Copy Kitty is one of those games that will instill a sense of nostalgia in the gamers and unlike many games that tend to take advantage of all the cozy feeling of those golden years (Ahem *Mighty No.9*), I felt that this was the only game in the past few years, that actually took some of the best parts of games like Megaman, added enough twists to stay fresh, has lots of content and delivers a polished experience even though it is still in Early Access.
The name was what interested me a lot and when I read the description- “Boki can perfectly copy the abilities of anything she fights—but not content with mere mimicry, she can also combine up to three abilities at once to form 175 completely unique super-weapons!”, it had me all pumped up to play the game. And I dare say, it is probably one of the most fun games I have played this year, and easily my contender for GOTY.
Copy Kitty
Detailed Review
Battle Kitty:
The game follows all the basic concepts almost every 2D side-scrolling platformer out there- You have to jump around, shoot, dash (Dodge actually) around etc. The controls are tight and responsive, and the game does require you to have twitch reflexes. It’s not easy by any means, but that does not mean the game is unfair, it is more about ‘gitting gud’. The verticality of the levels makes for some of the most intense action, some fast moves, dodging, shooting and lots of explosions.
The plot is kept simple, in which Boki, a Kitera, is bored on her birthday when she receives a VR headset from her uncle Savant, which drops her in a virtual world, where she gets the power to mimic others’ powers and goes out to defeat an evil corporation. The story is more about Boki discovering herself as a hero rather than the game having an overall plot. A total of 9 worlds divided into about 10-16 subparts is a lot of content and will keep you busy for at least 6-8 hours depending on skill.
As described, there are many types of combinations in the game, and that is what keeps you going till the end- Trying and combining many of the powers that you get as drops. Experimentation is the key. You can either use a combination of powers or just use single ones. There are many types of weapons as well. Some can only be used as a solo weapon, and if you have two different powers along with the solo weapon, you can combine those two as well. Well the most powerful combination I found was- Tornado, Bounce and Plasma put together, I forgot the name of the combination, but most of the names are pretty complicated but are very coolly named. There might be more powerful combinations, but well this is what I found to be most effective.
The experimentation is not limited in any sort way. If you play as Savant, the second playable character, then the order of the powers determines the attack, and he has a completely different gameplay style. It will take a considerable amount of learning to play with Savant.
Copy Kitty Maker?:
Last year we had seen Nintendo give players a shot at making levels to the legendary game Mario and it was an instant success. Copy Kitty also allows you to create your own levels, which is a great thing. You can choose to select the size of the level to some extent, add enemies, create and customize the terrain. I didn’t try it out much, but I’m sure that there are enough elements for gamers to make almost impossible levels, just like we saw with Mario Maker. Apart from the levels provided, this level maker will give tons of more content.
Trivia:
Any game, be it from an Independent developer or a AAA developer, should have an amount of intricacy and small things are always appreciated by the audience. Here, Copy Kitty goes to extreme lengths, to sate the needs of people looking to tinker with extra stuff. There is a bestiary, there are some back stories, there are concept arts and much more so much so that you can easily spend about an hour just reading all the extra stuff, and I liked that. I won’t spoil much, but you can sure find quite a bit of lore in the extras. (Slight spoiler: You’ll know why Boki has a power kick rather than a power punch if you read the lore)
Also the presentation is top notch, yes the graphics are not catchy, but the way Boki fades away into binary digits rather than just falling to the ground shows that attention has been paid. No bugs or crashes in my play-through was appreciated. The boss fights are fun and sometimes there might be slight difficulty spike, but not much, so it’s not frustrating.
The Bummers:
I couldn’t find much faults in this game. One probable fault I could find was that instead of having long levels, there were short ones, which might not appeal to some people, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. Also there are no K&M controls, there is just either the keyboard or the controller, and after years on the K&B setup, the only keyboard setup didn’t suit me for aiming, so I was more inclined to play on the controller, though this can be fixed via a patch. Another gripe I had with the game was the music, it was actually not to my taste, so that is totally a personal preference and the game is so light on the PC, that I could just put my favourite songs in the background and the play the game, so not much of an issue.