Kitten Burst

i struggle to find the words to describe how happy this game makes me. the earnestness got to me many times. i cried a lot even at silly things. the whole story, every character, all the music, everything was so clearly done out of love. it all felt so real. everyone is right, this is the best game. i love hapi i love everyone in there. i had to ask my partner to take over for me due to my wrist, so my play hours are short despite having watched her go through it all ^_^ even before that i really appreciated how the game's hardness scales with your own determination (to beat your personal best rather than a solid time limit). i'm terrible at driving hapi and i was glad for the relief of realizing the timer was NOT counting down during the courses, oh my gosh. and the way losing a boss feels more like "darn, let me try again!" instead of a solid failure. wah! it's all so nice. plus, while driving hapi felt like a nightmare for me, someone with no skills or coordination in this department and a disability against me, i did manage to get better quite fast! if holding a controller didn't hurt so bad i could definitely see myself coming to really enjoy the schmoovement. here's my anecdote: everytime i wanted to watch, all i had to do was play the first few seconds of any song on the soundtrack and my partner was launching the game. it's that good.

cyber cat goes meow

Really unique game with incredible music, atmosphere, and plot, all made by one man. The dev really cares about his game and the creation of it, and is still responsive to any issues someone may have :)

Excellent game. After playing the demo I was on the fence as it didn't give very much context or much of a tutorial. I bought the game when it went on sale and I will say I would have bought the game at full price. The story is excellent. The characters are very well written and feel like actual people you would meet in the late 90s/early 00s internet. Without knowledge of the 90s and 00s internet some of the humour may go over your head but even without that context I would say it's funny. I cannot stop listenening to the soundtrack, it is so excellent. Lots of variety in tone and sound. The gameplay can get a tiny bit repetitive but I feel that it was consistantly giving new things to do, new environemnts and gameplay mechanics that it never felt stale. Definitely worth playing!

This is far and way the most criminally overlooked video game I've played this decade, and one of my new favorite video games of all time. This is a [i]true[/i] one-of-a-kind, and as long as you don't hate the essence of the 2000s for whatever reason, a must-play as well. First of all, I [i]LOVE[/i] Kitten Burst's visuals. Environments are gorgeous and often I thought that the game's takes on what websites would look like as physical realms were as novel as they were nostalgic. The presentation of the UI is incredible, and I really think we made a mistake moving away from the visual style that this game's UI successfully captures. I need more menus to be upon stylish 3D rendered screens again. ALL of the characters have their own distinct personality based on the many different types of people on the internet, and that personality seeps through every part of them, including but not limited to their choices of avatar, speech quirks, and EVEN THE STYLES OF THEIR DIALOGUE PORTRAITS. And when I say all of the characters, I mean ALL of them. This game goes above and beyond to let the characters express themselves and I [i]adore[/i] it. This design choice also makes them much more relatable and human, which kept me even more glued and immersed. Speaking of the characters, I love them all, and the story they're in is extremely wholesome. It's a genuinely sweet story that threw me for an emotional ride and I still care about every member of the friend group Kitten Burst mainly centers around, and the ending[spoiler]s all respecting your choice equally [/spoiler] takes a level of maturity and awareness most writers don't have anymore. There's also nothing else like Kitten Burst's humor, and even if I could pick between the several amazing jokes scattered all across the game, I think there are just so many moments I couldn't do justice by attempting to explain in this review. If you're not typically a fan of time-trial-esque gameplay, rest assured that you won't need alot of racing experience to make it to the end of this game, and the incentive to hyper-optimize your times is almost purely intrinsic. Even though you have a sonar to reveal where all the connections and required challenges are, I heavily recommend exploring on your own. Not only are you actively encouraged and rewarded for doing so with collectables, but nearly every site is super fun to fly around casually, and are littered with details and secrets that make me love them even more. This goes without saying, but even if the game itself doesn't interest you, you NEED to go listen to the soundtrack. It's full of absolute gems from start to finish, many of which make me extremely emotional for this time and this aesthetic that I miss dearly. I still remember fangirling internally when Act 2 immediately opened with a 2000s techno pop song, music video and all. It took me a really long time to stop listening to it and move on with the game. It's honestly overwhelming how much soul and creativity you can find within [i]EVERY[/i] minute detail of Kitten Burst. This is the type of game with a level of soul and quality we will [i]never[/i] see again, so to see it slip under the radar the way it has is frankly unacceptable in my eyes. I could not recommend Kitten Burst harder if I tried, I need to see more people talking about this absolute gem. A heart-shaped, translucent, extremely shiny gem.

genuinely the finest ♥♥♥♥ on this platform

A love letter to the old internet and Y2K aesthetics.