Are you looking for something new? How about a visual tour de force for your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X? A deep 3D adventure with a compelling storyline? Well, Kid Ball Adventure is none of these things. It’s an odd school platform game with a unique twist. As you will learn in this Kid Ball Adventure review, sometimes that’s enough.

The premise of Kid Ball Adventure is pretty simple. You, playing as a ball, must rescue your girlfriend. Who is also a ball. She has been kidnapped. By a dragon-riding ball. There’s nothing more to the story than this, but I’m not sure Kid Ball Adventure was ever meant to be a grand work of literacy. Nor, in fact, was it meant to be a ground breaking videogame experience. What it is seemingly intended to be, is immediate, challenging fun.

Kid Ball Adventure screenshot

The ball which you command is forever bouncing. Onto platforms. Over spikes. Collecting gems and keys to open the level’s exit. It has been designed in such a way that no tutorial is required beyond the initial ‘stick to move’, because there are no other input commands. Kid Ball Adventure plays exactly how it appears in the screenshots on this page. However, ‘simple’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘easy’.

After the first handful of levels the game ramps up it’s difficulty significantly. We’re not talking Super Meat Boy levels of challenge here, but you’ll get the same feeling of aggravation with yourself when you know the solution but repeatedly fail to execute it. Levels are divided into blocks of five. Should you run out of lives you’ll not simply be able to restart where you left off. You’ll have to complete the entire block again. This becomes a particular annoyance should you be on the very last level of a block when you fail.

Kid Ball Adventure screenshot

Unlike the recently released Slap the Rocks, Kid Ball Adventure offers plenty of bang for your buck. The simple but enjoyable gameplay loop is extended over dozens of levels instead of ending just when it becomes interesting. And yet, in usual eastasiasoft fashion, the Achievements/Trophies can be earned in full in less than 30 minutes. During the course of this Kid Ball Adventure review, most of the time spent with the game was long after the full quota had been unlocked.

Kid Ball Adventure doesn’t rewrite the rulebook. But what it does do is provide is a fun, challenging evening or two of platforming action. Given the low cost of entry ($4.99 USD at the time of writing) you’re in for a reasonably priced evening or two of entertainment.

Categories: Games