An adorable, short, bug-catching and battling game that feels like the perfect moments of summer, Kabuto Park has a cute graphic style that pairs with fun interactions that feel like something you’d have done if you grew up in a small country-side town. Well, minus the bug battling!
Kabuto Park is simple; you catch bugs in an area and then battle them. After a successful battle, the day ends and the next day starts. When it comes to collecting bugs, you will need to search for bugs in a specific areas of your map. Some are locked until you have levelled up, which is done through purchasing a new pair of rain boots at the shop. Once you’ve picked an area to search for bugs, there are different icons that show you where you can search. You have a limited number of times to do this in each area. Selecting where to search brings up a moving bar.
These moving bars are a little tricky to get use to as you need to tap your button at the right moment — when the line is across the blue or green area. Blue areas let the bug come closer, so that you get another go, and green do catch the bug. Some bugs are rare, some bugs have their blue and green area changing, and some bugs are just so difficult to catch! Once you have the bug, though, you can either sell it off for candy or you can keep it. Even if you get two of the same bug, they might have slightly different stats.
When it comes to the stats of the bug, these mainly matter in the fighting, card-battle element of the game. Each of the bugs have corresponding cards. So, when you pick three bugs to battle in Kabuto Park, you are selecting your deck for battle. Your bugs will go against three other bugs, and you will slowly gain energy as time passes to use your cards. Some cards do literally nothing, some give you boosts in defence, some let you push the other bugs harshly. Your goal is to push the enemy bugs off of the tambourine.
There are also other means to spend your money; like a magnifying glass that gives you more goes per area and a book that attracts more rare bugs. You can hunt and sell off bugs as much as you want (along with levelling up your bugs) before taking on a battle to go to the next day. The weather also does change in the game, which brings new bugs to areas that you might not be visiting anymore, changing how many you can collect from there.
Kabuto Park is a bite-sized game that feels perfect for the summertime. If you’re a fan of bugs, summertime activities, and a very light version of a card battler, it’s a game worth spending your time in especially for the price point.
You can find Kabuto Park on PC, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.
