For an unending torment as the final reward to a life badly lived, Hell seems awfully easy to escape from. A boot to the cell door and it goes flying, leaving nothing in the way of freedom aside from giant black knights, skeleton guards, and flaming pits of lava between the ruins. It’s like Satan is just giving away free underworld tours, assuming you’re nimble enough to take the journey. Jump, mantle, wall-run, and grapple through the most precarious environments Hell and the surrounding dimensions have to offer and you’re home free.
Kick Bastards is a parkour game about fancy footwork in more ways than one. In addition to the Mirror’s Edge-style race across the rooftops, the cocky protagonist has a vicious kick that not only sends enemies flying but can be used to bounce off walls and get a little extra height when needed. Each level is a race to the finish, with most of them being a semi-linear dash to kick the big black knight at the end but also featuring a few open levels where the object is to take out all the enemies. The time to completion earns a medal and even the bronze one can be tough to acquire, while gold is more of a goal for the speed-run gods who can exploit every trick to wring maximum velocity from each movement. For those wanting a little exploration, though, there’s a hidden shoebox in each level plus the occasional odd secret to keep an eye out for.
It’s been a long journey for Kick Bastards, with the game showing up in various demo-fests for a couple of years and adisappointing Kickstarterlast year, but despite not reaching the goal development continued and the gamereleased on Steamtoday. It’s developed nicely in that time, adding just enough of a plot to keep things moving while brushing up the art, and a little play-time has even revealed a few levels that are purple rather than the game’s signature orange. Some levels are straight linear while others have multiple lines through them, and the mechanics give a good number of options to build and maintain speed. There’s theoretically no top limit on how fast you can run, in fact, and it should be a lot of fun to watch speed runners master the mechanics and earn times that don’t seem humanly possible. It’s a long run out of Hell and the devil has some unkind words for his escapee, but some parkour skills and more than a few instant restarts might be enough to race out of the inferno.
