Kero Kero Cowboy Review: Hop Into An Epic Adventure With The Wildest Frog In The West

It's been a long time since a frog has taken centre stage as the protagonist in a video game. Sure, we've had Frogger hop into the limelight over the years, and Kermit has had his stint in video games, but since Glenn from Chrono Trigger and Slippy Toad of Fox McCloud's crew, the only croaking amphibians we've had to turn to have been the Frog Choir from Ocarina of Time. Well, Mike Bedsole, aka Metagame Mike, has finally righted that wrong with the release of his new Game Boy game Kero Kero Cowboy, featuring a gun-slinging, cowboy-hat-wearing, rootin-tootin frog with a thirst for justice!

I first covered the news of Kero Kero Cowboy back when Mike contacted Retro Dodo to chat about the demo for the game and instantly gelled with it; it's classic side-scrolling platforming action with hints of all of my favourite Game Boy games from my childhood. There was just one problem - I wanted to experience more! So, when Mike emailed me again to say that the game was finally finished and available for the masses to download and play, I jumped at the chance to put it through its paces for you guys.

*NB - There will be spoilers throughout this article, but in the interest of keeping things mysterious, I've only used images up to World 3 of the game. You'll have to support Mike and buy the game to see the rest!

• Price: $9.99
• Compatible With:  Game Boy Color emulators, EverDrive, Analogue Pocket.
• Playtime: 6-8 Hours
• Available From: Itch.io

Spur-tacular Gameplay With A Toadally Awesome Hero

Kero Kero Cowboy takes me straight back to wielding a Game Boy Color towards the end of the 90s. The color palette is fantastic, as are the characters and the levels you'll encounter as you progress through the game. This is a digital-download game that doesn't come on a cartridge, so you'll need an Analogue Pocket, an emulator, or an EverDrive to play it on your original hardware. I would absolutely love to have a physical copy of this game, and if ModRetro are reading this, then maybe it might happen one day!

I'm getting ahead of myself - before we go any further, let me give you a brief introduction to the world of Kero Kero Cowboy, a frog with a mission to rid the west of villainy. You're tasked with taking down the Ferocious Five, a motley crew of wanted criminals who act as the world bosses for each of the game's 5 stages. Kero has multiple moves that I'll get onto in a second and is a great shot with a pistol despite not being able to see from underneath his hat - I guess you've either got skills or you don't!

I've never met the game's creator Mike before, but I can already tell that he grew up playing the same games as me. Any level with a minecart section in it instantly takes my mind back to playing Donkey Kong Country as a kid, and while this is far more relaxing than having DK plummeting to his doom amongst a horde of angry King K.Rool's minions, it's nice to pick out different ideas from titles that might have influenced Mike in the designing and building process of this addictive little game.

Reach For The Sky (And Then Select Your Level)

Picking a level is usually such a mundane job, but it feels much more fun when you're faced with a shooting range to choose which stage you're going to tackle. I haven't experienced anything like this since I picked my passport save file in GoldenEye 007, and it's the perfect way to celebrate all things Wild West. There are 5 worlds and 5 standard stages on each - 4 levels and a boss battle. There is a bonus level on each stage if you get enough special coins, many of which are hidden behind segments of rock that need blasting away with your pistol. As you can see above, I didn't manage to find them all on my first play through, but I've been back since and made up for it.

One thing I will say to Mike's credit is that all of the worlds feel inherently different to one another - the levels within each world all have an overarching theme that ties them together, but the colours and the level structure are different enough to make you feel like you're somewhere completely new rather than just rehashing old ideas which, as we all know, can be something that Game Boy games fall into the trap of, especially when they aren't graphically enticing. The worlds get progressively harder as you move through the game too, but not with a level of difficulty that would provide a challenge to hardened NES gamers (though I'll get onto this in a minute).

Saddle Up & Learn The Ropes

Kero Kero has some ace moves up his sleeve (do frogs have sleeves?) that gamers can pull out to thwart enemies along the way. And while we're on the subject of enemies, I really like the different personalities that Mike has given to all of the character sprites - how often are you going to see a bandit crab or a fly wearing a Stetson?

Pressing the attack button sends out a big frog tongue to ensnare enemies, allowing you to spit them back out as a weapon to take down other bad guys. Yes, it's a cross between Yoshi and Kirby, but I'm not angry about it, and it works as we're dealing with a frog, after all. Still, with no enemy hidden inside his mouth, players can press select to bring up Kero Kero Cowboy's six-shooter.

You'll need to use your gun to take down enemies that are too far away to grab with your tongue or that will prevent you from jumping onto a ledge where they might be meandering around. It's a nice little touch, and I like the fact that the pistol is as big as Kero Kero - never mind a French frog; that's one hench frog!

Obviously, frogs are amphibians, so Kero Kero's skills aren't just limited to being on land. See how he's full of air? You can push out a pocket of air to defeat enemies like Crabby Wayne over there (made-up name, don't send Mike hate for how bad it is), and pushing up on the D-pad at the surface of the water makes you hop up high to reach ledges.

When you aren't in water, hopping comes in the form of a large cowboy boot that you jump into. This allows you to stand on spikes and bounce on top of cacti, which are the only enemies you can't defeat with your pistol or by firing enemies at. Again, everything sticks true to the Wild West theme, although spitting fire after eating a chili pepper isn't something that I ever saw Clint Eastwood do.

Check(Point) In By The Campfire

This little dog is probably my favorite character in the whole game, other than Kero Kero. To save at a checkpoint, you'll need to have 10 coins in the bank to spend on cooking a sausage around a campfire. If you don't have any money, you can always exchange a life for $100 to use throughout the game, but coins aren't hard to come by (unless you hit a game over and lose them all!). Sitting by the fire replenishes your health and ammo too, as well as giving you a place to come back to when you lose a life, so if you're getting a bit trigger-happy with your six-shooter and going in all-guns-blazing to no avail, this poochyy prospector is one to look out for.

Boss Battles

There's a boss battle with one of the Ferocious Five at the end of each stage. Unsurprisingly, the boss of Mole Mines was a mole called Pickaxe Pete, and he was a tenacious little critter too. All of the bosses can be defeated within around six hits, which in this case is how many bullets I had in my pistol. Still, if you run out, it's simply a case of swallowing whatever weapon or shield the boss is using and firing it back at them.

The boss battles aren't as hard as what I've experienced in games like Baby T-Rex, so hardened players might find it a bit of an easy ride. That's the main reason I've given Kero Kero Cowboy 9 instead of 10. If you grew up with the likes of Super Mario All-Stars, then it'll be a walk in the park, but hey, not everyone is looking for extreme difficulty, and it's still an enjoyable game to get lost in, regardless.

A Rootin'-Tootin' Soundtrack

No 8-bit game is complete without its soundtrack, and Scott Semanski has done a great job of instilling each of the levels with its own theme to get you pumped while playing. Scott's work is famous within the GB Studio world, so it's no surprise that Mike has pulled him in to create an enticing atmosphere for Kero Kero's adventure. There's also a music player that you can access to listen to the tunes without the gameplay if you want to imagine what it might be like to hop through the desert in a giant cowboy boot - we've all got to have dreams, right?

Final Thoughts

As I said above, it's about time we had a frog stepping back into the limelight in gaming without having to worry about it being crushed by oncoming traffic. Kero Kero joins Croc, Yoshi, and Yooka in the world of sidescrolling green machines, and while he's a new kid on the block, he's proved to me over the past couple of days that he knows how to handle himself when the going gets tough.

Game length-wise, you're realistically looking at around 6-8 hours of gameplay when playing through Kero Kero Cowboy, though to say the game only costs $9.99, I would say that's about right and in line with the difficulty of the title too. I would still say it was fair if it came in at $25 in a physical cartridge and a colour manual and box for the collectors out there too, but as a download-only title, less than $10 seems fair to me.

Would I have liked it to be a little harder? Sure, but I do review games for a living, so I'm used to playing through titles pretty fast. Most importantly, Mike has managed to capture that feeling of experiencing games like Pocahontas and Toy Story for the first time as a kid, of turning on Kirby's Dream Land and immersing yourself in a new and exciting world. I'm a big fan of Kero Kero Cowboy, and I hope you'll check it out too!