A young boy named Kick wakes up from hypersleep in a futuristic world full of rampaging robots.  Luckily he finds a friendly flying robot named Fennick as well as a giant ray gun that’s almost as big as the boy himself.  Together they’ll explore high-tech landscapes in 2-D platforming fashion.  While Kick can use his giant ray gun to shoot cracked walls and angry robots, he’ll mostly use the strong recoil of the gun to launch himself high in the air to bypass obstacles and reach far-off places.  Kick & Fennick is downloadable on the Wii U, PS4, Vita, and Xbox One, but reviewed on Wii U here.

Controls are simple and easy to learn.  Move Kick left and right with the left analog stick, and aim your gun with the right analog stick, and fire with the R button.  Since you’ll mostly be using the gun’s recoil to jump and fling yourself across long distances, you’ll get a little line showing you your trajectory, which is pretty handy.  If you run into any dangerous obstacles like robots or electric beams, Fennick will warp you back to safety, usually close to where you made your mistake.  If you have the game set on Normal difficulty or above, Fennick has a battery energy bar and can only save you so many times.  But if you have the game set on Easy, he’ll save you without running out of battery life.  This is actually where I recommend starting the game from, on the Easy setting, since it’s so easy to make a mistake.

Scattered about each level are 50 small gears and one large gear for each stage.  Try to collect them all to increase your rating on each level.  I’m not sure if collecting gears does this, but you can also unlock new outfits for Kick to wear, although they’re purely cosmetic and don’t affect the gameplay at all.

The game has a few problems here and there.  Your trajectory and aiming lines show up white, and since much of the game’s backgrounds are white, it can blend in and be hard to see.  Also, sometimes you must fling yourself to a place off screen and not be able to see what obstacles you must avoid, which is why I recommend starting on the Easy setting.  While it’s a minor problem Kick & Fennick could’ve used a dose of extra personality.  Just from playing the game, I had no idea why the boy and the robot were exploring the places they were, and for all I knew, Kick could’ve been the robot and Fennick could’ve been the boy.  Some variety in the level design would’ve been nice as well, as it’s all the same futuristic white and gray building structures.  But the worst problem is that about halfway through the game, things get way more difficult and the timing of your jumps and shots needs to be so precise that it’s more annoying than fun.  Which is a shame because otherwise this is a fairly charming game with a few cool gameplay ideas.  If you don’t mind incredibly difficult platforming, you may enjoy this one anyway.

Kid Factor:

Kick & Fennick is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.  While you do pack a huge ray gun, you only shoot it at cracked walls and robots, and mostly use it to propel yourself around with the recoil.  Violence is minimal, as you only see the boy get beamed back to safety if he encounters any danger, and the only thing you shoot are robots.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but it’s pretty easy to figure out how to play anyway.  But younger players and less experienced gamers may get frustrated at the later, more difficult levels.

Tags: Game Reviews