KABUTO PARK
- Hubert Spala
- Jun 2
- 4 min read
I love Summer. Sure, the heat can get a bit unbearable, but the long day fuels my solar-powered meat mech that is my body. However, there is one particular event that happens here around the second half of June that I always look forward to - the Bugsong. This is the time when the bugs in any tall clump of grasses and weeds start their music, mornings and especially evenings, playing their chirpy tunes. I love that sound to no end, and can pretty much stand next to a small urban meadow for a meditative session of listening to their concerto. So yeah, I don't have a fear of any of the crawlies. Beetles are cute! End of June brings those summer chafers that bumble seemingly drunk through the air in silly swarms. Bees visit my parapet fountain to drink. It's all serene, soft, and sweet.
And so, KABUTO PARK hits all the right spots for my summertime vibes. It's a cute little game about catching bugs and applying your multi-limbed friends to a test of their mettle in sumo-like battles! Let me be frank here at the start - it is a small game. Perhaps even a tiny game, and so, well fitting the blog's focus. I managed to pretty much 100% the game in about 2 and a half hours. A single evening of intense bug collecting, but that's about it. I don't write this as a negative point at all - we need small games, well-focused, and crafted with excellence. Tiny morsels of relaxing fun to soothe a day, and this title fits this description like a bespoke glove.
The plot is simple. You're a kiddo dropped into the titular Kabuto Park for summer holidays. As a budding entomologist, you put on your rubber shoes, grab your net, your magnifying glass, and romp through the few biomes of the park in search of new chitinous friends to add to your collection. Catching bugs is a simple, quick minigame, and with minor upgrades you can purchase at the shop, it can get easier. It's not, though, like it's too demanding anyway, and even has an accessibility option to control the challenge from the get-go. Nice! But collecting your bugs is just step one of the adventure. See, the core of the experience lies in the Bug Battle Tournament! A grand event in the park when similarly minded hobbyists - all kids like yourself - pitch their team of elite bugs against each other in a brutal battle of...
Haha sikes! Gotcha. No brutality here, no casualties, no bug-on-bug violence. Instead, our cute insectile friends fight over a small circular arena (a tambourine, it seems!) in an attempt to push the other team out of bounds. It is, technically, a sumo match. But Lo, and behold! Beneath the cute graphics and colorful buggos there is a whole fun combat system that I'd be more than happy to see fleshed out and explore in other games, too. See, each bug comes with three crucial stats. Strength, defence, and energy. Strength over how strong your lil fella can push. Defence, predictably, is how well it resists being pushed. While Energy speeds up your energy generation (doh!), which you use to play cards, in real time! No turns, but this sort of action bar is filling up.
And cards offer various actions, timed boosts, kicks, pushes, resistances, you name it. The best part is that the cards you have access to depend on your squad. Each of the three bugs has its own set of cards, so crafting a good team is crucial. Moths and Bees might not be strong or have great staying power, but they offer huge energy generation and very decent, tricky cards. Big battles might be superbly tanky, but their cards often are very expensive and monothematic. It's an easy-to-grasp, fun system that keeps the battles engaging.
There is a little pinch of salt here, which I hesitate to call out as an issue, more of a... design choice. See, the game has no limitations on how much time you can spend on each activity. You can keep catching bugs for hours if you so wish, and sell the excess to shore up candies and level up your squad to the max, each time you unlock a new level threshold. This sort of... trivializes the combat. Sure, the 'boss stages' might still require some active participation to win, but you can blaze through other challengers with barely playing a card. Now, as I said, this isn't a given - you might not want to keep catching bugs forever and focus more on tackling the combat scenarios, and without maxing out bugs in your team, you might need to apply yourself a bit. So instead, I'll say it's an organic difficulty slider - you can make the tournament a trifle if you spend enough time earning candies.
There is plenty of charm packed into this game, and a well-designed sense of pace. As you progress in the fights and the days of your summer holidays move onward, you unlock new bugs on older biomes, giving a good excuse to come back to them. Catching bugs is a bit repetitive, but the cute little tidbits of knowledge you can read on them, as well as a slightly interactive display terrarium, in which you can pet your bugs... well, they are both nice additions that made me crack a smile here and there. And heck, once you finish your holidays and your fights, you can re-do all of them at a harder difficulty to test out different squads and push your lil fellows to their limits.
Yes. KABUTO PARK is small. It is a little game for an afternoon or two at best, unless you really wanna spread it like a bit of jam on a cracker. But I played through it with delight, always happy to see a new bug and add it to my collection as well as interweaving little bouts of bug-pushin' combat between my escapades into the park. It has the most relaxing atmosphere, with gentle music, soft, colorful visuals, and a well-crafted pacing. If you're looking for a pleasant time for a short bit, a lovely summer game for the Summer Time, you will not go wrong with this one, I promise you that.
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