Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first few minutes are easy to understand and tougher to execute. You have movement in four directions, plus dig and fill, and the stages are built from ladders and platforms that turn every pursuit into a question: where can you make a hole, and can you coax a KEN into it before it catches you? The shovel is your entire arsenal, so success comes from positioning rather than brute force.

What gives Buriabeast more bite than a one-trick chase game is the three-stage defeat process. A green KEN becomes red after its first fall, white after its second, and only dies after a third. You cannot simply trap an enemy once and move on; you must keep track of which threats have already been softened up and repeatedly guide them back into danger. Once that rhythm clicks, each level becomes a small routing puzzle.

There is friction baked into that structure. Digging a useful hole is only half the job, because you still need an enemy to take the bait, and the repeated falls can make a stubborn KEN feel like unfinished business that will not leave the screen. The fill control adds another layer to manage, but this is very much a game for someone who enjoys working within a small, strict set of actions rather than being handed a growing toolbox across its thirteen levels.

Graphics

The side-view screens are made of ladders and platforms, keeping the important information plain: where you can climb, where you can run, and where a newly dug trap sits. The KENS’ green, red, and white color changes are especially useful, since you can see at a glance how many falls each one has survived.

Story

Buriabeast does not linger on its setup. You are the last remaining human, Earth is under attack from marauding mutant KENS, and a shovel is apparently humanity’s final line of defense. It is gloriously direct arcade nonsense, and that directness suits a game that wants you back on the platforms quickly.

There is no need for the premise to carry emotional weight when the actual drama comes from a KEN closing in while you decide where to dig. Still, the lonely-defender framing gives the repeated trapping a tiny bit of purpose beyond chasing points or clearing a board. You are not a heavily armed hero; you are a survivor improvising with dirt.

The enemy color progression does more storytelling work than you might expect from such a spare premise. Watching a KEN move from green to red to white makes every partial victory visible and turns the final drop into a clear conclusion. It is a simple visual shorthand, but it gives the conflict a satisfying sense of attrition.

Overall Experience

Buriabeast is a compact, demanding platform-puzzle game built around one sturdy idea. Dig, lure, repeat. If that sounds a little severe, it is, but the game earns its tension by making every hole a commitment and every enemy a problem you must solve several times.

The payoff is strongest when you stop treating the KENS as identical pursuers and start tracking their colors, planning the next trap before the current one has done its work. That is where the game shifts from basic evasion into a more deliberate little contest of crowd control. Its controls are limited, yet the interaction between platforms, ladders, holes, and enemy states creates enough pressure to make clean clears feel deserved.

Give it a chance if you enjoy early arcade designs that ask you to master a concise ruleset through repetition and sharper decisions. Skip it if you need variety, a richer story, or a gentler learning curve to stay engaged. For everyone else, Buriabeast has the stubborn charm of a game that takes a shovel seriously and makes you do the same.

Retro Replay Score

5.8/10