Kuna is a purple monkey…armadillo…thing, who can roll into a ball to get around.  He/She/It lives in a world full of floating islands and when the balance of the world is thrown off and evil emerges, it’s up to Kuna to save the day by…rolling little white balls into holes.  Tin & Kuna is a 3-D action puzzle platformer that combines elements of Marble Madness, Super Monkey Ball, and…golf?  It’s available on current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

Each level is a series of floating islands and you complete a stage when you roll the ball into a hole.  Sometimes you must roll multiple balls into holes.  Some stages are just obstacle courses and when you make it to the end, the ball is right next to the hole and you just roll it in to finish.  But in other stages, you must figure out how to get the ball to the hole further in the level.  Kuna will have to contend with all sorts of hazards, like pits, spikes, enemies, and more.  If you get hit or fall off a ledge, you’ll lose a notch off your life meter.  Lose all three notches and you must start the level over again.

Kuna has a few moves and tricks you can use.  Kuna can dash, double jump, ground pound, and use special crystals in the levels to temporarily jump higher or get magnetized so you can move certain metal objects for a bit, among other things.  There are also three hidden crystals in each level.  Try to find as many as you can because that’s how you unlock new worlds.  You can also get medals for finishing stages super fast, or without taking any damage and such.  There are bosses at the end of each world, but most are just fast-paced obstacle courses as well.

The only big problem I had with the game is that while they do a good job of explaining the controls and moves, they neglect describing other things.  For instance, there are little sparkly things you can collect scattered about in every level.  What do they do?  I have no idea.  When you lose all your energy, the number of the sparklies you collect goes down a bit.  Why?  No idea either.  Other minor problems include wresting with the camera angles at times, steep difficulty spike after the first world, and the game just isn’t too terribly original.  That’s why I lost interest in it, but that’s only because I’ve played a million of these kinds of games back on the GameCube and PS2.  And this game reminds me of titles from that era, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  So if you miss those kinds of games, you may want to check this one out.

Kid Factor:

Tin & Kuna is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Fantasy Violence.  If you get hit, you just get knocked back a bit and flash.  You can smash into enemies, too, but they just get stunned with cartoony dizzy stars.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, but not necessary just to play.  Younger gamers may have trouble with the later, more difficult levels, though.

Tags: Game Reviews