try hard or super hard mode though. Simple story, simple weapons. But still pretty fun. Amazed that this game is 5MB. When I played this, it made me annoyed that Nicalis ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over Pixel with Cave Story, we still didn't had gotten the updated port and depended of mods for the good experience. Color me surprised when they finally updated it a year later.

[h2]Ogromnie grywalna, oldskulowa platformówka shoot'em up[/h2]Kero Blaster do gra od twórcy oryginalnego Cave Story. Podobnie jak CS, jest to platformówka skupiająca się bardziej na strzelaniu do wrogów niż skakaniu i innych "platformowych rzeczach". Ty razem jednak, zdecydowano się wyrzucić kompletnie aspekt eksploracyjny, który sprawiał, że Cave Story przypominało metroidvanię. Kero Blaster jest w pełni liniową grą, w której pokonujemy poziom po poziomie i na każdym z nich jedyne co robimy to strzelamy do wszystkiego co się rusza i idziemy do przodu. Choć oczekiwałem duchowego następcy Cave Story, to zdecydowanie się na żabim blasterze nie zawiodłem - mimo prostoty jest to piekielnie grywalna produkcja. Poszczególne poziomy są różnorodne i każdy z nich zawiera w sobie wyjątkowych dla niego przeciwników, a także elementy otoczenia jak woda czy śnieg w który się zapadamy. Mimo, że 90% gameplayu na tych poziomach to strzelanie przed siebie, to jest to niezwykle satysfakcjonujące i wciągające. [h2]Różnorodne uzbrojenie[/h2]Do dyspozycji mamy tylko 4 bronie, ale każda ma inne zalety i przydaje się na inne okoliczności. Choć jedna z nich była moim większym faworytem, to śmiało mogę mieć że z każdej sporo pokorzystałem, dlatego że poszczególne segmenty zachęcają do wykorzystania konkretnych broni (choć nawet bez nich można je przejść, tylko jest to trudniejsze). W trakcie przemierzania poziomów będziemy mogli odwiedzać sklepy z ulepszeniami. Główną atrakcja jest ulepszanie broni, które dzięki temu stają się niezwykle potężne i jeszcze fajniejsze do używania. Oprócz tego można tez ulepszać nasze max hp, czy ilość wskrzeszeń. [h2]Limitowana ilość powtórzeń[/h2]A skoro już o tym mówię - gra bardzo mocno inspiruje się klasycznymi grami z lat 80. Widać to nie tylko w prostej (ale bardzo ładnej) szacie graficznej, ale też w systemie żyć. Na szczęście nie jest tu aż tak hardkorowo, żeby powtarzać całą grę przy ich wyczerpaniu. W takim przypadku cofamy się po prostu na sam początek aktualnej lokacji. Nie są one przesadnie długie, ale pierwsze przejście późniejszych poziomów zajmuje mniej więcej 15 minut. Nie było to jednak dla mnie jakkolwiek frustrujące - przy ponownym podejściu poziomy się robi wyraźnie szybciej a i przy straceniu wszystkich żyć zawsze respimy się z trzema, nie mówiąc o tym że mamy też szansę na zdobycie dodatkowych w trakcie przechodzenia poziomu. [h2]Podsumowanie[/h2]Grę polecam ogólnie fanom platformówek typu shoot'em up jak i fanom twórczości Pixela, którzy chcą go wspomóc dodatkowym groszem (zamiast nicalisa, który wydał Cave Story+ na Steam). Nie poleciłbym chyba tylko jeśli zależy ci na jakiejś bardziej rozbudowanej fabule jak w Cave Story, bo ta tutaj choć fajna, to jest znacznie prostsza i w bardziej w humorystycznym tonie. Mi personalnie zapewniła masę zabawy przez te 3 godziny w trakcie których skończyłem normal mode. Aktualnie podchodzę do Zangyou Mode, czyli trudniejszego trybu, który pozwala ograć grę ponownie ze zmienionymi wszystkimi 7 poziomami. EDIT: [h2]Zangyou Mode[/h2]Przed chwilą go skończyłem i jestem zachwycony. Jak się okazuje, jest to praktycznie druga kampania, kontynuująca fabułę z nowymi dialogami i przerywnikami. Same poziomy choć wzorują się na tych z 1 kampanii, to są masywnie przerobione, oferując znacznie większe wyzwanie, nowych przeciwników, a nawet nowe mechaniki. Dwie ostatnie lokacje z kolei są praktycznie w 100% nowe, mają nawet inny motyw niż w pierwszej kampanii. Szczerze polecam każdemu kto skończył grę, spróbować swoich sił w tym trybie, żeby poznać zakończenie historii oraz wydłużyć przynajmniej dwukrotnie swój czas z Kero Blasterem. Ostrzegam jednak, że tryb ten jest dość wymagający i ja personalnie o ile może 2 razy powtarzałem całe poziomy (bo mi się skończyły życia) na przestrzeni całego normalnego trybu, to w Zangyou już trochę więcej razy (każdą z lokacji przynajmniej raz).

Kero Blaster is by Studio Pixel, that brought you the incredible, and free, Cave Story. That'd be enough to make you give them money, but what you get for that money is a terrific little action game that feels challenging, but never unfair. Coins and upgrades stay even when your lives run out, usually letting you get just a bit closer to helping yourself with some worthwhile upgrades. And the upgrades ARE worthwhile. Everything feels significant and can change how you tackle a problem, as you run around as the world's cutest janitor for the Cat and Frog company to clean up their messes, Contra style!

可爱好玩。有点难度，打不过多试几次、攒钱升级还保留进度，设计很人性化，好评。 这种拿枪突突突武器能升级关卡过关类玩起来挺迷人的，求类似游戏推荐

Short and VERY sweet. It's perfect, even when played on the phone.

This game is fun and a solid experience. If you're looking for the sense of fantasy and emotional range of Cave Story you'll be a bit disappointed, but you do get arguably more refined gameplay, level design and art with Keroblaster. The story was not particularly interesting or impactful, but the characters make up for that a bit. There is also more content than you'll expect at first. Calling the mode you unlock after completing the main story "Hard Mode" is a complete disservice to it, because it provides a lot more new content and difficulty and IMO a more interesting story.