Relive The 90s With Kale In Dinoland
Kale In Dinoland ($1.99) by The Rotting Cartridge is a retro platformer that’s designed to replicate the experience of playing an old school Game Boy game, from the cartridge you have to press down to begin the game to the scratched up screen and worn-out A and B buttons.
This is not your average run and jump platformer. The major game mechanic in Kale in Dinoland involves riding on a variety of animal enemies, each of which move in different ways. For example, Kale bounces along and scales walls on dogs, flies through the air on birds, and glides through water on fish. There are more than eight enemies to ride.
While this game mechanic is unique, I also found it disappointing. I was expecting animal riding to be something that was done a few times a level, with the majority of gameplay consisting of typical platforming movement. This was not the case, and the game is played almost entirely atop animals. You have to use the animals to get past level barriers.
This was a frustrating prospect because of the way that some of the animals move. For example, dogs bounce along in a triangular pattern, which makes it hard to jump on and destroy other enemies. It’s also difficult and downright irritating to navigate through narrow passageways on a mount that bounces around like it’s consumed a 12-pack of Redbulls and a box of Pixy Stix.
The game uses a four-directional joypad for movement, which works okay for the most part, but it definitely tends towards being unresponsive. Aside from an issue with the movement and the controls, Kale was a great retro game experience. The graphics are perfect and the music is really well done. In fact, the soundtrack was my favorite part of the game.
Kale in Dinoland is not a game to download if you’re looking for a simple, easy platformer (like Little Acorns). This one harkens back to the days when you could spend hours negotiating a level.
There are six different areas with approximately 50 levels in total, and you’ll likely be spending some time replaying levels over and over again until you get used to the game mechanic. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have to work hard at a game, especially for those of you who are dedicated gamers and lovers of platformers.
If you run out of lives while playing, you will need to completely restart the area. Luckily, there are plenty of health bonuses, and Kale gets an extra life every time you score 50,000 points. There’s no mid-level save, which was disappointing, so you won’t want to kill this app until you get to the end. While this does have retro gameplay in mind, there are some modern advancements like Game Center integration and achievements.
Despite control its issues, Kale in Dinoland has a fun, original concept with unique gameplay. Those of you who love Game Boy era games and other retro styled platformers like Pix’n Love Rush or 1-bit Ninja will want to give this one a try.
