Nothing to Purr About- Blade Kitten Review

We all have wild images in our heads of corporate board meetings, where soulless men in suits with no imagination spit out underdeveloped ideas to corner a market of “hip kids.” I like think that these boardrooms don’t actually exist in the sense that we’ve seen in movies, but that most media that we consume was, at least at one point, in the hands of a creative individual (or individuals) before being diluted into a sellable format. That is, until I spent some time with Kit Ballard, cat-girl at large and star of Atari’s Blade Kitten.

Before I give you my opinion of the nuts and bolts of Blade Kitten, let me tell you a bit about Ms. Ballard.  Sometime in the year 2003, a toxic mutagen known only as “ooze” was leaked onto the computer of a lonely 9th grader. The ooze merged with the silicon and cobalt of his hard drive to form an organic life form derived entirely of internet memes. That life form is Kit Ballard.  Over the course of the game, the pink haired, Deviant Art-dropout will throw out peace signs and spout catch phrases like “bonus, get!” or “can haz trezzure?” without an ounce of irony in her voice. It is the type of misunderstood market pandering media that causes players to close the windows and turn down the sound before playing; for fear that the neighbors might take note of the embarrassing drivel on the screen. You know that American History teacher you had in high school that used out-dated hip-hop “jive talk” from the 80s to let you know he was “with it, dawg?” Kit Ballard is pretty much the video game equivalent, only she isn’t holding a diploma over your head to keep your attention.

Kit’s personality notwithstanding, Blade Kitten is a competent, if only average side-scrolling slasher, in the vein of Castlevania.  Each level is expansive and detailed with tons of nooks and crannies to explore, and checkpoints are generously paced so you never feel trapped into moving forward. Kit dishes out attacks using a floating sword that follows her everywhere, which is appropriate, since “floating” is a common theme throughout the course of the game.  The physics engine for Blade Kitten is laughably clumsy. Kit floats around the screen, effortlessly as if she only weighs a few ounces and is magnetically repelled from any hard surface.  The poor physics combine with fairly unresponsive controls give the game the unique feel of playing an old Super Nintendo game while wearing oven mitts.

Blade Kitten has all of the ingredients to make a truly abysmal game, but I would be lying if I said you never get used to it. The floaty physics do a good job of complementing the non-responsive controls, in the same way that an open compost bin can cover up the taste of terrible food. Call it Stockholm syndrome, but after a while the rhythm of button mashing acrobatic insanity feels almost normal, and I have a hard time calling it a negative. It’s like moving to Germany: at first, you’re upset that nobody speaks English, then you learn German and it’s not so bad. Also, the cel-shaded visuals are pretty great, especially when compared to other downloadable titles.  They do a much better job of creating a comic book feel than the actual comic book Atari commissioned to complement the game’s development, and that is commendable.  Also, many of the characters who aren’t Kit Ballard are in fact charming and, dare I say, tolerable, but just like I doubt someone who hates Steve Carell would sit through The Office to see Ed Helms, I can’t imagine the occasional side character saving the narrative experience for anyone.

Blade Kitten proves a point that any creative writing professor would attest to: you can spend as much time as you want creating an interesting world, but if you don’t populate it an interesting character, you might be wasting your time.  There is a lot of promise here: an interesting world, a fun style of gameplay, extensive, well-designed maps – but none of it quite hits home. Perhaps with another few months in the hopper, and Blade Kitten could have ironed out its wonky controls and poor physics – and who knows, maybe during that time, they would realize that anthropomorphizing lol cats is something that only appeals to 12 year-olds, but that might be wishful thinking. Here’s hoping they revisit the idea and hire a competent writer and some QA testers for a sequel.