{"id":15111,"date":"2016-06-27T00:01:54","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T00:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=15111"},"modified":"2016-06-02T15:02:37","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T15:02:37","slug":"kick-fennick-wii-u-ps4-vita-xbox-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/27\/kick-fennick-wii-u-ps4-vita-xbox-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Kick & Fennick (Wii U, PS4, Vita, Xbox One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KICK_BOX\"<\/a>A young boy named Kick wakes up from hypersleep in a futuristic world full of rampaging robots.\u00a0 Luckily he finds a friendly flying robot named Fennick as well as a giant ray gun that\u2019s almost as big as the boy himself.\u00a0 Together they\u2019ll explore high-tech landscapes in 2-D platforming fashion.\u00a0 While Kick can use his giant ray gun to shoot cracked walls and angry robots, he\u2019ll mostly use the strong recoil of the gun to launch himself high in the air to bypass obstacles and reach far-off places.\u00a0 Kick & Fennick is downloadable on the Wii U, PS4, Vita, and Xbox One, but reviewed on Wii U here.<\/span><\/p>\n

Controls are simple and easy to learn.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Since you\u2019ll mostly be using the gun\u2019s recoil to jump and fling yourself across long distances, you\u2019ll get a little line showing you your trajectory, which is pretty handy.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But if you have the game set on Easy, he\u2019ll save you without running out of battery life.\u00a0 This is actually where I recommend starting the game from, on the Easy setting, since it\u2019s so easy to make a mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scattered about each level are 50 small gears and one large gear for each stage.\u00a0 Try to collect them all to increase your rating on each level.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if collecting gears does this, but you can also unlock new outfits for Kick to wear, although they\u2019re purely cosmetic and don\u2019t affect the gameplay at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

The game has a few problems here and there.\u00a0 Your trajectory and aiming lines show up white, and since much of the game\u2019s backgrounds are white, it can blend in and be hard to see.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 While it\u2019s a minor problem Kick & Fennick could\u2019ve used a dose of extra personality.\u00a0 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\u2019ve been the robot and Fennick could\u2019ve been the boy.\u00a0 Some variety in the level design would\u2019ve been nice as well, as it\u2019s all the same futuristic white and gray building structures.\u00a0 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\u2019s more annoying than fun.\u00a0 Which is a shame because otherwise this is a fairly charming game with a few cool gameplay ideas.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t mind incredibly difficult platforming, you may enjoy this one anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"KICK_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kick & Fennick is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but it\u2019s pretty easy to figure out how to play anyway.\u00a0 But younger players and less experienced gamers may get frustrated at the later, more difficult levels.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A young boy named Kick wakes up from hypersleep in a futuristic world full of rampaging robots.\u00a0 Luckily he finds a friendly flying robot named Fennick as well as a giant ray gun that\u2019s almost as big as the boy himself.\u00a0 Together they\u2019ll explore high-tech landscapes in 2-D platforming fashion.\u00a0 While Kick can use his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15113,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15111\/revisions\/15113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}