Metroid is a classic game that has inspired so many others., and it even loans its name to half the title of the Metroidvania genre. Devolver Digital has now published a new take on the game formula and it may be the most unique one yet.
Gato Roboto sees a space patrolman crash land on a planet and gets badly hurt. Because he cannot go investigate the strange signals from the planet, he instead sends his cat Kiki to go. Kiki will don a mech suit and go on a journey to discover what happened.
Visually, the game evokes the original Game Boy and Metroid II Return of Samus heavily, but with a lot more polish. This is what you remember a Game Boy game looking like, rather than what they actually looked like. The soundtrack is far better than anything you would find on Game Boy though, and reflects a high standard of quality that I appreciate.
In terms of gameplay, this is a Metroid-esque title that makes some nice tweaks to the formula. Because Kiki is a cat, you are able to get out of the suit and climb walls at times. This allows you to reach areas you cannot reach in the suit, but makes you a one hit kill, meaning you must be careful. You will continue to collect powerups and weapon upgrades, but what stood out to me the most was that you do not just get one suit. Instead, you will pilot other crafts like a submarine for underwater segments, the feel of which is very different.
The resulting game is an overall good one, albeit with some stiff controls at times. They take some getting used to, but the game comes into its own once you are passed that. The bosses have just the right amount of difficulty and there are many little things to find. There was a lot more content here than I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised.
What I liked the most though, was the narrative and how well it was handled. The absurdity of the situation is commented on and yet it all works.I love the creativity here and cannot recommend Gato Roboto enough. It is a home run of a game