Review: Scram Kitty DX

Posted by Curtis H on March 18th, 2015 | 0 Comments | Tags: Scram Kitty DX

Scram Kitty DX, originally Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails (Wii U), is pretty simple in concept. Evil mice have kidnapped Scram Kitty along with many other kittens and it’s up to you to save them. To do so you’ll pilot a turret that slides along rails as you fight space mice and rescue as many kittens as possible. To do so you’ll need to pilot your turret through a variety of stages on a space station, navigating rails, jumping past obstacles, activating switches, defeating enemies, and much more. Scram Kitty DX feels pretty unique, but it’s controls and difficulty might end up steering people away.

Scram Kitty DX starts out with a couple basic levels before throwing you head first into the game without any sort of tutorial. The mechanics aren’t overly complicated, but there are a few things that probably could have used some explaining. In the game you can slide along rails, jump, fire off a handful of different weapon types, and perform a sort of double jump/spin attack. With the turret magnetized to the rails in the game you can also potentially swing around using your momentum to propel yourself towards other areas in the level. (Think of something like Mario Galaxy.) Unfortunately the controls can take some time to get used to, I never really got the hang of them completely, and it can be pretty difficult to get your character to move in the way that you want. This leads to frustration when you die or when you’re trying to do a part that requires that you move quick.

Each level in the game offers a few different challenges that need to be completed to rescue each kitten. You’ll get a kitten for finishing the stage, one for defeating a specific enemy that’s hidden somewhere in the level, one for collecting every coin, and one for quickly chasing a kitten all over the stage before time runs out. Levels also become more open as you progress which allows you to take on these challenges in whatever order you’d like. Personally I didn’t really enjoy the challenge for defeating a specific tough enemy. This enemy typically would be a huge bullet sponge making it more annoying than difficult to defeat it.

Outside of the adventure mode there is also a challenge mode that asks you to collect all kittens in a stage in a set time limit. I liked this mode at first, but once again the controls combined with a time limit didn’t make for an enjoyable experience.

Your enjoyment of Scram Kitty DX will likely come down to how you feel about the controls. For me there’s a lack of precision that would help with some of the challenges in the game that just isn’t there. I like the concept of Scram Kitty DX a lot more than I actually like the game. There’s some great level design and the challenges for each kitten sets up interesting gameplay, but in practice it’s not as fun as it might look.

A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. For more info on our review policy click here.