‘Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender’ Review
Boasting the strangest name this side of Ninja Baseball Bat Man comes Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender. Created by UK-based independent developer Tikipod Ltd, Aqua Kitty presents us with a glimpse of a terrifying world where the world’s supply of milk has become scarce. Faced with disaster, cats everywhere must brave their fear of water and risk the wrath of deadly robotic fish as they dive down into the very depths of the ocean to begin extracting the vast quantities of milk from naturally occurring ‘milk mines’.
Armed with only a high-speed submarine and your wits, it’s your job to defend the brave milk miners from the constant onslaught of robotic fish attempting to kidnap them. The game itself takes place on a looping patch of ocean, scattered with numerous ‘milk mines’. Enemies constantly spawn from the left and right of the screen and make their way either towards the nearest milk mine, or towards the opposite edge of the screen, depending on whether they’re truly hostile or simply cannon fodder to increase your score multiplier. Fortunately, a minimap at the top of the screen helps you keep track of where you should currently be on the map, with enemies helpfully color-coded depending on whether they’re out for your blood, or simply in the mood to steal away one of your miners. The controls themselves are exceedingly simple; the left analog stick moves you around, with the L and R buttons changing the facing of your submarine, allowing you to strafe easily between the oncoming barrage of bullets. X fires your submarine’s primary weapon, while O unleashes your special ‘triple shot’.
While the game’s simple controls make it seem easy, that couldn’t be further from the truth. New enemy types are introduced steadily throughout the game, usually one per level, which helps to keep things fresh, as well as to gradually increase the difficulty as a whole. It’s not too long before you go from lazily cruising around in circles to frantically dodging and weaving between walls of bullets, explosions, and the endless swarms of fish that have absolutely no respect for food chain.
Both the music and the graphics are utterly fantastic, strongly rooted in the days of 16-bit video games. This, combined with the side-on arcade shooter gameplay and the ‘enemy radar’ at the top of the screen, point clearly towards the game’s main influence, Defender, as well as, to a lesser extent, games such as Midway‘s Strikeforce.
Unfortunately, despite how addictive it is, the game is not without its flaws. The maps can be a little bland at times, as they’re essentially identical, save for the position of the milk mines. The music, while excellent, can get a little repetitive at times and, keeping in style with its inspirations, the gameplay can be a little shallow by modern day standards. There’s no option to upgrade or customize your submarine, save for a small number of temporary pickups dropped by certain enemies, and the game itself is rather short. These are rather minor quibbles, however, when compared to how enjoyable the game is as a whole.
Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender is a absolute gem. It has a few flaws, to be sure, but with gameplay so polished, they don’t even tarnish the overall experience. Tikipod Ltd has done a fantastic job with this game, and if Aqua Kitty is an example of the standard of titles that Playstation Mobile is going to supply, then it seems like the Apple App Store and Google Play have some serious competition on their hands.
You can check out Tikipod‘s other games on their website, or friend them on Facebook.
Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender is available for purchase now at the Playstation Store for Playstation Mobile.
