SUPER CRUSH KO
A one-hit wonder.
Knocked out.
It’s a tale as old as time: girl meets alien warlord. Alien warlord comes crashing through her bedroom wall, steals her cat and maybe her heart. Girl grabs a laser rifle and heads out to get her cat back. Functionally, as a setup for a videogame, this mightn’t be all that different to ‘your princess is in another castle’, but paired with a bright art style that looks like it’s been scrawled onto your monitor in pastels, it’s exactly the kind of thing that makes me do the heart eyes.
So, yeah, it was pretty much love at first sight with Super Crush KO, which reminded me of Steven Universe and Scott Pilgrim and Sayonara Wild Hearts.
Peel back the impeccable presentation and underneath you’ll find a straightforward 2D brawler. Armed with the laser gun and a selection of punches, kicks and dashes, you move left to right, clearing screen after screen of robotic nasties. But Super Crush KO’s action lacks zest. As gorgeous as the art is, in motion it’s never quite as smooth as you’d hope. Your character feels a little like one of those paper dolls you made as a kid, putting pins in the joints so you could jiggle its limbs.
It’s not exactly the kind of combat you’d hold up next to a Devil May Cry but, like those games, Super Crush KO is constantly marking your performance, with a UI-dominating letter grade sat at the top of the screen. And this is the aspect of the game I’m most torn about.
On one hand, it’s the engine that powers Super Crush KO. It’s seemingly possible to stitch entire levels into a single elongated combo, taking advantage of the special moves that send your character dashing forwards and the range of your laser rifle to ensure there’s never a moment of dead air. The challenge here isn’t so much beating the aliens as it is maintaining a keepy-uppy of hits and dodges, lest your ‘A’ grade be replaced with a dreaded ‘D’.
On the other, I’m not sure how well this actually fits with every other part of the game. Some of this, admittedly, might be personal bias, but the constant reminder of your current grade means that every moment you’re not landing a punch feels like a failure.
It’s not that a bright colourful exterior can’t conceal sharp teeth (just look at Cuphead) but more that its simple combat system never earns the inevitable knot of stress in the pit of my stomach that accompanies a ticking combo timer.
UNENGAGED
Honestly, you don’t need to engage your brain much when playing. I quickly found myself reaching for headphones (the music, unfortunately, never rises above the ‘serviceable’ level) and the game just became a way to keep my hands and eyes busy while I fixed my attention on a podcast. And after a while, even my eyes stopped registering Super Crush KO’s ample charm.
See, when it comes to visual style, we’re fickle little magpies, always hungry for something novel. Even the prettiest game, if it never grows or changes, our brains can get very good at looking past it straight to the underlying systems – and at that point, it might as well be all stickmen and grey boxes. Take Sayonara Wild Hearts, one of the games I thought of in that first flutter of infatuation. It’s got a remarkable aesthetic, but it flings a new idea at you every few seconds. And so eyes inevitably wander, seeking a pretty new thing to crush on instead. Look, I’m not proud of it, but I’m already eyeing up this hot indie game that’s just wandered into my Steam recommendations, with style up to here and aesthetics for hours. This time, I’m sure, it’s got to be true love. ALEX SPENCER