So did anybody ask for a game about a catgirl going inside a digital world copying abilities and unleashing absolute carnage against a massive swarm of enemies? If the answer to that was yes, then this game is for you. Here we have a charming little game called Copy Kitty. It is a high energy 2D action platformer with lots of personality to it. The story here is we have a catgirl named Boki who receives a package containing a game. She sets it up and begins to play, except that it then transports her into a digital world. She meets with a mysterious guy named Savant who, other than rocking a green top hat, starts instructing her on the use of her powers. Boki is a bit confused about the nature of this world and also this power, so what does she do? She goes through a series of levels and destroys everything in sight!
The way Copy Kitty works is you can shoot enemies with your standard shot or just kick them around until they drop abilities. You can pick these up and equip them and then use them to take down the other enemies in the room. Where it gets interesting is you can actually fuse some abilities together to form an even stronger attack. This is a really fun mechanic as there are lots of weapons including homing shots, shuriken, whips, swords and explosives. Each of them feels unique and adds some very welcome variety to the levels. There are a bunch of robots and just weird creatures for you to fight, as Copy Kitty likes to flood the screen with projectiles and explosions.
The goal of each level is to find and destroy certain target enemies, which means lots and lots of explosions and bright colors. I have to say, I’ve played my share of psychedelic shooters but this one is INSANE. Every other second something is flashing several different shades of light. So if that kind of thing bothers you, you might want to avoid playing this in a dark room or turn the brightness down a bit as the game can sometimes be a bit too bright for its own good. The characters have this cel-shaded look to them and while they look okay, the artwork overall isn’t too much to write home about, but it gets the job done. The music is also not really very memorable, though the boss theme was kind of cool.
Actually, the boss fights are among the most interesting aspects of the levels as they feature some unique strategies, such as luring them into an explosive for increased damage or attacking them in one of their weak spots with one of the weapons dropped by monsters in the boss room. Figuring out which combinations of weapons works best on these bosses adds a lot of depth and strategy to these fights. Copy Kitty gives you two playable characters, Boki, whom I have been describing so far, and also Savant, who plays quite a bit differently than her. In fact, the game makes a point of mentioning that he should be picked if you are a Computer Scientist. You definitely need precision to use him! He floats around the screen and can summon little options kind of like in Gradius which can attack enemies that way. It’s a bit weird to control at first, but eventually, you get the hang of it and he can deal some carnage himself.
Overall, Copy Kitty is a fun little game, not amazing but the kind of game but works as a decent diversion or time killer. If you are in for some nice quick fun, I recommend giving it a shot when it comes out on August 11 on Steam. If you want to see a bit of the game in action, check out the trailer below.
