Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo review for Nintendo Switch

System: Switch
Release date: May 16, 2025
Developer: Galla
Publisher: Fellow Traveller

What makes a ‘good samaritan’? What brings someone to want to help others around them when they already have their own problems that they are dealing with? Galla Games’ brand new title poses the question of: why is kindness so rare? Why are there so few willing to open up and talk about their problems? Despite its characters being largely deceased, Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo is a game full of life with emotional depth that isn’t as paper thin as the inhabitants that roam it’s worlds. Originally a Kickstarter venture that raised an impressive sum of over $24,000, Galla Games had been working on the project for over four years up to that point in 2022, and now, after a lot of passion and hard-work, how has the game turned out?

Our story follows a dead, bony-snake by the name of Kulebra, who wakes up with no memories of how he died, where he is or the world around him. A mysterious old lady guides him to a place called Dead Valley, where our fiery-eyed protagonist is tasked with helping the lost souls of Limbo, the world Kulebra has found himself in. Despite his outward appearance, he is known as a ‘Bright Soul’, a rare type of deceased being which possesses the ability to help lost souls anchored to Limbo with regrets and pain from their days amongst the living find peace and move on. As Kulebra slithers from place to place, he helps the souls he finds along his way, helping them with their problems and providing a metaphorical friendly ear. As he delves deeper into Limbo, Kulebra learns more about the purpose for which he was brought onto the quest he’s partaking in, and the dark secrets and mysteries that lurk in the background.

The game has a unique visual style, reminiscent of Paper Mario, in that the world of Limbo and its characters all have a crafted design about them, and all the unique colors and charmingly simple character animations reside within a slew of vibrant landscapes that the player becomes enticed to explore. Exploration is an important part of Kulebra’s adventure because Galla Games has taken influence from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, with a gameplay mechanic where our protagonist utilizes a unique immunity to an affliction that plagues Limbo; the majority of its people will forget everything they have done during the cycle of a day, and repeat the same actions upon sunrise the next morning. Unlike these souls, Kulebra remembers the events of the day previous, and scribbles them down on his handy, dandy notebook, which the player will be using a lot. It tracks quests, characters, major plot events and optional collectibles the player has found through solving puzzles and helping souls. Certain characters will go to certain places at certain times, so it’s up to Kulebra to help them break the cycle and move on.

In terms of gameplay, Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo is a 3D adventure game where our snakey friend traverses land, finds items, chats with locals, and uncovers mysteries and puzzles to solve. One would imagine that a dead snake wouldn’t have too many abilities to call on, but Kulebra is a surprisingly resourceful hero, using his speed and his wits to solve most of his problems. He can roll into a ball, not unlike a famous blue hedgehog, and this is one of his most important techniques. As Kulebra doesn’t really have hands, he instead rolls and bashes into walls, trees and various objects to solve puzzles, often finding key items or manipulating his surroundings so he can continue on his journey. He also gains more powers and abilities from the people he meets along his journey, through main story progression or side-quests. For as sneaky and surprisingly adept as he is, Kulebra’s greatest strength is the same one that makes this game a really impactful one; his kindness.

A lot of this game is just Kulebra earnestly listening to souls and trying to help them. That’s how Kulebra fights most his boss battles; with just words and sincere caring. This game tackles really heavy subject matter: abandonment, loss, loneliness, identity, depression, mortality, amongst other topics, but does so in a really artful, albeit bittersweet manner that leaves an impact on the player. This emotional storytelling is something a lot of people playing the game can relate and connect with, and this adds a layer of powerful feeling to a game that also features birds throwing confetti upon introduction, wrestlers shouting confidently and a talking boot. Galla Games’ Latin American influence shines through in the colors the game is full of, but the stories of Limbo’s characters really shows the talent and narrative prowess of its writers. The tales of these Souls are very memorable, and that’s because of this emotional weight. I’d also like to praise the music, as the background music of this game is fantastic. Each world has a unique theme, and that theme has three unique variants depending on the time of day, and that’s on top of character themes, boss themes and cutscene-specific music. It knows when to be bubbly, it knows when to be somber, and it knows when just gentle ambiance is enough. Zach Striefel and Clayton Tapp deserve major kudos for this soundtrack; special mention to my three favorite songs in the game: Krow’s theme, Plaza (Dusk/Evening) and a late-game theme I won’t spoil.

My criticisms of the game are small and few, but combined felt like enough to hamper the experience for me, just a bit. Chief among them is that there’s quite a few loading screens, and though they are relatively short, they are frequent, particularly in the late game when you are travelling forward and back between worlds to complete quests. This issue is mitigated, along with another issue I have which just comes with the territory of a game like this; the ‘skip’ button. If you fail to solve a puzzle or find a person in a particular go around, Kulebra can find a bench somewhere and rest, which passes time forward to whichever part of the day you want to be in. This comes with a lot of repeated dialogue until you find the anomaly you can influence to break the cycle and change the patterns in order to help the souls. Again, the skip button is useful here, but there’s always a worry in the back of my mind that something slightly changed; a background detail, a piece of dialogue. I blame The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya’s Endless Eight for this; a story with a similar repeating day cycle over the course of eight episodes. This kind of mentally prevented me from skipping anything, for fear of missing out, but dialogue only changes slightly depending on your inventory and other factors. Even with skipping loading screens and dialogue, there’s still a brief wait, and it does hurt the flow of the game.

Without getting into spoilers, the end of the game also felt quite abrupt, and although there is post-game content, it still left me with a slight feeling of emptiness; which perhaps was the point? Even so, this too is a minor issue. There is the odd typo or missing word within the game, but with such a dialogue-heavy title like this and such a small development team, for them to be so infrequent is incredibly impressive. My smallest quibble comes in dialogue, when you are prompted to press ‘X’ to open your notebook to present an item to who you’re speaking with, akin to something like Ace Attorney, and I just found it slightly irksome that I was progressing the conversation with the ‘A’ button but then showing items with a different one, I wish it just let me use the same button. ..but again, this is the smallest of smallest nitpicks.

At a $20 price point, Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo is a video game that’s so Kool, and so engrossing, I highly recommend you give it a go. It’s a narratively rich 3D adventure game with charming characters, a stylistically unique world and fun dialogue that masks the deeper subject matter that players will engage with. The puzzles can be challenging, and the solutions that stem from out of the box thinking can be very satisfying. My tiny gripes with the game don’t do enough to lessen the experience I had playing it.

Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.