The Legend of Kusakari (Nintendo 3DS) Review

The idea of an entire game focused entirely on cutting grass does, of course, sound ridiculous at first glance, but on closer inspection it's actually quite an interesting twist on the standard RPG formula. Its clean, quirky 8-bit-inspired graphics (now the hallmark of almost any indie game) feel just as at home in the genre as any classic Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy game might, and it controls exactly the same as the classic top-down Zelda entries. The main difference is that combat is simply not an option - player character Shiba Kari is no warrior, but a humble grass cutter who wants to do his bit in the war against the Demon King.

With scythe in hand, the aim is to cut all of the overgrown grass in the level so that the actual warriors can fight against slimes, dragons and the like unimpeded by tall weeds - and it's a lot more complicated than it sounds at first. Shiba is very weak - even brushing against a slime will deal serious damage to him - and really struggles with his stamina, meaning his already-small health bar is constantly being lowered, turning the gameplay into a struggle to rush to the next available health-restoring plant (a patch of glowing blue grass, which is surely doing serious harm to Shiba's insides).

A special spin-attack rips directly from the Zelda rulebook to keep the man-on-grass combat interesting, causing the player to weigh up the effectiveness of cutting large swathes of grass while also wasting a large amount of stamina. Though perhaps uninspired, these extra mechanics do mark an effort to liven up ostensibly tedious gameplay. It's a shame, then, that The Legend of Kusakari is still so boring.

Graphically, it's incredibly dull, taking a few too many inspirations from Hyrule Field, while forgetting that part of the magic of Hyrule is the scale of the region; the variety of locales and the multitude of secrets they hide, concepts that characterise the franchise, are glossed over entirely. Musically it fares little better - there are very few distinct tracks, and the choice to add a poorly-played trumpet is an attempt at charming humour that doesn't land as intended. Mixed in with the frustrations of the gameplay itself (the stamina mechanic is particularly unforgiving, and Shiba's movement is nothing short of lethargic), the overall experience is far from entirely positive.

For those that do enjoy the game - and, make no mistake, there will be - there is still a charm to its presentation and the limited scope is befitting of a budget release. Librage has been kind enough to add a few extra features to encourage replayability, which are effective, albeit rather standard: completing special challenges in each level unlocks a new pixelised plant to be viewed in the in-game encyclopaedia, while the speedrun-minded can make use of online leaderboards - although these are admittedly rather barren.