Kemono Heroes Review

Kemono Heroes is a 16-bit hack ‘n slash game that feels like it came straight out of an arcade. Featuring fast-paced ninja combat, select your animal assassin from four mammals: a fox named Fudemaru, the flying squirrel named Hanako, Miyuki the cat, and finally, a monkey named Yu. Before dashing into battle, you first select your desired difficulty from Easy, Normal, and Hard. With that set, it's time to get our animal fighters into action. Your ninja, you will traverse four different worlds consisting of three stages. Finally, the right face button is your ranged weapon, letting you use throwables like kunai and bombs once you unlock them. Your Shinobi also has the ability to wall jump, helping you get over tall obstacles in your way.

This is a 2D, hack ‘n slash, side-scrolling title where once you move far enough ahead in any direction to move the screen, you can't go back to where you came from. The one nice surprise is when you quit, you can continue from where you left off when you begin again. I thought it would be like other arcade titles where if you quit, you need to start at the beginning. 

One level feels like an evil round of red light green light, the children’s game, also made to be quite deadly in the Squid Games show. If the eye on the moon spots you, your character will become a statue for a couple of seconds, causing damage to your ninja. To avoid this, you will need to hide behind any tree or hedge that you find before the moon turns around to look. Apparently, the moon’s eye has channelled its inner Medusa!

Kemono Heroes is teeming with cartoon characters that are fun and vibrant. In the beginning, the soundtrack has an Eastern influence to it, which fits in great with the game's stages, Japanese folklore, and even the food you pick up to replenish health, ramen and onigiri, fit the overarching theme. As you progress through the different worlds, the music starts to sound more serene and like it’s from a water level in Donkey Kong Country, so it is very pleasing to listen to. 

Some enemies you will face include lanterns that are floating around, and mixed-up tigers with a snake for a tail and creepy statue-like faces. They don't just swipe at you: they also fling Japanese katakana letters at you. Don't forget the Kasa-obake, the umbrella oni that makes appearances in many games featuring Japanese folklore. 

Every boss that you beat in each area will give you a new item. The one that I found the most useful was the grappling hook: besides helping pull you up to a platform, it’s a great weapon to smash enemies that are further away. As you progress, you will get other weapons and abilities, like being able to throw bombs and a charged sword slash.

Kemono Heroes can be played on your own or with up to four players locally, each controlling as a different animal. If you don't have enough people to play in person, you can use Steam's Remote Play Together option. I opted to first try out the game with the rest of my family, and like most of the other games I have played multiplayer with four people on the screen at once, it is chaotic! Besides it being tricky to keep track of your character, it can get frustrating when you play with some people (like my two boys) who run ahead, grabbing all the coins and forcing the screen to move. 

When you reach the end of the level, you are shown mirrors that display how many coins each character collected on the stage, and sadly, I was always at the bottom. Once you are awarded your coins, you head to the merchant to purchase some items. While shopping, you can level up both your melee weapon and ranged weapon one time, along with buying more lives as you only start with three or increasing your health. Purchasing these items makes the enemies you face a lot easier to handle.

The real problem comes when you quit the game. If you go back to Kemono Heroes the next day and want to continue where the group left off by yourself, you are out of luck. All the people who were playing must be there to play to resume. Otherwise, if you want to play solo, you will have to start a new game from the beginning, plus your party progress is gone. It sucks when you only have one save slot.

The game has 46 different achievements to complete, like Outta My Way: you earn by defeating 100 enemies, Rise From Your Grave when you share a life with a friend, or Death Stare that you get when you look at the full moon. There are even achievements, like Sword Master, for upgrading your weapon up to eight which is its maximum level. If you are a gamer who loves to have everything completed in a game, this will keep you busy for a while.

I have had an awesome time playing Kemono Heroes: I love all the fuzzy animal ninjas, the stages look great, and the responsive controls. My only issue is that there is only one save slot and that you need to erase your previous progress if the amount of players changes. It’s tricky to get a group together to play through the full game in one sitting, so being able to have multiple save slots for playing with friends and one just for my solo play would be great. 

Kemono Heroes is a game that any side-scrolling, hack ‘n slash lover will enjoy, especially if you like ninjas! Being able to play with others locally or online is a nice feature and is a lot of fun. Just keep in mind that if you quit playing before the end of the game, the only way you can resume your playthrough is if all the people are back, changing the number of players requires you to erase the old file and start over again.