Ignition Publishing and Caracal Games have unleashed hardcore action platformer OkunoKA Madness on Nintendo Switch. Come check our OkunoKA Madness review!
The Nintendo Switch got hardcore action platformer OkunoKA back in 2018 as a Nintendo Switch console exclusive. Fast-forward a couple of years, and Ignition Publishing and Caracal Games have now released OkunoKA Madness, a revamped take on the original game, which brings more of everything to the table – while also bringing the game to PlayStation 4 on top of the Nintendo Switch. The same overall difficulty and challenge remain, while also adding some new stages, new challenges, new bosses, and a bit of extra spit and polish to round out things.
OkunoKA Madness does its name justice, since it will be challenging you every step of the way as it has you try to keep KA – the main character – from dying. Death is around every corner in the over 100 bite-sized levels the game will throw at you. Sure, things will start of a bit on the easy side for the first handful of stages as you get a feel for the controls, but once you’re past that, you’re gong to be dying… a lot. This one has a Story Mode, an even more challenging Madness Mode, as well as a Time Attack Mode to test your speed as you try to lower your overall time by cutting a jump short, or by using the run buttons.
You’ll be controlling KA with the left analog stick or the D-Pad, and you can speed up his running by pressing and holding down the X or ZR buttons. You’ll jump with the A or B buttons, and you’ll also get a chance to wall jump as needed to stay alive. If you want to see what’s up ahead, you can use the right analog stick to look around you. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock new powers that will help you solve the game’s puzzle platforming segments, which you can cycle through with the L and R buttons.
As I mentioned before, the first handful of stages will be a bit on the easier side as the game slowly but surely cranks up the difficulty. The first world for the game might feel like an extended tutorial, but it will give you a feel for the game’s physics, as well as get you started on the addictive “maybe I should replay this level 20 times so that I can lower my overall time by 1.14 seconds so that I can make it to the top 10 on the leaderboard for this stage” gameplay cycle you’ll be experiencing.
At first, there won’t be many obstacles on your path as you try to save the world of souls from the evil and nasty Os, so you’ll only be worrying about getting the bet time possible before you chomp on a creature at the end, changing it into a kind spirit full of light. But you’ll soon be worrying about deadly thorns that will kill you if you look at them the wrong way, floating robots with spinning buzzsaws that will cut you in an instant, or skulls with spikes around them and a cannon coming out of one of its eye sockets, which it uses to shoot lasers.
Sure, the levels can each be completed in less than a minute, but there’s going to be a lot of trial and error in your future before you can actually complete stages on the second world and up as soon as you take on them. You might thing you can make a jump over a huge set of thorns, but you might not have considered there’s a giant statue head after it that will use its might to blow a huge gust of air that will send you flying towards certain death. You might be clinging to a wall, waiting for the right time to make the next jump, only for a robot to come flying in from the top of the screen to cut you in half.
And then, there are the game’s bosses. Without spoiling all of the boss battles, allow me to talk about the first two bosses in the game and how they’re so different from each other. The first boss is an ugly creature with metal helmet, and it will be dashing left and right as it tries to destroy you. To defeat it, you’ll have to lure it to the edges of the stage so that you can jump away at the last second, making it hit the thorns on either side. The second boss, on the other hand, will be a giant monstrosity that is actually eating up the tower you’re trying to climb, thus leaving no room for error since if you take half a second too long to make a jump, it will end up devouring you along with the tower.
OkunoKA Madness is a challenging, colorful, but fun 2D action platformer that will remind you of, say, Super Meat Boy, and that’s not a bad thing! It offers a ton of content that will keep you busy for hours, as well as extra collectibles to find, which will unlock additional character skins that will actually change how you control KA – one will allow you to automatically cling to walls, while another might be faster but could slip down walls as if they we’re buttered up. OkunoKA Madness is out now on Nintendo Switch with a $14.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This OkunoKA Madness review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Ignition Publishing.
