Ah the tale of kidnapping. It seems that there will always be a platform game with this story premise, being caught unaware, a character being dragged away by evil! This leading to the entrance of our hero who must smite all in his or her path to succeed in their mission. Well prepare yourself for another one of those stories. But hey, that is not always a bad thing. Under the story's surface, we have a really good platform game with action a plenty and very good controls, good music and overall not too hard of a game that really is worth a look.

All right, so on with the story. What we have is the tale of two brothers who were growing up until one day a dragon kidnapped one of the brothers away to Kyoto Castle. Therefore, our blue shirted hero (A name is never given) must go forth with his sword and save his brother. Ah well, it’s somewhat different than the cliché, well maybe.

Basically the game is standard platform fare, go through the levels to reach the end, vanquishing enemies along the way, collecting coins and hearts when necessary and avoiding dying and/or getting killed. Sounds easy enough right? Well if you’re expecting some sort of clever punch line where I end up going ‘oh but wait it is really a freakin hard game’, jokes on you! Actually the difficulty for the game is not too hard and it is not too hard to make it to the end in one sitting. There may be the odd time you miscalculate a jump or accidentally run into an enemy but it happens you move on and try again. The music in game with the exception of the first level which is from Secret of Mana, is great to hear and it fits in perfectly with the mood of the level. The enemies you find in game are not too big of a challenge as well and what's great too is you can defeat most either by jumping on their head or by vanquishing them with your sword, your choice.

The big issue with the game I had was the screen size where you play. It just is really small, and the problem is you can't change it. For some people it may not be a big deal but for others it just may. It would have been nice to have an option to change the size. Also, the length of the game is not too long; you can probably beat the game in one sitting as each world is 3 levels long and there are 4 worlds. Finally a little more story detailing would have helped, even with the very nice intro that brings you into the game, after that you don't hear a word at all through the game, kind of disappointing.

Still, this was a fun platform game to play and if you like vanquishing enemies with a sword and or jumping on their heads, this game is for you. So check out Kyoto Village and see for yourself.