Go! Go! Kokopolo Harmonious Forest Revenge is innovative, fast-paced and incredibly fun despite some frustrations.
The premise of the game is silly at best, you play as Kokopolo a hyperactive wildcat who was resting peacfully in the forest until a sky guardian known as Jinbe disturbed his sleep by accidentally droping a drum on his head. So what happens when a short-temper hyperactive wildcat awakens? Trouble! Kokopolo drags his friend Tatsuo and sets out to disturb peace in the forest and beyond until he finds Jinbe and gets his revenge.
Literally it plays like a game of tag, you anger your enemies by scratching them with a single button press and them run like hell while they try to chase you to your doom.
Sounds easy right? You're completely mistaken.
While the game have an Easy Mode for begginers, you can't fully enjoy it on this mode because out of the 80 levels you only get to play 35 of them.
So players looking to enjoy the game at it's fullest and a incredibly and ever growing challenge are in for a treat on Normal Mode.
But what makes this game so addictive is the fact that you can complete a level in 2 minutes or in 2 hours, it only depends on your reflexes, speaking of which, if you don't have quick reflexes chances are you won't like the game, but even if you do Kokopolo is a hard game no matter what.
The stages are like maps where an x number of enemies resides in the area and your objective like I said is to scratch your enemies to make them chase you until you reach a (carnivorous?) plant that sucks the enemies to their demise, when this happens you're given a slot machine like roullete on the touchscreen if you tap it at the right time, the enemies turns into to a fruit that if collected before it falls on the ground not only rises your overall score but leads to secret areas when you collect 20 of them, the effect is cumulative so you don't need to get 20 in one stage. When you clear all the enemies of the stage you move on to the next.
Here is the tricky part though, you hold the L button to run as fast as you can and control Kokopolo or Tasuo with the directional buttons to go in one of the four directions, you can then perform a dash scratch by pressing the B button on enemies which makes them immeadiatly chase you, you can stack many enemies but the plant can only hold 6 of them at a time.
When you finish 10 stages of each of the 8 Worlds you get to a Boss fight, these are not all that difficult compared to the main stages but are a welcome change to all the chaos you have faced to get to the Boss.
In the starting levels you will face spike traps that you will need to jump over all while having the foes running behind you.Some later levels can get really frustrating though because you will encounter the aforementioned spikes plus moving spears on the ground, huge bells that fall into your head if you don't get the time right, moving spike walls, rolling boulders and more,so not only good reflexes are a must but also a good memory to remember where these traps are and taking into account that you only have 5 health bars and each time you take damage, be it by the enemies or the traps you lose 1 bar, things can get rough.
Also there are different types of enemies, each which their distinctive characteristic, from a happy and innocent cute flower to a pig-like creature that plants explosive landmines on the ground just for lulz. This will make you approach each type of enemy with a different strategy in mind.
If you come across a butterfly on the stage and follow it's path you gain a scratchcard (no pun intended) that you can acess via the main menu to view various info on Kokopolo, Tatsuo and all the other enemies.
There are 40 cards in total to collect, so it gives a good replay value to an overall great game!
The soundtrack is good but could be better, there are some really catchy tunes but some are innofensive and forgetable,the graphics are really charming and well animated in 2D.
With that said, if you want a change of pace, a different proposal mind you, to take you away from the FPSs, TPSs and such, by all means give Go! Go! Kokopolo a try. Sure it is not for everyone because of it's high difficulty, the game is clearly targeted to a more hardcore audience, but if you're willing to give it some time you will be addicted to it before you know.
Keep in mind that this game was going to be a retail release so at only $8 you will get a really long game that will keep you busy for weeks if not months to come.
Pros:
- Charming and well animated graphics
- Frantic and addicting arcade style game.
- Tons of levels. 80 in total plus hidden bonus stages
- Scratching enemies and running like hell is incredibly fun
- 40 different scratchcards to collect
Cons:
- Difficulty may not appeal to everyone
- Soundtrack could have been a little better
- Only 35 levels available on Easy mode
- Playing as Tatsuo has no difference in gameplay