Akane the Kunoichi

I went in expecting a breezy kunoichi romp and came out with sweaty palms and a complicated relationship with wall-jump mechanics. Haruneko Entertainment - essentially one Italian indie developer, Giovanni Simotti - built this retro side-scroller with obvious love for the classics, and that affection is legible in every pixel. The problem is that love letter does not always translate into a polished game, and honest coverage means naming both. The structure is clean and old-school: fifteen stages divided into five themed environments, each trio capped by a boss fight. You are Akane, a kunoichi with an infinite supply of kunai knives and a wall-jump that triggers whether you want it to or not. That sticky-wall behaviour is the game's signature annoyance, especially when you collide with a surface mid-dodge and get glued to it at the worst possible moment. Throw power-ups from broken lucky-cat statues spread your knives from one projectile to three or five, and three secret ninjitsu techniques - summonable via scroll pickups - rain down a flechette storm that doubles as both a panic button and a puzzle tool in later stages where standard horizontal fire cannot reach enemies. The five bosses are the highlight: an Oni that drops from the sky and chases you into a pit, an animated samurai armour that demands tight wall-jumping, a ceiling-spike dropper whose arena flows with moving water carrying Akane downstream if she stands still. Each one forces a different read and they represent the game at its most intentional. The regular stages are where opinions split hard and the Steam reviews land at a polarising 59 percent. Enemy variety tops out at four types - a walking grunt, a kunai-throwing ninja, a hat-flinging monk, and a dog you have to crouch to hit. That roster holds for all fifteen levels, with difficulty tuned upward by sheer enemy density and increasingly awkward spawn placement rather than new mechanics. No checkpoints inside a level means a four-hit death in the later stages sends you back to the stage menu every single time, and the difficulty curve swings from almost sleepy to genuinely punishing with very little middle ground. The soundtrack conversation is equally divided: some players hear a sincere homage to old NES chiptune energy, others hear royalty-free ambient filler. The truth sits somewhere in between - the boss tracks have actual momentum, the field music fades into wallpaper quickly. Who is this for? Honestly, for the player who grew up with Shinobi or the original Ninja Gaiden and wants a short, cheap afternoon of that exact muscle memory - kunai spam, pattern-learn, retry. The 45 hidden kimonos (three per stage) give completionists a secondary target, though there is no reward beyond personal satisfaction and a Steam achievement. If you need dash mechanics, double-jumps, or meaningful movement depth, Akane will feel hollow fast. But if the idea of a rough-edged, one-dev tribute to arcade-era side-scrollers makes you feel even slightly nostalgic, it knows precisely what it is trying to be and rarely pretends otherwise. That self-awareness carries weight for me. The craft is limited but it is genuine craft.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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