Blade Kitten is an odd little platformer. It looks like a standard fare run-and-slash affair, but it features some interesting design choices that really makes it pop. It’s a downloadable title based on the comic of the same name, and it’s made the jump from the web page to PSN, XBLA, and Steam.

Right of the bat, the first thing you’ll notice about Blade Kitten is how good the game looks. This is a pretty, pretty game and you can tell the amount effort put into the game. The colors are bright and vibrant and pop off the screen. The game is in a 2.5D perspective, and besides the standard side-scrolling action you’ll occasionally find teleporters that will warp you into the background to collect more treasures and money to purchase upgrades.

The upgrade system is reminiscent of the one in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: it takes the form of a store you can access any time once you unlock it. Unlike MGS4, you don’t really need the upgrades; for skilled gamers, it’s Blade Kitten is pretty darn easy. You can beat the game without having buying a single upgrade; the only reason I bought anything was because of the excess cash I constantly had.

Gameplay in Blade Kitten was nothing like I expected it to be. You‘ll do a lot of running to the left and you’ll do lots of slashing with Kit’s free blade. However, you’ll be doing a lot of climbing, sliding, exploring, and puzzle solving. Blade Kitten is better compared to Tomb Raider than to Mario, and the sassy catgirl lead certainly fits the trend. You can climb almost any vertical structure and even on some ceilings. You’ll also find yourself riding animals that are basically pink, bald versions of Final Fantasy’s Chocobo’s. The combat is extremely simplistic: slash slash slash until everything before you falls. You have other moves at your disposal, but you don’t really need to use anything else in your arsenal. I’m fairly certain this is why some of the achievements/trophies are for dispatching foes using various moves.

One thing I want to highlight is the voice acting for the main character, Kit. All the game’s voice work is solid, but the main character is pinpoint accurate in her portrayal of Kit. Fans of the original Blade Kitten comic need not fear.

Speaking of sounds, the game’s soundtrack is pretty hit or miss. After the disappointing music in the first level (which is also the demo level), the musical score improves and continues to do so through of the entirety of the game. While Blade Kitten never really hits its musical stride, the later levels’s BGMs sound pretty good.

My biggest hangup with the game is the bizarrely opaque save system. This is the single worst gameplay idea that was implemented in the entire game. Blade Kitten has an autosave function that never tells you when it’s saving, or even if it exists. For a lot of people, this won’t ever be an issue since the game can pretty easily be completed in a single sitting, but if you need to stop playing for whatever reason, it’s a bit disconcerting to not know if you’ll be required to play through levels and levels because you failed to save your game. A little icon in the corner to indicate the game is being saved would have completely mitigated this criticism. Shutting off my console and wondering if my save file is there is not a good feeling.

Blade Kitten is short, so short that one of the achievements/trophies is for completing it with a total time of 90 minutes of less.  This is easily the shortest game I’ve played this year and the “This is part one in a trilogy” ending doesn’t win it any points in my book; it’s still a $15 download. I was caught off-guard by the abrupt ending, and the game was still explaining mechanics to me at the very last boss. That said, there are plenty of collectibles, and trophy/achievement junkies will find a good amount of replay value in the title. Despite the length, Blade Kitten is always fun; I enjoyed every minute I spent playing it. As long as you know what you’re getting into, this comes with my full recommendation.