KiKi KaiKai

~ KIKI KAIKAI ~

Taito

HuCard

1990

It seems like I'm the only one who really digs this game. KiKi is an intense little overhead shooter, kind of reminiscent of Last Alert in its "sort of free roaming" style. It's the type of game you gradually feel yourself getting more and more awesome at it as you put in practice. The boss fights are lots of fun (some of them can seem pretty darn tough at first, and it feels great to figure out effective methods for getting through them)...

...and the levels get surprisingly tricky later on, with lots of projectiles and small, quick enemies to worry about in tight spaces.

Repetition is definitely an issue here. The levels pretty much all look the same aside from a bridge here and a graveyard there. The same few enemies keep showing up over and over again (though they do get more aggressive as the adventure goes on). And a single stage song gets used repeatedly. It's an awesome tune, but still...

The repetition doesn't bug me because I enjoy the action, the boss fights, the cartoony-Japan premise, and the rewards reaped from a little practice. This is not to say that you should spend forty dollars on the game, which is, sadly, what it often goes for. But if you can find it cheap, snatch it up and enjoy.