You'll also find powerups that provide a temporary stats increase, which you can allocate to raising your health or mana level, your offensive or defensive strength, or to augment your special attack or frequency of critical strikes.

The levels are quest-based, meaning that once you've completed the quest requirement -- kill ten monsters, etc. -- the game will move you on to the next quest, though you do have the option to keep playing that level. But as mentioned previously, there is a finite number of monsters and items per level, so it's not worthwhile to stick around.

The strangest thing about KU is that it sort of plays like a console game. It's action-based, focusing mostly on the hack 'n' slash mode to defeat enemies. There is relatively little strategy involved in combat, falling mostly on which powerup you'll activate at any given time. These powerups include Stoneskin, which lets Kivi take less damage than normal; Mana Leech, which siphons off a small amount of mana from each enemy as you hit it; Fire Ring, which sends out a blast of flames in a widening circle, damaging all nearby enemies in its blast radius, and other similar items. These powerups can be activated by hitting the space bar, which uses up the powerup in the bottom-most slot. The powerups can be manually adjusted, to make sure the right powerup gets used when hitting the space bar.

Unlike many of its peers, KU gives a number of lives rather than the standard "play until you die" mechanic; 1-Up powerups can be found to add to the total number. It's not clear why the game is set up this way, as there is a health and mana bar in place as well. The game is straightforward and simple enough to not really need these extra lives. Character upgrades can be purchased between quests, but only one attribute can be leveled before moving on.

Additional environmental items include the teleporter, which is a one-way ticket to another dungeon or another section of the same dungeon; fire and poison traps that activate when you move near them; and a "supersecret" that opens a hidden room and grants 1,000 points when found.

There are also a number of Achievements, which are given when certain requirements are satisfied, like the "Marauder" Achievement, which activates when Kivi destroys a certain number of barrels in a given duration of time. At the end of the level, your Achievements are totaled and trophies are collected.

Kivi's Underworld is enjoyable as a casual brawler-style dungeon romp. The world feels strangely empty without NPCs walking around to talk to, and once an area's enemies have been cleared out, that's pretty much it. The graphics are serviceable, and some of the Champion-level creatures are more interesting to fight. Here's hoping that a higher difficulty level makes this title more of a challenge, but it's worth the download. You can pick it up from Big Download for the Mac or the PC.