If you like the trailer, you are almost certainly going to like this game. If you like the concepts, you are almost certainly going to like this game. It knows what it wants to be and it succeeds marvelously at it. And at the end of the day, I like this game, so even with its flaws, I can’t help but feel that it deserves plenty of love for just being dang fun in exactly the way it wants.
On the one hand, I feel like Kunai kind of missed its mark. The game is definitely trying to be something different and set itself apart, but there are just enough pain points that it’s hard to think it really works. There’s a lot of effort to keep you engaged and offer a slight twist on the formula, but most of those twists come off as broadly neutral.
Its weaknesses are there, but they didn’t change the genuine joy and energy that the game oozes – and when one of my big complaints about a game is “I want freedom to play more of it,” it usually means the core game is pretty fun.
Despite all of those couple-thousand-words up there, I think on some level that I kind of hit this one right when I started out. It’s a Touhou kart racer. For the people who dearly want a Touhou kart racer, this provides exactly that, and the reality is that the only really big criticism that’s actually crippling is the game’s length. Everything else winds up landing at the point that this is a game without Mario Kart money or polish trying to be Mario Kart.
This is a game that both looks gorgeous and hits its target in terms of straightforward play that keeps bringing you back for another round of diving and slashing to the surface of the Earth. If you’re keen on losing yourself in that dream-like trance, it’s going to do a good job of that.
Sometimes, there’s a secret alchemy or a real trick to a game. Other times, there really isn’t. But it’s not a failing by any means for the game to aim resolutely at being something and then hit that mark well. There are lots of things that could make Dusk Diver better, like a better translation or a more consequential story, but it clearly wants to be exactly what it is, and it doesn’t pretend at being anything more than that.
Ultimately, BDSM isn’t very good when it comes to the actual gameplay to start with. It’d be a not tremendously good game even if it was exploring stuff like themes and meaning with some actual depth. But when you get into the “parody” aspect that’s really just a thin veneer to defend against people calling out the content, it slips hard into the territory of just not being worth your time.
...it is a puzzle platformer at its core, which will turn some people off, and the combat still doesn’t quite sing. But even the issues it does have are the sort that are ultimately none too difficult to overlook, just little bits and bobs that don’t reach the height set by other standout moments.