Travel through colorful and inventive levels in a lighthearted 3D platformer that suffers from some rough spots but is entertaining nevertheless.
Kukoos: Lost Pets
Developer: Petit Fabrik
Price: $30
Platform: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PS4, Xbox One, PC
MonsterVine was provided with a Switch code for review.
Kukoos: Lost Pets is a 3D platformer about an isolated island with doors to other worlds, where the Kukoos live happily with their pets. An attempt to make pets more useful through the use of strange new devices goes horribly wrong, as all the pets become brainwashed and aggressive. Now it’s up to you to travel through different worlds and save the lost pets.
It is a level-based 3D platformer, with each level providing you with a variety of challenges and obstacles on your way to the goal. On your own, you only have a basic jump and dash, but the core gameplay twist of Kukoos is that you’ll team up with free pets. Each pet has a basic ability and a special ability. For example, one transforms into a platform that you can jump on or swing from, while its special ability lets you slam the platform down onto switches or enemies. Don’t expect to be switching freely between pets for a wide array of options, however. For the most part, each world has a specific pet you’ll use for its levels. You’ll have certain abilities available when the situation requires it, and each level is structured around the pet in question. Boss fights similarly are designed around the current pet and feature a simple, puzzle-like structure of figuring out how to use your abilities to deal damage.
The levels are colorful and inventive, with each world combining a couple of themes to give its levels an interesting flavor. They make use of the pets’ abilities in creative ways to create clever challenges and can be surprisingly difficult, although frequent checkpoints mean death is more a slap on the wrist than anything. You can only take a few hits before you die, but there’s no penalty for dying besides being put back at the checkpoint. Since you change pets for each world, you’ll need to learn a new approach to obstacles and dangers each time. For the most part, tutorial tips instruct you on how to use each pet’s abilities, but the tutorials are rather odd. Sometimes they give you a tutorial on one part but skip an equally-important step, only to teach you that part long after you first need it. It’s easy enough to figure out through experimentation, but seeing a tutorial pop up for something I needed to learn much earlier was an odd feeling.
Like most 3D platformers, Kukoos is filled with collectibles. Each level has three main types of collectibles: a handful of “Fwendly Plants” found off the beaten path or past optional challenges, enemies that revert back to peaceful pets once you attack them, and coins. For a long time, I wasn’t sure if these collectibles actually served any purpose, until I finally reached a world where I needed more coins to unlock an optional level. Fwendly Plants and the much-rarer keys can be used to unlock additional playable characters. All characters play the same, but there are quite a few options if you want a different appearance. Up to four players can also play together in co-op mode.
Although the game has many elements of a great, inventive 3D platformer, it’s a bit rough around the edges. Platforming feels clunky at times, and I sometimes felt the camera was trying to kill me, either by pulling out too far or by slowly following my progress around obstacles. The frame rate also struggles if a lot is happening on-screen at once. More significant is the slight bugginess present throughout the game. Minimizing during a cutscene causes the visuals and audio to go out of sync, at least in the Switch version. Occasionally I got stuck in the environment, and once my character’s animations just stopped working. The game crashed a couple of times as well. Fortunately, these issues are infrequent enough to not be too annoying, but a patch would be welcome news.
Kukoos is not particularly story-driven, but what story it does have is simple and weird, with a goofy off-beat tone present from start to finish. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it has some silly humor. The game can be beaten in only a handful of hours, but you can add a few more hours to your time if you want to seek out every collectible. A few new levels are unlocked near the end as well, to offer new challenges.
The Final Word
Kukoos: Lost Pets is the sort of game I would have jumped on back when the genre was in decline. It might not have the staying power of the icons in its genre, but it has some fun ideas. Fans of 3D platformers should consider it, although its short length and rougher aspects might turn some players away.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
