Late last year, MetagameMike partnered with Broke Studio to release a physical edition of his platformer Kero Kero Cowboy, a Kickstarter project that saw completion in early 2025. The concept is pretty simple. The title character, Kero Kero, is an anthropomorphic frog in a Wild West setting hunting down five outlaws. The style is most reminiscent of the older Kirby games, as Kero Kero has the power to grab foes with his tongue and spit them back out. Except that he also has a pretty sweet gun that’s bigger than he is which can be used as more of an on-demand weapon.
Kero Kero Cowboy isn’t the kind of game you could make today thanks to this concept. Cute cartoon characters killing each other is one thing, but using a gun to do it? Now that’s going too far! Ethical quandaries notwithstanding, Kero Kero Cowboy is a very solid platformer in the 8-bit style. Kero Kero himself is a lot of fun to move around, and the game does quite a bit more with the Game Boy Color hardware than you’d think. Mainly this is just a matter of excellent use of the bright color palette. Kero Kero always stands out in the relatively drab background thanks to his nice shiny green color and dark black hat always making him very visible. Even his gun has a distinctive enough hue it’s often fun to just to enjoy the absurd image of a cowboy frog with a gun.
The platforming is also fairly enjoyable, and enough on the easy side that I didn’t mind the occasional hiccup in regard to hit detection or the invincibility frames being a bit short. Bear in mind, Kero Kero is sturdier than he looks. In between three hit points and six bullets in the gun, it’s not until the latter levels of the game that Kero Kero Cowboy poses much of a challenge. In the earlier levels, I often found myself skipping the checkpoints just to save the measly ten coins. One hundred coins gets you an extra life, although as is the case with many games of this type, the save battery mostly renders extra lives irrelevant.
The 25 platforming levels and 5 boss fights are all exceptionally well-done. Still, the lack of extra modes in Kero Kero Cowboy were a bit of a disappointment. Apparently they were planned in the Kickstarter stage, but MetagameMike didn’t quite hit the requisite goals. But ultimately, I can’t fault Kero Kero Cowboy for focusing on playability and charm rather than challenge. This game is remarkably well-optimized for real hardware considering it was originally a digital only release. The load screens are non-existent, and levels only take a couple of minutes at once to finish, assuming you know what you’re doing anyway. Kero Kero Cowboy is very much a platformer in the pickup and play mold, and I always looked forward to getting back to it during spare moments when I needed the pick me up of feeling like a badass froggy gunslinger.
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