I’ve been playing Kukoos: Lost Pets for a good while now, and I’m shockingly surprised with how much I have been enjoying the experience. Kukoos is a platforming adventure game in the vein of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which is widely considered one of the best side scrolling platformers in history. Kukoos is packed with levels and interesting concepts and ideas, and it all works together to create a very satisfying experience.
One area of concern is the way the game controls. Jumps don’t feel wildly accurate, and there are some weird glitching moments when you are suppose to climb on very small platforms that go up and down. This, coupled with a few frame rate issues are probably the only concerns I have with the game. Outside of this, things are really good.
The story is wacky and perhaps a bit confusing. Ultimately, you need to travel from world-to-world removing the collars off pets. The collars are controlling the pets, and causing chaos in the various realms. Sorting out these baddies and beating each world gets you one step closer to saving the world…or your pets…or each other. I’m still not entirely sure I get it.
What I do love, however, is the variety of great gameplay mechanics that you use throughout the experience. You have pets that travel with you and provide a variety of bonuses, such as allowing you to complete environmental puzzles, shed light in dark areas, and more. These pets are very useful, but knowing when to use them can provide a bit of challenge. And that is another thing I love about this experience – this isn’t easy, but it also isn’t unfairly hard. There are moments when good platforming is needed to get from A to B, and while some of them are complicated by poor camera controls (which I believe is an issue with the genre, not the game), overall I was never left too frustrated.
If you are looking for a great platforming adventure and really liked Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, then there is a lot here you are going to love. Give it a chance, as it is out today on PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch!
Kevin Austin has been in gaming journalism in one way or another since the launch of the Nintendo Gamecube. Married and father of 3 children he has been gaming since the ripe age of 6 when he got his first NES system and over 30 years later he is still gaming almost daily. Kevin is also co-founder of the Play Some Video Games (PSVG) Podcast network which was founded over five years ago and is still going strong. Some of his favorite gaming series includes Fallout and Far Cry, he is a sucker for single player adventure games (hence his big reviews for Playstation), and can frequently be found getting down in one battle royale or another. If it's an oddball game, odds are he's all about it.
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