Kukoos: Lost Pets

Kukoos: Lost Pets

released on Dec 15, 2021

Kukoos: Lost Pets

released on Dec 15, 2021

This is a 3D platformer that takes players to a new universe of limitless adventures. Join the Kukoos in a corky and upbeat adventure to rescue the brainwashed pets. Enter the Kukoo Tree and its infinite doors that take you to unimaginable words of dangers, secrets and wonders.


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not very good. it had decent enough potential to be a fun enough very average platformer but a terrible camera (especially in mutliplayer) combined with absurds amount of jank and bugs in the later half of the game really bog it down. it was funny enough to laugh at the absurdity with some friends on parsec though, i'll give it that at least!

A fixed camera platformer in the vein of Super Mario 3D World, but nowhere near as fun. The game is a standard platformer collect-a-thon, not much memorable about its characters or aesthetics. Controls are sloppy. The voice acting and translation is so poor it almost crosses into being unintentionally funny. It's not unplayable; this might be fun for a family with young children, it does include couch co-op and the difficulty level is low. But I'm not that audience. The game is competent, nothing more.

This is a fun Multiplayer 3D platformer in the style of Mario 3D World or Sackboy's Adventure. The world the characters live in is very wacky, but it offers a fun collection of locales to explore. Every level stands out thanks to unique level gimmicks, and there are secrets to discover around every corner.

My biggest gripe with the game comes from one of the titular pets. Every world introduces a new Pet that act as powerups, with world 2 introducing the Box pet. This box can be used as a platform and grappling hook. For some reason, though, the player's normal jump is severely reduced. This means the player must use the grappling hook to make every jump, even if it's just a knee high ledge. I got used to that restriction overtime, but it's odd that such a restriction exists in the first place.

The biggest drawback to this game is the combat. Your main attack is a simple roll that instantly "frees" pets. Issue is that most times you use this you will get hit in the process anyways as there is no clear indication whether an enemy is in an attack state. You will go in for a roll and it will "free" the pet but you will still take damage. It doesn't teach the player that stopping and waiting for enemies to be in an idle animation is the time to attack. You can also jump on most enemies to do the job and I wish this is what the game asked you to do. Jump on enemies à la Mario and have other more advanced attacks from power ups that is mainly used for bosses. It would force players to be less gung-ho when dealing with enemies and cause less deaths and frustration.

I found the platforming to be pretty solid. My favorite sections we're the ones with the swinging brick power up. This added really fun gameplay moments where action and flow was key. I was disappointed in the other selections of pets as they didn't add to a 3d platformer's most important feature: movement. The swinging brick added so much that I quickly learned to adapt to it's main flaw. For whatever reason they chose not to allow you jump when the brick wasn't active. I guess a normal jump would add to much height and potential to this power but either way I just started hitting the button to summon the brick at anytime I wanted to jump. That's how fun the power is. The others are decent. The light bug had some cool sections where enemies wouldn't hurt in the dark but you still had to navigate. The ghost honestly had the best levels and incorporated the swinging block here and there but even without that it had some of the coolest level design. The helmet though... was bad. I already didn't like combat and the shooting the helmet had felt unreliable. I did not enjoy that section at all. The last power with the twin flyers was cool but underutilized. There's 2 sections, one of which is a tutorial, that use this power and neither does anything creative with it. Which is a bit sad cause these pets are your main focus in the story and they end up not doing much for gameplay.

Storywise, I wasn't impressed. I know it's a game made for kids but aren't almost all 3d platformers? For a game with a handful of cutscenes it had some really strange dialog and pacing choices. There was one moment I laughed, when they introduced the magical talking door you have be drugged to see, but even saying that... WHY WAS THAT IN THIS GAME? It didn't need to be. Practically every choice was so out there that they could have changed any aspect with the most random off the wall idea and nothing would be lost or seem out of place.

Overall it was a fine experience. I was whelmed. I had plenty of moments I enjoyed. Some frustrations. My favorite realization was that there were no barriers to continuing levels other than completing them despite being plenty of collectables to obtain. I ended a 3d platformer with no desire to go for 100% completion which is my norm. And I'm okay with that.

Game was pretty fun at the beginning but there was a lot of jank and that killed it a bit for me. The box power was the most interesting but it was also annoying to not be able to jump whenever I wanted.

Every world has a nice gimick ability you can use while you are there but now after you leave. It culminates in a course where you get to use them all at certain parts,which is followed by one where you cant use any of them. Unlike most platformers you dont need a certain amount of collectables(in this case flowers) to unlock certain stages. You need a small amount of coins that are very easy to collect and that makes the collectaton aspect much more tolerable.Besides that its a typical platformer that doesnt leave a lasting impact or wows you with anything. Very ugly character designs and style but competantly made