Astro Aqua Kitty is the direct sequel to the enjoyable arcade shoot-em-up Aqua Kitty UDX, featuring immediately familiar gameplay and mechanics, albeit presented in a far more ambitious package. Where Aqua Kitty UDX had your feisty felines battling underwater creatures in small, looping spaces, Astro Aqua Kitty breaks through its predecessor’s boundaries to feature fully-formed levels with branching paths, missions, and a few secrets. As a result, the gameplay feels both grander and yet oddly diluted at the same time.
When you start the game, you’re given the choice of eight different characters to choose from: four pilots and four engineers. Each character offers a slight variation on your core stats, such as agility and firepower, though we found the differences in abilities to be fairly minimal, so whichever combination of pilot and engineer you decide to go for, you’re good to go. At this stage, you can also choose the game’s overall difficulty — which factors in the enemies’ health and rate of fire — with an additional option to activate permadeath. We’d personally recommend choosing hard mode with permadeath disabled for the most enjoyable experience.
The gameplay itself remains similar to Aqua Kitty UDX: you have a main weapon and a sub weapon, with the ability to swap out either for upgraded guns via the game’s inventory and shop system. As you defeat enemies, you’re granted experience points and gems, both of which can be utilised to gain new abilities and items. The rate at which your experience accumulates is a bit too slow for our liking, so don’t be surprised if you find yourself stuck with the same loadout for a while. On the flip side, you’ll find most weapons to be more than adequate against your enemies, so it won’t be long until you settle on a couple of favourites.
The size of Astro Aqua Kitty’s levels is both a blessing and a curse. Each level feels even more sprawling than the last, and despite the fact that there are multiple save points dotted around each environment, the ‘just one more go’ mentality that made Aqua Kitty UDX so replayable is largely absent here. The action is consistently engaging, but after a while, repetition starts to set in, and we found ourselves pining for the leaner, more action packed gameplay from the first game. Boss battles are scattered around the game in the form of larger, more aggressive enemies, and these certainly help inject a bit of variety, which is greatly appreciated.
Visually, Astro Aqua Kitty inherits the same 2D aesthetic from UDX, but overall the characters and environments are far more impressive here. As you navigate the underwater caverns, the lighting naturally goes darker the deeper you go, with enemies displaying an almost neon-like glow. The music, on the other hand, doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the experience; we’d much prefer more thoughtful ambient tracks as opposed to the upbeat dance music on rotation here.
Overall, we’d say that if you enjoyed Aqua Kitty UDX, then you’re likely going to enjoy Astro Aqua Kitty, too. Heck, even if you didn’t play the first game, we’d still recommend checking this one out. It’s a solid shoot-em-up, and while it doesn’t feel as immediately engaging or replayable as its predecessor, it’s nevertheless a fun ride throughout.
Comments 16
The first game was awesome and I still play it loads - if you like Defender or Dropzone (it is basically a great clone of Defender right down to map and scrolling) you'll love the original. Look it up.
I found the original a bit too simplistic. This sequel seems like it'll be more my speed.
What about leader boards? Difficulty options?
@RetroXombi Hi, the game has a full range of difficulty options, from an easy/casual all the way up to super hard. You can just pick what suits you best when starting a new game.
I'm all in for this, absolutely loved UDX when I played it a couple years back!
@Dualmask Hello, yes the new game is very different, load of items to customise your ship with, and weapons suited for different enemies and gameplay styles
I remember playing the original playstation mobile game. They were basically wiped from existence. It was the first time I realized that digital games all reach a point where legal means to play them disappear.
Beautiful colors. Love the natural colored vegetation contrasting with all the neon. Looks like a much meatier experience than the first one.
@TIKIPOD thank you!
I enjoyed Aqua Kitty UDX a lot. I'm glad this got a good review, although I was hoping it would be an 8.
I'm just a bit in and it's definitely a lot of fun. I can't quite offer a comparison to the first one because I really haven't spent a fair amount of time with this one yet, but for what little I've played, I'm excited to go back and dig in more.
cat galaxy quest
@Gamer_Griff Us too! maybe they can do a longer review later
Aqua kitty is a solid 9/10 and I'm sure this is great, too. Definitely deserved a full review
Nice game. Got it yesterday and had a blast playing the first stage. I really like shmups that have RPG elements in it!
I never played the first but this is kind of a weird review. I definitely felt the "one more go" feel as I would reach each checkpoint and refill my energy + buy new upgrades
Also the music in this game is great. Not sure why the reviewer wanted "thoughtful ambient" music for an action packed kitty-themed sci fi shmup, but the music is one of the strong points of the game.
Funnily, 7/10 is a perfect score for the game ha. I just found the specific complaints here didn't match my personal experience
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...