Kung Fu Rabbit

Challenging platformers have always held a special place in my heart. I grew up on DuckTales and Super Mario Bros. for the NES, and my love of the genre has stuck with me all the way thrpugh to Super Meat Boy and Rayman Origins.

Kung Fu Rabbit, a previously mobile-only release from cTools, is the latest in this line of straightforward but far from simple platformers. For the most part it's a success, and another solid download for your Vita - especially if you're a fan of platformers.

Let's get the issue of price out of the way: yes this is more expensive on Vita than it is on mobile, but not by much. The additional cost of entry is well worth it, as you can now use analogue sticks to precisely control your leaping leporidae. There are Trophies to be had, too.

On any platform, there's plenty of content for the price. Levels are tight and they become increasingly complex - especially after the first 20 stages. There are loads of upgrades to purchase and augment your character with as well.

Moment to moment play will be familiar to anyone who's checked in with the genre in the last five years. You run, you jump, you slide down walls, and you knock out enemies.

Where a game like Super Meat Boy largely demands that you complete levels in specific ways, Kung Fu Rabbit gives you a little more room to improvise and take your time. It's still rock hard in spots, but the pace is slower than Team Meat's modern classic.

The difficulty curve is wonderfully judged. In the first world you'll jump over bubbling black goo to avoid dying and make a couple of wall jumps, but by the bonus levels - which gradually unlock - you're dodging projectiles, making split-second jumps between crumbling platforms, and taking large risks to nab all four of the elusive carrots.

Carrots are your currency, but they also work in a similar fashion to the star system in Cut the Rope: collecting all of them is a real achievement, and shows mastery of that level.

The gameplay suffers a bit when it comes to enemies. They patrol areas and are mostly just moving hazards to avoid. To kill them (without any upgrades) you need to hit them from behind, but what the game engine considers to be the back of the enemy is fairly nebulous. Sometimes I would land on what I thought to be the back of the bad guy's head only to be instantly killed.

It's not the greatest-looking game in the world, but it does the job well enough. The design has a rounded-block theme that's pretty appealing, but there's little life to the worlds you're bouncing about, and the special effects are minimal.

I absolutely adore the sound design, though - especially the oriental fanfare accompanying the moment you exit the level in victory.

If you're looking for another great platformer on Vita then this inexpensive download should definitely be one to consider. Though it's not as good-looking nor quite as imaginative, as the best in the field, it's an enjoyable adventure with great controls, solid design, and decent challenge.