Kukoos Lost Pets A fun-loving and daring species known as the Kukoos live on the sole island where the Kukoo tree is found on a planet bathed in water. It is up to the Kukoos to track down their angry and out-of-control pets and recover control in order to bring peace back to the once-peaceful Kukoo tree after an experiment in which they try to train their animals to be more obedient goes awry.
With its appealing visuals, straightforward plot, and endearing characters, Kukoos: Lost Pets is a fresh 3D platformer geared toward a younger audience, but it swiftly falters owing to bugs and technical problems. Despite providing a beautiful environment for players to explore, developer PetitFabrik and publisher Modus Games were unable to address these issues, despite the addition of pets that are both valuable and essential to the game’s gameplay.
Kukoos Lost Pets first chapter
The first chapter of Kukoos: Lost Pets introduces the Kukoos, creatures that resemble square-shaped primates and can dress themselves. The Kukoos are celebrating their “Pet Day,” a day dedicated to honouring and competing for the most extraordinary animal living on their island. Unsurprisingly, the joy swiftly turns sour and the Kukoos’ pets get hostile toward their owners after being brainwashed by their new collars.
To save the pets, players must journey through a variety of locations, eliminating the collars to return the animals to their original state. Each pet has a special skill that either makes it easier or is necessary to get across each location, like a Light-bug that illuminates tunnels or a block-shaped critter that transforms into a climbable platform for higher ground. It’s terrible that players can only use one at a time; the game is built such that they are only useful in the specific stages you find them in.
While straightforward storylines aren’t inherently bad, this one lacks a hook to entice players into the game’s environment because it is straightforward and unproblematic. No characters have backstories, and the place the Kukoos call home is simply described as a solitary island on a world covered in water. Kukoos: Lost Pets’ storytelling techniques make sense and it remains simple to follow because it is geared toward a younger audience. Character designs are straightforward as well, with the Kukoos sporting a variety of outfits that give each of them a distinct appeal. None of them will turn heads with their wardrobe choices, but they all fit in well with the look and style of the game.
The Kukoos Lost Pets game combines well-designed objects and vibrant colours throughout each level design, making for incredibly engaging aesthetics when the game is in motion. The many climbable platforms are illuminated, and the pet designs are vibrant and creative without being overly cutesy or intrusive. In the game’s darkest parts, vibrant bright colours sparkle, and most terrain is attractive to look at, run on, jump in, and travel across. Character and pet animations feel energetic while running or pacing around the different locales and are fluid when in motion. When compared to other current platformers, boss designs are a little bit simple, yet they work nicely in Kukoos: Lost Pets.
The game excels in multiplayer, and opting for 4-player local co-op greatly increases enjoyment of the experience. With all the shared collectibles, there is little motivation to obstruct other players outside the purposeful (or inadvertent) trolling that comes with multiple people travelling platforms, though there is always pleasure to be had in aiding or hindering other players. There are times when it resembles a party game, and having as many people hopping around increases the enjoyment.
Kukoos: Lost Pets has several technical problems, but they appear within the first few minutes of starting a new game. While introducing players to the first level, the introduction movie stutters and the framerate dips several times. These become much more apparent when attempting to complete the lesson since each time a tutorial window pops up, the game appears to freeze for what feels like a quarter of a second. Throughout the game, there are also apparent instances where the audio desyncs and times when all audio is lost for a little period of time.
In addition to having to contend with those technical difficulties, Kukoos: Lost Pets is rife with bugs and even has a few instances when players can make bosses utterly unresponsive and necessitate resuming the battle. In some places, gamers can completely bypass cutscenes by dodging the triggers that start them. Even while these problems don’t ruin the game, they happen frequently enough to be inconvenient and are far too simple to replicate. It might not be as obvious to them at first in a game with a clearly younger target audience until the boss simply pauses and stares at them.
The tutorials’ lack of clear directions was a last source of frustration. For instance, a pair of single-winged critters that can aid in flight are one of the first pets that players get to utilise in the tutorial. The training box urges the user to continuously press A, however it omits to mention that in order to start flying, the player must first press R to put the pets on their shoulders, and only then can they press A to move upward. Pressing buttons and then unintentionally realising what needs to be done can be frustrating.
Kukoos: Lost Pets has charm, humorous language, and a stunning aesthetic, but it struggles to establish itself as a new platformer due to a number of problems. The game‘s technical flaws will drive away everyone else, but its intended audience will appreciate how attractive it is and will undoubtedly like employing the Kukoos’ dogs to travel across the various places. Though the Kukoos could be a breath of fresh air in a genre that is always in need of new blood, its aesthetics and local multiplayer will only be able to carry it so far in the crowded 3D platformer category.