Kid Tripp Review

Having recently bought a 2DS XL to sate an unquenchable need for Pokémon and Mario, I decided to venture out on a quest into the world of Nintendo eShop indie games. RPGs like Pokémon demand a lot of time and I wanted something casual and easy to jump into for a quick bit of relief before getting back to the daily grind. Several hours later and Kid Tripp has me hooked, even if I am swearing like a trooper and throwing my new console across the room!

“If Kid Tripp is so anger-inducing then why give it a 9/10?” I hear you ask. Well it’s simple. Kid Tripp is fun. There’s nothing more to it than that. The objective is straight-forward. Literally. You continuously run from left to right without going back, trying to avoid enemies, collect coins and get to the end flag. It’s basically a combination of old-school 2D Mario, Sonic and popular mobile title ‘The Impossible Game’ all in one. There’s no functionality on the bottom screen for this retro platformer, but it really doesn’t need it…

Let’s go into a bit more depth about the way the game works shall we? You begin at world 1-1 (bit like classic Mario eh?) and you frantically dash towards the goal without stopping. Your character throws little blobs of something at the enemies if you so wish, or you can just dodge most of them all together. Enemies are super annoying, like the monkey who throws coconuts at you, or the birds and spiders that swoop down into your path.

In Kidd Tripp, you can’t go back but you can slow down or speed up. This is key because it all comes down to timing for jumps, attacks and sometimes just dropping from one platform to the next – go too fast and you’ll be doomed from the start, go to slow and the monsters will pick you off. That is if you haven’t plopped off the edge into the bottomless pit of despair – taking one of your 10 precious lives with you.

The game is fast and furious, with the record for entire game completion being something like 5/6 minutes. Kid Tripp has an achievement-based system built-in which has certainly kept me coming back for more – desperately trying to complete levels without losing coins or without killing a single annoying horrible turd of a monster with my little stone things. It’s infuriatingly addictive, with levels beginning at face-meltingly hard and ending with you throwing your DS in the toilet. Please don’t see this as a negative though, as the glutton for punishment in me loved getting so unexplainably wound up!

The music in Kid Tripp is suitably 8-bit to go with the pixellated 2D graphics. It’s repetitive, electronic and so irritating when you’ve tried to do the same level 100 times already. On a side note I’m yet to complete the game because I’ve died so many times I had to spend all my coins to buy some lives back.

Graphically Kidd Tripp is true to the aforementioned classics, invoking a heavy sense of nostalgia and even a few nods to classic Nintendo characters – but I’ll let you find that one out for yourself. At a miniscule £3.59 you’d be mad to not buy this one!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo 3DS code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.