Rockin' Kats

Willy the Cat has the Fist of the North Star

I have a bit of conflict of interest in reviewing this game, because it's one of the games from the dark recesses of my childhood that I barely remembered until I picked it up again from a second hand store in the less dark recesses of my slightly later childhood. Thanks to that, it's got this insidious blend of nostalgia and quasi-obscurity that's probably clouding my judgment in some way. This is the manifestation of the inner snob-nerd that ruins my life.

All that said, I do think Rockin' Kats is a good game, especially in the grand scheme of NES games (especially especially in the scheme of third party platformers). There are a few nagging points, as to be expected of a game from that generation, but all in all it's enjoyable and well made.

BULL BAND'S HEAVY SOUND

The main mechanic/gimmick of Rockin' Kats is the punch glove gun, which Willy (the protagonist), uses as a combination weapon/grappling hook/surrogate for an actual hand. Most background elements in the game's five levels can be clamped onto with the glove, allowing Willy to spin around and launch himself to make farther or higher jumps than he'd normally be able. The glove can also be used as a kind of pogo stick to launch him up from the ground or off a wall (Which has a few uses in the game, but can also kill you if you're not careful). With a few exceptions involving instant-kill water pits, the platforming never poses too much of a challenge, but it's fun to fling yourself around and bounce off of stuff. As a pro tip, note that hitting the punch button again while flinging will kill your momentum and return air control to you, allowing for a bit of technique in making some of the trickier jumps in the game.The only major issue with the controls that I've found is that left and right seem to take precedence over down, so if you need to quickly go from walking right to ducking, chances are you'll just end up walking into whatever you're trying to duck under. It's a minor issue, but it's something I noticed while playing.

You can't see it, but the poodle is about to slam a flower pot down from a first floor window. Who does that?

The game lets you tackle the first four stages in any order, and in between them you can hit up the home shopping network or a set of minigames to buff up before you tackle the next level. This is a bit of a sticking point in the game, depending on how much trivializing the game's difficulty using the tools it gives you bothers you. The shop channel gives you an option of four powerups: bomber, twin ball, hammer punch and jet sneakers. The bomber adds a tiny bomb that flies a short distance out of your punch glove in a low arc before exploding. Willy's already able to shoot in  8 directions, and there's only a small handful of times when the ability to do a lob shot is really handy. Twin ball ends up being a better buy, as it shoots out (in addition to your glove) two wave beam-esque balls that extend far beyond the reach of your glove, as well as going through low obstacles. So, cheap as the bomb is, don't bother with it.

The hammer fist removes the ability to grab thrown items as well as the punch glove's grappling hook functionality (fortunately, you can switch between which powerup is active at any time). In exchange, you do a bit more damage with your hits and it bounces off projectiles fired at you. I ended up only finding one real use for it though: deflecting some falling boulders in level four, which typically take a few hits. Last but certainly not least are the jet sneakers, which in conjunction with the twin ball launcher halve the difficulty of the game. All they do is let you glide, but with the grappling hook, that's really all you need to glide over the few tricky platforming sections in the game. There was a weird bug where if I jumped too high and went offscreen, the jet boots would randomly cut out during my descent, but other than that, the glide functionality is a godsend. It's like being Luigi in Super Mario Bros 2, but without landing like you're on ice skates.

 

Pipe Toss will be your best friend

The last channel on the level select screen (which is modeled after an old TV. I should have mentioned that probably, I guess) is the minigames channel, which lets you spend a tiny amount of money for a chance at winning an enormous amount of money. The first two games are Roulette (though it's actually just a Wheel of Fortune-esque spinny thing) and basketball (where you use the grappling hook to fling Willy into baskets) , but you can just ignore that crap. The only thing you care about is Pipe Toss. Pipe Toss costs 100 dollars a play, making it the most expensive of the three, but as you can see in the screenshot above, if you make the top pipe twice (which you will, easily), you've already more than made your money back. After running the game about twice, I had a rhythm down where I was pulling in 460 dollars in profit every time I played the game. I used this to stock up on extra lives before level 4, but the fact that you'll get just shy of 500 dollars for beating the first level means you can (and should, for twin ball and jet sneakers) do it whenever the hell you want.

This personally doesn't bother me. Maybe I'm just a filthy casual who needs his jet sneaks to get through the game, but I did feel that it needed mention for those of you who are looking for a punishing NES platformer (Which Rockin' Kats certainly isn't).

AT TIMES THE GAME CAN GET HORRIFYING

The bosses are, however, well balanced. They seem to hit a comfortable spot where you can learn their pattern before you die, which cuts down on the trial and error aspect that plagues a lot of NES titles. Fortunately, you will still have to actually try to kill the bosses. The fact that they'll take you out in five hits makes it so you can't really just blitz them with the twin balls (which sounds like a balls joke, but it's not) and come out victorious. It's satisfying without being frustrating.

There are a few good songs here and there, punctuated with a few obnoxious ones. The second half of the final level sounds like Phantom Of The Opera, which claimed five descending chromatic notes for all time. Other than that, the tracks are hit and miss. It's not Castlevania, but it's not Rad Gravity either. Similarly, the graphics are generally bright and colorful, but a few of the sprites here and there are kind of indistinguishable and generic.

Again, I'd like to acknowledge that my personal history with the game has probably tinted my opinion of it, but that said, among NES games, Rockin' Kats is still very good and very playable. I'd almost liken it to Duck Tales without the licensing, and definitely recommend it to anyone who's a fan of that game. If you're looking for an old style NES platformer that's neither one of the hits nor an absolute abomination, Rockin' Kats is your huckleberry, punk.