Red’s Kingdom from Cobra Mobile is a fun and colorful Metroidvania puzzle adventure on Nintendo Switch you should play. Find out why in our Red’s Kingdom review!
One night Red was having a pleasant sleep when all of a sudden Mad King Mac entered his house, stole Red’s entire stash of acorns for the winter and his prized golden nut, while also kidnapping his grandpa. The King tells Red this is for tax payment purposes, but that certainly doesn’t explain why he took his grandpa as well! Red, as expected, sets out on an adventure to try and recover his acorns, his golden nut and his grandpa to keep Mad King Mac from getting away with his crazy plan.
This being a puzzle adventure with a Metroidvania twist means that the controls are very easy to understand. You move Red around with the left analog stick or the D-Pad, and as you press up, down, left or right, Red will roll in said direction. This means that you will need to take into consideration any objects in the area since once Red runs into something he will come to a complete stop. You can then send him in a new direction as you try to get him to one of the area’s exits to continue exploring. He can attack enemies by running into them, but you’ll need to time things right since enemies will try to attack you as well, so be sure to press the A button right before you reach them so that you can deal a critical hit for twice the damage.
The Metroidvania part comes from how you won’t be able to do everything you can in each area of the game since you need to obtain the items that will allow you to open new paths, collect extra keys and find new items to continue the cycle. For example, during the first 20 minutes of so with the game you will run into ramps, buttons, switches, locked doors, keys, pressure blocks that raise when you pass them, transporters that can instantly teleport you to another transporter, and pots, and it is the pots that you won’t be able to break by rolling into them until you gain a medallion that will grant you this skill. Once you have it, breaking pots will allow you to gain access to the extra acorns inside them as well as to new paths.
Every area in the game is a tiny puzzle to solve, and this is why the game is so addictive, since you’ be solving small puzzle after small puzzle as you enter dungeons, explore the overworld, collect items inside of treasure chests and more. Finishing “just one more puzzle” is something we all hace said and done, but then we want to do another short puzzle before we stop playing. And then we want to finish another one. And another one. While doing this the only thing you really need to watch out for is that you don’t end up making a mistake and send poor Red into a lava pit or into a body of water since this will cost you one heart from your health bar. If you are at full health, any small and large hearts you collect will be added to your inventory so that you can use them to heal your wounds when and as needed.
Speaking of hearts, as you explore the kingdom you might run into a heart in a bottle, an item that, as the mame suggests, is a bottle with a heart inside. If you find three of these, then you will gain an extra heart to add to the four hearts you start with. Extra hearts are always great since that way you can quickly carry on playing if you’re damaged without having to respawn at the last save point you crossed, which is what happens when you lose all your hearts.
The game includes some achievements you can aim to unlock to add some extra replay value to the game. These achievements include getting the medallion, obtaining four extra hearts to have eight hearts in total, collecting 1,000 nuts, finding a pair of special golden nuts, finding all collectibles, achieving 100% completion and, obviously, finishing the game. On top of those there are two achievements in particular you might not be able to get during your first time with the game. One asks that you complete the game without ever dying, which is certainly hard but not impossible, and the other one is for completing the game in less than 90 minutes for the aptly named Speedrun achievement.
If you do want to 100% the game, then you should pay attention to the acorn counter in the upper right corner of the map tab. The map tab will display a map of the general spot you’re currently exploring, letting you know how many acorns in total you can find in that general spot as well as how many you have already collected. That way you won’t go crazy trying to find any missing acorns in an area where you have already found them all.
Red’s Kingdom is a very fun Metroidvania puzzle adventure that is very addictive, and even more so on Nintendo Switch since you can easily pick it up, play for 10-20 minutes, and then come back to it in similar gaming chunks, or go all in and spend hours with the game as you try to find everything it has to offer. It’s simple gameplay mechanics make it an easy pick-up and play release, and its clever puzzle design and Metroidvania styling will have you coming back for more.
Disclaimer
This Red’s Kingsom review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Rising Star Games.
