Is it just me, ordo you also frequently find yourself daydreaming about becoming a deceased skeleton snake tasked with gracefully nudging fellow dead people out of purgatoryand into their final resting places? Just me? Fair enough.
Regardless, that’s exactly the situation you’ll be thrust into if you decide to check outKulebra And The Souls Of Limbo, a beautiful and charmingAdventuregame created by two brothers from the Dominican Republic.
It’s a unique setup for a game that’s made all the more worthwhile by the duo’s commitment to representing their own culture and folklore throughout the 10 hours you’ll need to complete a playthrough.
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Truth be told, I’m not typically amassiveAdventure game fan myself, though the occasional genre entry can still hook me from time to time. Even so,Kulebra And The Souls Of Limbohad such an insane amount of obvious indie charm that I was still super excited to jump in and see if it could be another rare genre brightspot for me.
For the vast majority of my experience, this game definitely succeeded. If you’re a fellow gamer that’s always looking forthe next title to tug on your heartstringsand smother you with charm, I just may have something for you. Let’s talk aboutKulebra.
A Papercraft World Rich With Culture
Near the top ofKulebra’s original Kickstarter landing page, the team claimsPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Dooras one of their largest inspirations. Honestly, this isn’t something anyone really needed to be spelled out for them, as the influence is abundantly clear the second you see any screenshot of the game.
Much like aPaper Mariotitle,Kulebra’s art style is absolutely gorgeous and interesting to look at throughout. No, the full Nintendo level of polish and detail isn’t quite there, but that shouldn’t take away from just how charming and cool this game still looks.
It also sets itself apart by leaning heavily into the creators' Latin American roots. The color palette is vibrant, and it’s extremely evident that there was a goal placed early on in development to makeKulebrastand out from a cultural perspective. This results in a refreshing and interesting presentation from start to finish.
Kulebra, your skeleton/snake protagonist, looks great, as do all of the other charming and creative characters you’ll come across throughout this journey into the afterlife. This includes goofy birds, talking boulders, failed wrestlers, astronaut dogs, and music festival-attending ghosts, all of which are designed and animated in lovely fashion.
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The game’s soundtrack is another standoutand sets the tone perfectly between the weird/whimsical and the haunting/poignant.
Ultimately, you don’t travel tothatmany different areas in the game, so there isn’t a staggering amount of biome diversity or anything like that. Still,the game looks and sounds amazing, and runs pretty much flawlessly.
Guiding Wayward Souls To Their Final Rest
As you might expect ina game about the afterlife, plenty of heavy subject matter is touched upon here. After all, most of the characters you meet have passed away from one thing or another, and that process simply doesn’t always happen in the most pleasant of ways.
Kulebrais never graphic about any of this information despitetouching on themes of abandonment, guilt, pain, loss, and even suicide. The game handles all of these things with grace, and also balances the more difficult topics smoothly with the charm and humor found throughout the rest of the game.
As you play as Kulebra and help characters process their past lives, all of these topics will come up organically. Nothing ever feels forced just for the sake of trying to trigger an emotion from the player.
In addition to the concept of Limbo and guiding the deceased to their final rest, the game also has a lot of interesting lore that you’ll uncover along the way. One such example is the fact that Kulebra is one of a small handful of characters that keeps his memory from day to day.Everyone else is stuck in a 24-hour time loop, complete with their brains being wiped at the start of each new day.
The game becomes a bit of a journey to uncover Kulebra’s purpose and why he’s one of the chosen few characters with the ability to retain memories. Once again, many of these narrative beats are tied to Latin-American culture, which makes for some fun and unique narrative directions you won’t get from many other games.
My main gripe from a narrative perspective is thatthis cool lore and story do occasionally get absolutely dumped on you. Unfortunately, one of the worst examples of this is at the end of the game, where one character monologues for entirely too long, and it really takes away from some of the final moments that should’ve hit a little bit harder if it wasn’t for this.
Accessible Adventure Gameplay To A Fault
Kulebrais an Adventure game, and you’ll spend a lot of your time picking up and trading items with others around you in order to progress the story, open up new areas, or help a character process their death. Occasionally, you’ll also be presented with some light puzzling, like sliding around a statue or mixing different colored potions to take care of a plant.
The most interesting thing here is that the game has looping day cycles similar toThe Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask…
None of the solutions is ever that hard to figure out. If you’re a gamer of culture and played theSpy Foxgames growing up, the level of critical thinking needed inKulebrakind of just felt like a slightly more grown-up version of that series.
Aside from these concepts,Kulebra will mostly just slither around, roll into objects to dislodge an occasional item or some extra currency, sneak around a few hostile enemies, and get dialogue hintsfrom characters about what he should do next.
The most interesting thing here is that the game has looping day cycles similar toThe Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, only with all of the stress of that title removed. Characters in the world have set positions during daytime, evening, and nighttime, so you’ll have to learn people’s schedules to be able to track them down when you need them.
There’s a wonderful notebook system in the game that automatically updates you on when characters will be in certain locations, so you don’t have to worry about too much memorization. Similarly, the quest log is phenomenal at making sure you always know what your next objective is.
There’snot any traditional combatinKulebrawhatsoever, but there are still a handful of creative boss encounters despite this.
Each of these works as a sort of quiz show where a character corrupted by darkness will grill you on questions and fun facts about the characters in the preceding level, emphasizing just how important it is to get to know everyone around you thoroughly. Answer enough questions correctly, and you’ll win this boss encounter.
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Some of the bosses also mix in fun ideas, like navigating a mosh pit at a concertor working the crowd in a wrestling match. It’s truly great and unique stuff.
Everything else in the gameplay department is serviceable, but it’s also just easy and straightforward adventuring for the most part. The time loops and unique boss fights are creative and cool, but also don’t ever elevateKulebrainto a gameplay masterpiece.
Small Team Charm With A Bright Future Ahead
Some minor shortcomings aside,Kulebra And The Souls Of Limbois still absolutely a game that the developers should be proud of. I had a really good time from start to finish, and it’s clear that this duo of brothers has a very bright future in the industry ahead of them.
This is a cozy game in all the right ways…
There’s just something extra endearing and exciting about a game that’s a passion project, and that vibe absolutely comes through inKulebrafrom start to finish.
While the game doesn’t soar as high as some of its direct indie contemporaries, it’s still high praise to admit that it did remind me of classic titles likeUndertale,Celeste, andSpiritfarerhere and there, just in terms of its delightful writing, humor, charm, and characters.
This is a cozy gamein all the right ways and is ultimatelyan easy recommendation to typical fans of similar indie gamesin general.
Closing Comments:
Kulebra And The Souls Of Limbo wears its heart on its sleeve for the entirety of its 10-hour runtime. The Paper Mario-style artwork is a treat, and the Latin American-inspired representation of the afterlife is a beautiful and refreshing setting. As an Adventure game, most of the puzzles and quests are pretty basic, but that doesn’t stop the charming characters and emotional, lore-filled story beats from shining through. It’s mechanically highlighted by some creative no-combat boss battles and cute puzzles, though the moment-to-moment gameplay isn’t always the most exciting thing in the world. Still, there is a lot to like here, and Kulebra will have no trouble winning most players over who are onboard to discover a thoughtful indie gem with plenty of endearing dialogue.
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