Captain Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaveman.
After winning 2019’s Big Indie Pitch, developer BINGOBELL, a studio based in Shenzhen China, began work on prepping Kaku: Ancient Seal for its early access release in 2023. After a year of being available, their action RPG title is ready for its full release, sporting a whole new look for the titular Kaku. While it is still rough around the edges, with a fairly below-average story and questionable localization, Kaku often shines because of its wonderfully animated lead and some truly gorgeous visuals.
During a chase sequence at the start of the game, Kaku is attempting to capture a small flying pig named Piggy. It’s here where Kaku then meets an old man who guides Kaku towards an adventure that will see the young cave boy conquering mystical beasts and visiting far-off lands, being selected as some sort of chosen one, even if the story never truly feels positioned for that to truly make sense. While the setup and execution takes a while for the game to find its footing, it’s a shame that there was not more to initially connect Kaku to the events that transpire than him simply being in the right place at the right time. Kaku is given his task and sets forth to take it on. Admirable, sure, but I wish more had been built here to lay a convincing foundation.
Once the setup is placed before you, Kaku will explore four worlds; The Misty Swamps, Howling Snowfield, Flame Mountain, and the Dragonbone Desert. These worlds all exist alongside the mystical Floating Islands. Kaku will also explore the Ruins Realm where he can upgrade his kit as well as tackle a variety of challenge temples, very similar to those found in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. These challenges, much like the final locations of each biome, are comprised of hitting switches, jumping over spinning blades, platforming, and more. While a few of these tend to repeat some ideas a bit too often, they were still fairly enjoyable and made for a nice break from combat.
Previously, in the Early Access version, those temples were found out in the world, but here in this final version, they are all collected within themed biomes within the Ruins Realm. This change is an odd one as previously it gave you reason to fully explore its visually stunning environments. Now, however, it gives reason to simply book it for the next objective marker and not look back.
Each of the four words has an elemental stone that is protected by one of the four Elementals. While you can tackle each location in whatever order you want, I truly feel that the Misty Swamp was designed at being the first as it clearly has had the most work put into it. Howling Snowfield and the Dragonbone Desert feel much smaller in comparison while still putting in the work to be enjoyable locations. While Flame Mountain takes a while to earn its name, I ended up finding its final location to be worth the wait.
Each location has its own tribes, stories, and characters, but nothing in the way of compelling moments. One of the reasons I kept coming back to Kaku to see it through was its appeal of feeling like a CG animated kids show. Each of its worlds almost feel as if they were episodes as part of one complete seasonal arc. During its roughly 10-15 hour adventure, a few cutscenes do standout, but largely because of the visuals and how decently directed they are. While these moments do well enough to convey the story being told, the conversations you have with its supporting cast don’t quite hold up.
Prior to release, we were made aware that the localization is being improved, but as of now and what I was sent to review, the dialogue can be a bit rough. Kaku: Ancient Seal has its entire voicework to be a gibberish caveman language and while I can understand it being a budgetary reason, it’s one of the many games released over the past few years where a fully voiced game would have complimented its visuals as again, it feels like a kids animated series come to life. It also doesn’t help that many spoken moments don’t allow you to manually continue the dialogue, meaning you are going to miss some bits of the story as you move around. This is furthered by incredibly small text with no way to change this.
My time with Kaku was split between playing on the Steam Deck, which runs fairly well, and on my laptop, which ran at medium to high settings. Regardless of which platform, it ran very well. However, I’ll stress that playing on the Steam Deck made it very difficult to read any text given it is incredibly tiny. Unless the final version patches in some sort of way to resize the text, I would say that you may want to try out the demo if you are looking forward to it on Valve’s miracle handheld.
As you explore each of the four lands, Kaku will engage in a wealth of combat encounters, side quests, as well as puzzle towers that then allow you to fast travel to them upon completion of their puzzle. These towers are sliding block puzzles that are fairly one-note. The action follows what you’d expect from an action RPG in that you’ll have melee and ranged options as well as a series of combo attacks to unleash several special attacks. Your overall kit has you wielding a central club which you’ll discover more variety as you progress as is the case with additional armor sets, all of which can be enhanced by special runes that grant additional stat bonuses.
You’ll also have an arm blade as a secondary attack option. While your main weapon damages their health, the arm blade is there to decrease their poise, opening them up for your main weapon to seal the deal. You’ll also have a slingshot that can be used to fire off different types of pellets, each having different elemental properties. I will say that while your general attack options are fine on a controller, swapping pellet types was not as fluid as I would have liked, especially when small instances of darkness require you to swap on the fly to hit particular orbs that swap back and forth, each requiring a certain pellet type to vanquish them.
Kaku will also have other basic movement systems such as both a ground and air dodge/dash, a slam attack, as well as using Piggy to leap great distances, teleport to the Ruins Realm, form a bubble that allows Kaku to run across water, and the weird ability to use Piggy as a mask. Honestly, that last one feels like a weird afterthought designed around giving Kaku a fourth piggy skill. It has its own narrative reason, but it’s something that feels lacking in its concept. Given the scale of some of its worlds, I sort of wish Piggy could have acted like a glider, instead of having to either teleport via the fast travel locations or hoofing it down along the paths and platforms.
Given that Kaku can suffer considerable fall damage, navigating the world is both simple and oddly complicated in some ways. The map, which only let me zoom in so far, can often be misleading in whether you can traverse to where you need to go, or having to find various alternative routes to take to get where you are going. I will say that if you are stuck, do remember you have the ability to leap across with piggy or rely on your bubble to traverse water, the latter of which felt rarely used across the story. Another way to move around is by using a series of sphere-like plants to slingshot them through cracked walls. While this is a neat idea, the whole system is slow going as you pull back and watch the cursor lethargically move to where you need to go. Considering you need only aim each plant in one direction, a more snappier method should have been considered.
Kaku will also gain special attacks. These consist of a spinning attack that summons lava to scorch your enemies, a stone attack that leaves a healing circle at its conclusion, to a powered-up slingshot attack that feels weaker than it should be, at least when used on anything bigger than your typical mob. Kaku can also change into a more powered-up version dressed in white that has his own weapon and power. This form is very powerful and can often deplete one of three health bars attached to a boss in a single go. These attacks require that you fill up Kaku’s ultimate bar, which can be charged up through the use of your basic attacks.
Kaku has a skill tree that allows you to unlock additional combo attacks. While several are fairly good to pull off, the spinning slash is one that you’ll likely rely on as it can destroy mobs of enemies and bosses in seconds flat. In fact, it was so reliable that I rarely engaged with several of the other combos that while looked cool and were effective, the spinning attack was far more effective and would continue to go as long as you had the stamina or used the stamina-based consumables to keep you fully stocked. I think the combat system is fine and while I wish there was alerts or some visual cues for enemies around you or incoming attacks, it's still fairly serviceable in providing a fun action game. It’s not terribly deep, but it’s far from bare bones.
Bosses themselves are fairly well designed but can feel very long in the tooth considering they each have three health bars. I also had issues where if I continued to attack a health bar when one was broken, the boss would have to take a lot of damage to see the next one start to deplete. When I would take out one health bar and then stop attacking to then start up again, this issue was resolved. I’ll note that each boss has three health bars as a way to then introduce different mechanics and moves. That said, the final boss is quite the annoyance due to there not being checkpoints between phases, given they can one-shot you during the second and third phases.
One major change between the early access version and this full release is that Kaku himself has been entirely redesigned with a vastly improved character model. In fact, the style and look, not to mention the quality of the model, reminded me a lot of Kena: Bridge of Spirits. This new look for Kaku is where I made the comparison to this game feeling like a kids cartoon given the charm and personality in this new look. It’s a huge improvement and gives Kaku a look at can at times feel more than the title just being a small indie release.
Kaku: Ancient Seal is often great, but a collective of small issues and bland systems do hold it back. Combat is serviceable in that you have a few options that work well, but you’ll largely find yourself just spamming the best options. The story lacks agency for Kaku himself, making him more of a bystander than an active participant. The localization is being addressed, but as of right now, it certainly has several problems. Its worlds are gorgeous, but its map doesn’t always convey the best routes to take and while it attempts to make them feel lived in, they are remarkably empty, almost as if something more was meant to be featured here. All that said, Kaku: Ancient Seal is still a fun time with a lot of charm and passion put into it to make certain elements truly stand out.
Developer - BINGOBELL. Publisher - BINGOBELL. Released - July 12th, 2024. Available On - Steam. (Console dates TBA) Rated - (N/A) - Information unavailable. Platform Reviewed - Steam. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.