Thunder Kid: Hunt for the Robot Emperor [Xbox]

Developed by Renegade Sector Games and EastAsiaSoft, Thunder Kid: Hunt for the Robot Emperor is a run-‘n’-gun action game set in the year 201X. After a war between the US and Canada, a rogue AI self-declared himself as ‘Robot Emperor’, and with his robot rebellion took control of a chunk of North America. Playing as the cybernetically enhanced Thunder Kid, you go on a mission to stop the Robot Emperor and his Robot Royalty.

It’s a fairly straightforward game, and I mean that quite literally. Thunder Kid can face no direction but forward, though can strafe from side to side to dodge enemies, as well as jump on to various platforms. Aiming your weapon is confined to what is directly ahead of you too, and whilst this feels like a strange choice at first, it does grow on you as you progress, though the lack of upgrades to weapons and your character feels like a missed opportunity.

Presented in a low-poly 3D art style, Thunder Kid has a great, retro look to it, with different level environments - albeit these feel similarly laid out, just with a different theme such as desert, snowy, etc. - and a bunch of different enemy appearances and attack types. Each area ‘theme’ ends with a boss, with cool designs and who will hit you with an absolute barrage of missiles and lasers, which can feel nigh on impossible to dodge until you have made a few attempts, and sussed out the rhythm of their attacks. The soundtrack is equally classic, and fits with the intensity of the levels.

Whilst enemies can feel intense, and the long stretches and corridors of them surrounding you makes things particularly tense, with sweeping lasers that will back you into tight spots; successfully pulling off jumps to steer clear, and making it to the end (whether you bother shooting all of the enemies or not), feels satisfying. Sometimes it is best to clear the path ahead by blasting enemies out of your way, but more often than not it is easier to just deal with the ones that are blocking you, and ignore/jump over the rest, instead of putting yourself in unnecessary danger, due to the fixed aiming angle.

There are large collectible coins stashed in each level (aside from bosses), just off the beaten path, for you to hunt down and collect. Quite often you’ll find that these require some super precise timing of your jumps to get across moving platforms and to dodge out of the way of enemy projectiles. It also requires a slight leap of faith, as sometimes it’s not clear which route will lead you to the ending and which to the coin, so you might end up having to do a bit of backtracking if you get to the end of the level without it.

Priced at £6.69 on the Xbox Store, though currently on offer for £5.35 for a limited time, Thunder Kid is a fun game that can be completed in just a few short hours. Oddly, you’ll bag all of the achievements well before the end of the game, which also feels like a bit of a weird choice, as then there’s no ‘reward’ for the more challenging bosses, but maybe makes things a bit easier on players who can’t quite make it through to the end. We both enjoyed our time playing Thunder Kid, and felt that whilst it was a great wee game, it was missing a few key components such as weapon upgrades or some form of unlockable skills to add a little bit more variety to the gameplay, or having other secrets to find such as skins or other playable characters - and this would have given it a good boost in our opinion. But as it stands, it’s an enjoyable, if slightly bland time.

In the end, we decided to give Thunder Kid: Hunt for the Robot Emperor the Collecting Asylum rating of 6.5/10.

Are you interested in Thunder Kid? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!

- V x

Thank you to EastAsiaSoft for the Thunder Kid: Hunt for the Robot Emperor Xbox review code!