Review: Kabuto Park Can Be a Simple Bug-Catching Sim

Kabuto Park attempts to capture a moment. It’s summer. You’re a kid. You have no responsibilities and very little supervision. There are bugs everywhere, but they’re friends and not fearsome. All of this makes for a perfect opportunity to obsess over the little critters and share them with your friends. While the result is a game that’s a bit short and is best played in small doses due to a simple gameplay loop, finding these little guys is still quite pleasant.

You’re a young child who is about to enjoy 30 days of summer vacation. How? By catching bugs. Your new friend Midori kicks off August by introducing you to the joys of exploring places like a farm, a lake, a forest, and a swamp to find unusual critters. Once you do, you can level them up and battle them in a big tournament for cash and candy. Why? Well, it’s a way to spend some time.

Kabuto Park is an incredibly simple bug-catching sim. You start out with access to one area, then need to participate in battles in the tournament to earn enough money to upgrade the boots and reach new spaces. Catching involves a timing-based system, during which pressing the confirm button on a blue patch lets you move closer for increased green area catching opportunities. You start out being able to catch two bugs per area, with a tool upgrade increasing that, but since time doesn’t pass until you compete in that day’s tournament battle and there are only a handful of spots to search in each location, it’s not really worth investing in anything beyond a boots to reach new spots and guide to increase odds of encountering uncommon and rare bugs. 

Catching and battling are also rather breezy affairs. So while you can pay in-game coins for Honey to increase the green patches during a moment when you find a bug, I didn’t really find that necessary. As for battling, you basically watch as your team of three bugs pushes up against an opponent’s trio. The goal is for one side to push the other out of the “ring,” with the cards in the deck adding skills that can be supportive, defensive, or offensive.

However, since you can see the opponent’s stats right away, it is easy to just… overpower them and win. Especially since there are certain bugs that are extremely OP, catching repeats of bugs means you can “sell” them for candy used to level ones you own up, and the early game bugs can be as good as endgame ones depending on your cards and moveset. For example, a Goliath Beetle is ridiculously strong, has a temporary buff card that keeps the team from being pushed back, and owns an incredible Overcharged Kick attack card. But then, all the rare bugs I found seemed to possess the best sorts of movesets and stats. Even if I tried to experiment with a Wind-based card deck, it just wasn’t worth it to deviate from my other lineup.

Easiness aside, I will note that another issue is that Kabuto Park doesn’t feel exactly perfect on a handheld gaming PC like a Steam Deck or Lenovo Legion Go. It isn’t optimized for a control scheme that only uses a controller. The mouse sensitivity and speed is too high, so it’s incredibly easy to overshoot with the cursor when browsing menus or making selections. Using the touchscreen is an option, but then there are some inputs where just tapping isn’t enough and you then need to press the A button to confirm the actions. 

I will say the fact that it is short, affordable, and easy meant I found it easy to appreciate other elements. The bug designs are quite cute. They’re stylized, but still recognizable. Especially with certain ones like an Orchid Mantis. I could use bugs I really liked or found strong, since they do remain viable for a long time. There are shiny bugs, just like there are shiny Pokemon, which incentivized the whole catching process and made me want to return to areas where I’d already found every critter. Also, while it can get a little repetitive, the fact that it is brief helps keep it from getting tedious.

Kabuto Park feels like the type of game you play for about 15-20 minutes every day for a week when you need to take a minute to relax. It’s never taxing. The challenge is minimal. The bugs are cute. I doubt anyone will spend longer than a few hours 100%-ing it, but it’s enjoyable in moderation.

Kabuto Park is available for PCs. 

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