(I wrote this on my phone in 2019 and haven't published it anywhere)
Kero Kero King for the Sony Playstation 1 is a platforming game disguised as a golf game.
Usually described as "that weird golf game", it's comparable to Kirby's Dream Course in that it is a fictional "sport" that would only ever work with a software physics engine.
The courses are small and tall, built for platforming, resembling a floating island from Super Mario 64 more than any golf course. Each course has a way to score a "Frog in One". Your frog will tumble, swim, catch on fire, or jump again to catch a fly for a snack. Your frog's mood effects its fighting spirit, which gives it some virtual pet elements. The soundtrack is mostly Reggae and Ska, which sets a chill atmosphere. The shopkeeper of each world is fully voiced, and each challenger has two animated cutscenes for their entrance and defeat. I hardly know as much Japanese as a two or three year old does, and I laugh out loud at the cute cartoon antics in each video. Games don't make me laugh out loud very often. My favorite addicting content to collect in any video game is new clothes for my character, and this game has it, as well as a various frogs!
The thing is, I would describe it more as a platforming game with golf controls grafted onto it. You're trying to get your frog to hop to the goal. The input method is a golf swing timer bar. Your frog jumps in an arc similar to other golf games, but he jumps multiple times and in many different directions. You will overshoot or fall to the wayside many times as you attempt to reach the goal. The frogs are jumping across platforms all the time, especially on later levels.
https://youtu.be/pAKKWsJpFA4
A friend brought this game to my attention about a week or two ago and I really need to give it a shot a long with Ribbitking. I'm absolutely in love with the visuals.
I would say kero kero king is like a multi-path rube goldberg or pachinko machine more than a platformer because you only control the initial approach (with skill!) and then past that it's up to the game logic, which you have to learn, but which is out of your direct control.
I really really like this series and legitimately find the story/dialog in ribbit king to be charming and amusing (reviewers hated it at the time, do you know it's got to be pretty good).
everyone should play whichever version of this game they can get their hands on, is what I think. it's a game that makes me happy!!!!
This thread deserves more appreciation, I'm here to show mine.
Personally, I've come to terms with the fact that I will probably keep discovering new interesting videogames I had never heard about from the PSX era until the day I die. Something very similar happens with the Nintendo DS, and that's probably the reason why those are precisely my favorite systems nowadays.
The Saturn also feels this way, but that's a catalogue I haven't sunk my teeth into properly (yet!).
great thread, excellent review of frog game, i enjoy the visuals muchly. i gotta play this. i don‘t know much about japanese art but it seems to me that this game has its own aesthetic which is timeless and works outstandingly for the hardware that it’s running on, much like katamari damacy……….
I wasn't really expecting any replies, or a thread to form, just putting it out into the world. I appreciate it though.
The artist is Yosuke Kihara. In a similar niche to Rodney greenblat I guess, I have found coloring books, Bandai virtual pets, and masks of their characters. They also have done album artwork.
I’ve just gone back to this. I honestly thought i must be close to the end but I was only in the second or third land. Lol.
I originally started it in 2018 on my PS2 slim, then moved my save to an emulation PC, and my save has been sat on Mac desktop for years. This time I’ll finish on an RGB30 handheld, for convenience.
I managed to dig up some of the artists old Macintosh animations in my collection of several hundred old Japanese Macintosh magazine CD-ROMs, which he was amazed to see after 30 years!
Used save states in the final third of the game just so I could complete it in a reasonable amount of time. The final boss opponent required no miss-hits and chip-ins from some distance away. Doable, but I don’t want to be here for another 6 years, so I used save states after every hole and regular game save after each opponent.
I had thought maybe I had finished it and lost my save and started from an earlier point, but I had not seen the last few opponents and definitely not the final boss, ending, or credits.
Ya know, I’ve had a US PS2 copy for years and never fired it up, I always just play Kero Kero King on PS1 because it’s so consistently delightful, but maybe i should give that other one a shot! Just occurred to me that my kids would probably get a huge kick out of it too. Thanks for reviving the thread, @gingerbeardman!
I only have the ps2 one, I think the only real difference is the ps2 version comes with a DVD? it’s also cheaper! I’d say play whichever you have easiest access to!
(update: it seems they both have the bonus disc. I’m not aware of content differences!)
GC probably emulates easier and might have progressive scan if you’re using real hardware, but a physical copy is like a hundred bucks more than the PS2 version these days, which I also now regret looking up the going rate of. Yikes! Yeah that might be a prime candidate for Dolphin these days, I suspect.
Is there any way to adjust the height my frog will jump in Kero Kero King for PSX? I go for the 20m hammer but it only jumps like half as far as the preview said. Also jumping up hills is completely impossible
It’s not so obvious from the HUD but you can use the dpad to adjust shot type. You need to do it whilst setting power, so it makes shots more difficult by design.
It’s displayed as the circle of coloured dots underneath the power bar.
Up is top spin so the frog/ball stays closer to the ground and might travel further (yellow circle in HUD will light up), down is bottom spin which means the frog/ball goes higher but might travel less distance (link circle in HUD will light up). Left and right curve the shot one way or the other (lighting up green or blue). You can combine up/down and left/right as diagonals.
Sounds like you need to do shots whilst pressing down.
But there are many other factors that could be the reason for your frog/ball not travelling as far as it says: shot over/at/under power, accuracy of where you stop the cursor on the power bar (red section), any powerups/downs that are currently in effect, ground type, ground angle, difference in height between player and target, wind power/direction, etc. That’s the depth of this beautiful game.
Use browser translate or Google translate photo mode on the images.
I play New 3D Golf Simulation series which I think taught me most about a lot of this, so I just expected Kero to have the normal golf controls.
Probably a golf book or manual or some other golf game would teach you how to change power and expectations when shooting to higher/lower ground, against wind, to use curve left/right to your advantage (draw/fade) etc.
