Kraken Academy!!

Kraken Academy!! is a time-loop adventure game that wears its absurdist heart on its sleeve. You are a new student at an academy that is, to put it charitably, not up to any known accreditation standard. The school is populated by eccentric classmates, cryptic teachers, and one very large kraken who informs you that the world is about to end and that you are, somehow, the person responsible for stopping it. You have three in-game days before the loop resets, and you will need to run them over and over, building knowledge and relationships until you have enough pieces to actually fix things. The gameplay sits closer to a point-and-click adventure than anything traditionally RPG-coded, despite the genre label. There are no stats to crunch, no builds to optimize, and no combat to speak of. What you do get is a web of characters spread across five social cliques, each with their own storyline, hangout spot, and personal crisis to untangle. Spending time with the Drama kids unlocks different information than running with the Sports crowd, and since a single loop is too short to cover everyone, you are constantly making triage decisions about whose story you chase this cycle. It is a light system, but it creates genuine replay incentive without turning into a filler grind. The writing is where Kraken Academy!! earns its very positive reputation. The humor is deadpan and strange in the best way, the kind that makes you screenshot dialogue to send to friends who will not fully understand it without context. The kraken in particular is a comedic goldmine, oscillating between portentous prophecy and extremely petty personal grievances. Underneath the jokes, several of the character arcs carry real emotional weight. You will probably not expect to feel things about a fish-themed school musical, and yet. The visual style is loud and deliberate: thick outlines, saturated colors, and character designs that lean into caricature without becoming unreadable. It runs smoothly and there are no technical complaints to file. The experience is short by RPG standards. Most players finish their first full loop cluster in four to six hours, which means at full price it is a commitment you need to weigh against genre expectations. If you come in wanting a sprawling narrative RPG, you will bounce off it. If you come in wanting a tightly written, genuinely funny adventure game with a time-loop hook and enough secrets to reward curious players, it delivers. The main knock against it is that the loop structure, while well-designed, does not layer complexity the way something like Outer Wilds or even Majora's Mask does. Later loops mostly feel like efficient routing rather than revelation. The kraken lore is fun but not exactly deep, and players hungry for worldbuilding that rewards scrutiny may find the world a bit thin once the jokes settle. Still, for what it is trying to do, it lands its jokes and its emotional beats with more consistency than most games twice its length.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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