Keen – One Girl Army Review for Nintendo Switch

vv

Keen: One Girl Army, brought to you by publisher Pheonixx and developer Cat Nigiri, released for the Nintendo Switch on July 2^nd, after being available on PC via Steam late June.

Taking on arcade-game-like graphics, Keen: One Girl Army guides you on a journey of discovery, rumination, and adventure. Kim, Keen: One Girl Army’s protagonist, might only be eight years old, but she’s destined to uncover a great conspiracy.

Keen: One Girl Army works as a slide and slash game with the addition of being a puzzle solver. Kim wears a spunky set of pink roller blades, which makes it impossible for her to slow down or stop on her own, forcing her to rely on walls, plants, or other means to end her movement. Donned with a fierce blade that GREATMA wielded many years ago to stop the great evil, Kim takes on an ever-increasing force of monsters.

Even though Kim is eight (and to her credit, claims to have trained to fight since she was three), Keen: One Girl Army is not afraid to go into darker topics. Keeping a fun, light-hearted feel to the game, Keen: One Girl Army still suggests that reality is fake (similar to the matrix),

and even those we love can be cruel.

The puzzles get more and more complex as you move along in Keen: One Girl Army, and the monsters get more and more dangerous. Taking time to decide on your next move is crucial, as well as the smart thing to do to avoid damage, as monsters only move when you do. With slide slash and cross slash your basic forms of attack, along with additional moves you gain that are single-use (until you reach a checkpoint), you must be wary. Cross-slack only does half damage, and if you end up next to a particularly strong opponent, they might wipe three of the five health hearts you possess.

While the puzzles do get harder, they are not impossible to solve without a little trial and error, or carefully thought out plans. It did get frustrating to me when I went several rooms without a checkpoint and ended up finally dying and having to redo all said rooms, but memorizing the execution methods to avoid additional damage helps move you along.

And even though Keen: One Girl Army adds some development to Kim’s arsenal, it’s not extensive. I began to get a little bored with the puzzle rooms, with Kim’s snarky dialogue, and with Kim’s movesets. Putting aside the easily guessed “plot-twist”, if you could call it that.

A truly fun part of Keen: One Girl Army is the hidden secrets everywhere – be it on the zoomed-out world map, or in the stages themselves. You are forced to explore every corner of Keen: One Girl Army if you want the additional movesets, so doing so is crucial, or you face giving yourself a huge disadvantage if you find that you miscalculated a step and will be dead in the next move unless you unleash lighting on all enemies in the room. This is both a good and bad thing, in my opinion. It makes you take more time with the game, and be curious and explorative, but it never adds to the lore of Keen: One Girl Army’s world.

Overall, I did have a good time with Keen: One Girl Army, and the cheery yet compelling narrative is fun to unveil. However, at times, I grew disinterested in the super long levels, and the repetition became too dull for my brain. I would recommend Keen: One Girl Army, but don’t expect a whirlwind of a lifetime.

End score: 7/10

Check Out the Keen – One Girl Army Trailer:

Keen – One Girl Army is available for Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam.

For more information, please visit the game’s official website.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.