Review: Super Crush KO

Indie developer Vertex Pop (the team behind 2017’s Graceful Explosion Machine) is back with another vibrant, fast-paced spectacle with their latest release Super Crush KO. Super Crush KO is a side-scrolling brawler adorned with pastel vaporwave aesthetics and all the style of a mid 90s magical girl anime. The game follows Karen, a young woman with an intense love for her cat, Chubbz, and one hell of a right hook. 

Our story begins when an alien woman crashes into Karen and Chubbz’ home and instantly falls in love with the perfectly plump feline, resulting in a catnapping and subsequent pursuit. However, retrieving Chubbz proves to be quite the task, as Karen is forced to traverse an entire city, battling robots and various mechs along the way.

The game itself is fairly simple, with controls that are taught  quickly enough to get the game rolling without overwhelming the player. While your basic melee attacks require no cool down or powering up to use, your dash, your ranged attacks (blaster and energy beam), and all your various special abilities have cool downs that encourage variation in fighting. Success in the game depends on utilizing all your abilities, dodging every blow, and quickly eliminating enemies in order to achieve the best rank you can and clear the stage. After you do, you can view the leaderboard and see how your score stacks up to other players- a feature I’ve never particularly been invested in until this game, though whether that’s a testament to the game or my perfectionism I’m not sure. Perhaps a bit of both.

While at its core Super Crush KO is fairly simple, if, like me, you’re aiming for those coveted S-ranks on each level, the game becomes more challenging. However, this being said, it never feels punishing- allotting you five lives per level (though using one hurts your overall score) and being fairly generous with health drops. The ratio of frustration to satisfaction is wonderfully balanced and it seems like Vertex Pop was intent on making sure players of varying levels of familiarity with brawlers could all have fun. However, it is worth noting here  that aside from button mapping, there are no further accessibility options available for players seeking accommodations. 

I also feel it’s worth noting I said “varying levels of familiarity with brawlers” rather than “skill” because I feel it’s incredibly important to draw attention to the fact that beat em’ up games have never felt directed toward women. Super Crush KO is the first game in that genre I can think of that seems to embrace femininity in its design and story. Prior to this game, brawlers never really appealed to me, perhaps because of how hyper-masculine and aggressive they felt. This game made me realize I actually really love this style of gameplay. I felt myself improve the more I played and now have a renewed interest in playing games inside this genre.

The art and story of this game, while not incredibly complex, are sweet and made with love. The game’s ending, wihtout giving too much away, is lovely and, in my opinion, can and should absolutely be embraced as wonderfully queer. Overall, Super Crush KO’s biggest downfalls are its length, which is a bit short, and its lack of significant variation in its levels and platforming elements. However, it is a great starting point and I would absolutely love to see Vertex Pop make another game  and see how their vision evolves.

Ultimately, Super Crush KO is a fantastically frenetic, sugary sweet experience that pushes the genre in a new direction. It feels perfectly at home on the switch, where it can easily be picked up when you feel the itch to play a level or two on your morning commute, and while the game is short, it’s replayability and charm make it absolutely worth the buy. For fans of artistic indies, fast-paced action games, or anyone who wants to know what it would feel like for Sailor Jupiter to play John Wick for a day, I think you’ll have a fantastic time with Super Crush KO.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch with a code provided by the developer.