Kusan City of Wolves Switch Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch
I have a gaming confession to make: I have never played Hotline Miami. The closest I’ve come is Police Stories, which puts you on the other side of the law with a more tactical approach to clearing rooms and taking down the bad guys. So, when Kusan: City of Wolves popped into my inbox, I jumped at the chance to check it out. But does this Hotline Miami-style action game, featuring a gritty, Zootopia-style world and some John Wick-inspired action, manage a successful takedown, or is it going to sting like a flashbang? What’s It Like? Gear up, assess the situation, and let’s get tactical as we review Kusan: City of Wolves for Nintendo Switch.
Before we begin, a quick disclaimer for those who don’t want to sit through the full review. I’d strongly recommend checking out the Performance & Polish section, because Kusan: City of Wolves really is a tale of two cities when it comes to performance on Switch 1 versus Switch 2.
Kusan: City of Wolves puts you in the role of Jin, a veteran with a bionic arm and a really big chip on his shoulder, who undertakes a mission that quickly blows up into something much larger. As you progress, you’ll uncover conspiracy, betrayal, and a confronting past, with the game tackling some surprisingly heavy themes along the way. The story unfolds through a mix of in-game exposition and stylised comic-book strips that move the narrative forward between levels. I’m not going to lie, the story and themes actually caught me a little off guard. Despite going in expecting some violent, fast-paced gameplay, Kusan: City of Wolves doesn’t shy away from portraying Kusan as a gritty and unforgiving city.
And when it comes to the gameplay, unforgiving might actually be an understatement.
Kusan: City of Wolves is a top-down shooter where one hit is enough to kill you, sending you all the way back to the start of the floor. That makes every encounter a potentially deadly one, and you’ll need to make use of an arsenal that includes Jin’s bionic fist, which can be charged to punch enemies across the room, and even into each other, alongside a throwing knife that can be retrieved and firearms such as pistols, crossbows, and shotguns, all of which have limited ammunition. Thankfully, you can upgrade many of these abilities through Nimo, a deer who fills a role similar to the tailor in John Wick. Nimo sells augment chips that provide combat bonuses, as well as weapon upgrades, but these chips then need to be slotted into your loadout. This creates an interesting little layer of strategy, because your upgrades need to be organised efficiently. Every new chip raises two questions: do I actually need this, and can I fit it?
Thankfully, you can find cores throughout the game that reduce the size of your chips, while other upgrades expand your inventory space. It’s a system I really enjoyed experimenting with, and some upgrades felt genuinely essential. Being able to upgrade Jin’s fist so that he could deflect projectiles with perfect timing, for example, became an incredibly useful tool. Others, such as being able to walk faster outside of combat, felt much less necessary. Regardless of how carefully you put your loadout together, though, you will die. A lot. I wish I could say that the solution is simply to slow down, execute a strategy, and carefully plan your approach, but a lot of the time, Kusan felt more like trial and error. You enter a room, get killed, learn from the mistake, clear the room, move forward, and then most likely get killed around the next corner. Rinse and repeat. Someone with more experience with a game like Hotline Miami might relish that kind of challenge, but for me, it became increasingly frustrating. There were plenty of times where I’d make it all the way to the end of a floor, only to get clipped by an enemy at the last second and have to start the entire thing again.
That frustration is particularly noticeable during some of the game’s more creative set pieces. One encounter has you walking down a street as gangsters pull up in cars, forcing you to dodge both traffic and incoming enemy attacks. It’s a really cool sequence in concept, but when you sometimes have only a second or two to react, failing means another trip back to the beginning. Now, there is something very satisfying about finally mastering these encounters, but for me, the constant restarting eventually turned what should have been tense, tactical encounters into more of a slog. The difficulty is clearly part of Kusan: City of Wolves’ identity, but whether you find that punishing design exhilarating or exhausting will probably depend heavily on your tolerance for trial-and-error gameplay.
Unfortunately, this trial-and-error gameplay is made exponentially worse if you happen to be playing on the original Nintendo Switch… the platform Kusan: City of Wolves was designed for. There are a lot of moments where the action jolts, the framerate drops, or the game freezes altogether, only to finally unfreeze and reveal that, while the game was hanging, you had already died and now have to start the floor all over again. On Switch 2, Kusan really is a tale of two cities, because the game is perfectly playable and runs well on Nintendo’s newer system. On the original Switch, however, these performance issues, coupled with some lengthy loading times, really mar the experience. It’s such a shame, because Kusan: City of Wolves has a lot of promise.
That promise lies largely in Kusan: City of Wolves’ great setting and distinctive art style, which do a lot of heavy lifting throughout the experience. The levels are gritty and interesting, taking you everywhere from underground subway systems to high-speed motorbike chases on the highway. Each environment has its own character, helping Kusan feel like a living, dangerous city rather than simply a series of disconnected levels. The characters themselves feel like they belong in a dark and mature take on Zootopia, with a cast of anthropomorphic animals inhabiting this gritty world. There are also plenty of stylish set pieces and sequences that show just how much visual personality Kusan has. It’s just a shame that the technical issues on the original Switch can sometimes get in the way of appreciating it. Because underneath those performance problems is a game with a genuinely distinctive visual identity, and one that shows Kusan: City of Wolves has plenty of promise.
For my mercenaries hell-bent on revenge, looking into accessibility options, there unfortunately aren’t any specific accessibility options to choose from in Kusan: City of Wolves. As always, I recommend doing some further research to find out whether Kusan suits your particular accessibility needs. Thankfully, there is a free demo available on the Nintendo eShop, so you can try the game for yourself before deciding whether to buy.
At $22.50 AUD, Kusan: City of Wolves will take you roughly 6–10 hours to beat, depending on your skill level. Given the game’s punishing difficulty, additional challenges and ranking system, and trial-and-error approach, your mileage will obviously vary, with repeated attempts potentially adding plenty of extra time to that figure.
Kusan: City of Wolves manages to step out of the Hotline Miami spotlight and skulk its own path through a gritty, almost noir setting that really pulls you in. It’s a shame the technical issues on the original Switch often hinder that immersion, while the frustrating trial-and-error gameplay meant Kusan never quite managed to sink its teeth into me.
So, What’s it Like? Kusan City of Wolves is like Hotline Miami crossed with Zootopia.
In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.
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