One of many eShop runners after the hugely successful Bike Rider DX series and 10 Second Run as well as the not quite as successful Jump Trials Supreme and Bit.Trip Runner comes Kuroko Style. Developed by iNPLAS and featuring the same jump in and out layered levels similar to Virtual Boy Wario Land, Mutant Mudds and more recently Kirby: Triple Deluxe but with the difference being three layers of levels as opposed to the other games’ two.
Achieved by A for standard jump, X to jump to the back level and B to the front, controls are pretty simple although unfortunately speed up should be R instead of right d-pad. Your character can double jump with the second in mid-jump being of a different direction. The early levels basically introduce you to the action and shortly after cute demonic enemies appear similar to Taiko no Tatsujin which are killed via collecting corresponding coloured pieces.
Graphically mostly excellent in-spite of the typically (for the genre) shitty main sprite with huge colourful graphics and an almost boastful 3D effects (more on this later) and with an often fantastic classical soundtrack; Kuroko Style is aesthetically ultra impressive for an eShop title. With huge elements borrowed from the likes of Virtual Boy Wario Land, Bike Rider DX and Taiko no Tatsujin, all elements are in place for the makings of another must-have 3DS title.
Unfortunately this is just a hypothesis with several game breaking flaws. The most prominent is the 3D effect which is where Kuroko Style dies by its own sword with the ultra impressive seagulls flying to the screen shortly become both overwhelming and simply overbearing with the amount of explosions both affecting the action and the player’s eyes. What the game does have in its favour is the enormous amount of content with close to 200 levels unlockable.
And another paragraph begins with unfortunately with unfortunately the repetition of these many levels being a huge problem. It’s not just the separate levels being repetitive but also with each individual with upwards of twenty enemies to kill on most levels the layout is repeated and where-as Bike Rider DX randomises its stages; Kuroko Style is completely the same lay-out throughout with emphasis on remembering jumps much like a rhythm game.
The Bike Rider DX analogy is perhaps more apt in that whilst Spicysoft’s games have mixed the right ingredients to feed the players addiction; iNPLAS have just layered on the sweets with an all too colourful exterior but where the player soon finds s/he will soon peak from the sickly sugary interior. Kuroko Style is not a bad game, in-fact a lot of its fundamentals are sound, it’s just a shame the over-ambition of the developer’s to make this runner run before it can walk.
5/10
