Kid Kool and the Quest for the Seven Wonder Herbs

This is a absolutely insane take… but I really like Kid Kool.

Before I even get to the game, I want to talk about the external characteristics that I love. The title. Kid Kool. It’s just so representative of the time, and I love it. Another external factor is the Japanese title and history. The Japanese game is named “カケフくんのジャンプ天国 スピード地獄”, which translates to “Kakefu-kun’s jumping heaven and speed hell”. That’s already amazing, but it’s also so… On the nose for this game. Also, Kakefu-kun was basically the Ryan from Ryan’s world of late Showa.

All that is great, but I actually do love the game. It’s deliberately subversive to the crisp movements of Mario. This game is in a spiritual series including Psycho Fox and Decap Attack, and if you play all three, you’ll absolutely see it. That said, I like this one the best. It feels the best when you’re in the zone and it feels the cruelest when you’re not.

There is extreme inertia in this game. If you jump from standing, you can go forward like a pixel. But if you’re running at full tilt, you can clear several screens of real estate. That means you need to memorize the levels, but it feels awesome when you do.

The graphics are charming and strange and the plot is hilariously bad.

I can’t give this full marks because it’s deeply flawed, but dang it, it’s a real good time.

4 out of 5.