The Legend of Kusakari Review

The first moment I saw the logo of this game I instantly thought it was a Legend of Zelda game as the colours and font looked very similar and so was the name! And I was not wrong, as developer Librage were inspired by the grass cutting from the popular games series. That’s right! In the Legend of Kusakari, you will need to dodge stealthy slimes and ghastly ghosts to cut the grass and weeds (no rupees drop unfortunately) to help the heroes save the kingdom. Who would have guessed the MVP of a game would go to the grass cutter of all people?!

With over 50 different levels, the story of revolves around a young man called Shiba Kari and even though the kingdom where he is from is plunged into darkness, the least he can do is help the heroes fighting by giving them a well-mown lawn to attack on. The music in the game is amazingly cheerful as there is a little band playing trumpets and trombones, cheering you on as you chop the grass with your scythe.

The gameplay is very simple, you swing once with your scythe each time you press the B button and the more swings you do, the more your scythe will level up. The levels will allow you to use his special spin cut move (imagine Link’s spin move) by pressing the A button, and this helps him to cut a lot quicker.

The game is all about speed, because your health depletes when grass is not cut, but never fear, as you progress there will be blue coloured healing grass for you to replenish your life. To help you on your speedy adventure, you have the trusty L and R buttons to make Kari dash around but the down side is you lose a lot of control, so don’t go bumping into any baddies or goodies on the job!

Once you complete a level, you are given a rank with the highest being S rank, so the faster the grass is cut, the higher your rank will be. Unlock strange and wonderful plants which you can look through in the Greenthumb Almanac by completing certain tasks in each level. There is a map at the bottom of the screen indicating the grasses that need to be cut and the route your character has taken, however, there is no indication on where monsters are so you cannot rely on the map for that.

The graphics in this game is simple and cute with good animation of the characters and monsters. The monsters in the game are quite adorable so it’s a good thing the main character does not kill, but they can be quite annoying to manoeuvre around!

If you are up for a challenge then you can always try your hands on the Endless mode. This is where you test your grass cutting skills to see how much you can cut before your health depletes to zero. If you are feeling competitive then you can compare your score with the other players by choosing the Online Ranking option.

Overall, this game definitely put a smile on my face with the cute marching band, the music when you complete a level and just the simple joy of cutting grass. So if you fancy playing a game where the hero is not always the main character, then don’t make Kusakari a legend anymore and CUT THAT GRASS!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo 3DS code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.