Kamikaze Veggies review: Tactical vegetable espionage action

Kamikaze Veggies is an intriguing video game, to say the least. On the one hand, it delivers some really intense and grounded stealth sequences that are bound to make Solid Snake proud. On the other hand, it features a completely absurd narrative that has no semblance of reality.

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Kamikaze Veggies is a game about a rebellion of heroic vegetables who want to thwart the plans of their “Red Communist” enemies by any means possible. The ideas brought to the table in the game's narrative and gameplay departments are genuinely inventive.

I have played many stealth games and puzzle platformers throughout my entire life, but I have to admit, nothing compares to the sheer joy of playing Kamikaze Veggies.

Developer Red Limb Studio’s little indie stealth-action title blew me away with its unabashedly hilarious plot and characters as well as its engaging and fun gameplay systems.

On top of that, the game features local split-screen co-op, allowing me to share the experience with a friend or family member, which is a plus in my book.

Kamikaze Veggies is an outstanding and explosive vegetable action game

Kamikaze Veggies surprised me with the quality of its puzzles and how the developer was able to weave them into the stealth sections of the title.

The game kept me engaged, whether I was solving a really tricky environmental puzzle or sneaking behind enemies to blow them up using the “Kamikaze Blast” mechanic.

Kamikaze Blast makes the heroic troops explode in a million pieces, damaging all the enemies in the vicinity (Image via Red Limb Studio)

The Kamikaze Blast is a unique and interesting gameplay concept. You see, every vegetable troop in the game is equipped with a remote explosive. When surrounded by enemies, it can be used to sacrifice the vegetable troop in a massive explosion, killing the enemies along with the heroic warrior.

A vegetable troop's death, however, doesn’t end the mission outright as the next troop in the squad spawns right where the last one dies.

Although Kamikaze Veggies has a pretty interesting plot, which really got me invested, it is not story-driven. In fact, the only narrative that players get in the entire game’s runtime is at the start, with a funny and exposition-heavy cutscene and an invigorating speech by Commander Carrotado.

The story is just a reason to drive the gameplay, and for a game like this, it’s not a negative in my opinion.

Engaging and fun gameplay awaits players

In Kamikaze Veggies, players take control of a squad of vegetable troops, each with a unique ability that affects the moment-to-moment gameplay in interesting little ways.

There are a total of eight playable troops that players can select before starting each level.

Players can choose from a wide range of vegetable warriors (Image via Red Limb Studio)

The levels in the game are a mix of puzzle-platforming and stealth scenarios, where players need to solve a few puzzles while avoiding enemy contact.

There are also a few levels that focus exclusively on puzzle-platforming. They were a treat to go through as the puzzles were the real highlight of Kamikaze Veggies for me.

The most memorable missions for me were the ones where I had to deduce a solution to an environmental puzzle while simultaneously preventing the big red communist tomatoes from spotting me.

The stealth in Kamikaze Veggies is not as in-depth as games like Metal Gear or even the older Assassin’s Creed titles, but what is available serves the purpose.

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The game offers some of the most well-crafted and immaculate puzzles that I have ever experienced in a video game. The puzzles at the start are pretty basic, requiring me to find similar colored gems to slot into a machine in order to unlock a door.

The levels that came later had some really tricky puzzles that required me to complete a complex platforming challenge in order to progress. The puzzles get exponentially more complicated with each level, keeping the freshness and challenging aspects of the game intact.

The gameplay of Kamikaze Veggies, just like its narrative, is not aimed at realism or depth but is focused on delivering a joyful and entertaining experience. The game also features co-op via local split-screen, which really taps into the nostalgia of the old days of gaming.

The presentation of the level selection screen is top-notch (Image via Red Limb Studio)

Another aspect of gameplay I really adored was the level selection screen. Instead of selecting a level with the cursor, I basically had to fly a plane that carried the vegetable troops to the desired level. It is a super interesting and creative way to present the level selection screen in a video game.

The absolutely bonkers narrative of Kamikaze Veggies

The story of Kamikaze Veggies takes place thousands of years after the extinction of mankind due to the greenhouse effect. This resulted in vegetables becoming the dominant species on the planet. However, due to the increasing temperature and lack of water resources, the vegetable race is in disarray.

The game starts with an intriguing cutscene describing the story (Image via Red Limb Studio)

The increasing intensity of the sun's rays has caused some vegetables to go bonkers and start killing their own kind.

A once friendly and loving tomato, Joseph Pommodorov has now turned into a ruthless dictator. He aims for global domination by gathering a force of red communist vegetables.

It is up to a handful of brave vegetable heroes to stand against the tyranny of Pommodorov and stop his plans, even if it costs them their lives.

Despite its wacky nature, the story's use of vegetables compelled me to jump right into the action and annihilate the evil tomato forces. The humor and fun factor of the narrative is intensified even more, thanks to some quality voice acting.

The encouraging speech from the corn commander before every level, is easily the best part of the game (Image via Red Limb Studio)

The entertaining presentation of the unrealistic and absurd story is what sold me on the game, even before I got to play it.

The starting cutscene with the speech from Carrotado is really hilarious and sets the tone of the game from the get-go.

An amazing soundtrack to complement the stellar levels

Kamikaze Veggies offers a great soundtrack that perfectly complements the stealth-action gameplay of the title.

I found myself really engrossed in the game’s tense stealth section due to the background score that was played whenever I got spotted.

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The track had me grooving at times, and I found myself voluntarily getting spotted by the tomato enemies so that I could once again listen to the energetic score.

It’s truly amazing how many things Red Limb Studio got right with their small indie project.

But for the shortcomings

Although Kamikaze Veggies is a fantastic indie title, it’s not without its issues. I ran the game on a PC with a GTX 1650 Super graphics card, Intel Core i7 8700K processor and 16 gigabytes of RAM.

This more than exceeded the minimum requirements of Kamikaze Veggies, but I still faced regular frame drops and micro stutters. These issues have been somewhat remedied in the most recent patch but still persist in some capacity.

Keeping track of the troops can be a bit of a hassle during gameplay (Image via Red Limb Studio)

Suffice to say, the game needs a few patches to fully optimize the experience on PC. Apart from that, there are minor visual bugs like texture popping and screen tearing that need fixing.

Kamikaze Veggies also doesn't have many options to tweak its visuals in order to achieve better performance, which is unacceptable for a game coming out in 2022. The only options that players can toggle on are the resolution, vsync and overall quality.

UI is another aspect that can be improved. I found the icons representing the remaining troops to be really small, which made it hard to keep track of the troops during missions.

In conclusion

I wasn’t expecting much from Kamikaze Veggies. However, the game grew on me the moment I started playing it.

The gameplay, despite lacking several intricacies that players have come to expect from stealth or puzzle-platformer titles, is still a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

The creatively crafted puzzles get progressively more and more difficult (Image via Red Limb Studio)

The narrative and gameplay themes can oftentimes feel extreme. For instance, the self-sacrificing mechanic or the use of bits and chunks of fallen troops as grenades. The game even names the enemy faction “red communists” as a nod to left-wing politics.

However, the way these aspects are presented in Kamikaze Veggies never made me think about their real-life implications. And I suppose most players won’t even think much about these themes while going through the game.

Kamikaze Veggies delivers strongly in terms of gameplay, with some really creative puzzles and fun stealth sequences.

Apart from a few technical issues that can easily be fixed by a couple of patches and updates, it is a great game. I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys action games, puzzle-platformers or both.