Kaze and the Wild Masks

Barnsy! wrote:Kaze and the Wild Masks - the gold standard of 2d platformers

Barnsy! wrote:

Herdanos wrote:

Barnsy! wrote:

Herdanos wrote:Bought Kaze and the Wild Masks & Monster Crown

I bloody love Kaze and the Wild Masks one of my favourite platformers. Really hope you have fun with it - it would be cool if you let us know what you think of it once you have a chance to play it

Here we go then...

Balladeer wrote:Basically, Kaze wants to be Donkey Kong Country really badly.

Balladeer isn't wrong. Kaze isn't so much inspired by DKC. If it is, then Mario Galaxy 2 was 'inspired' by Galaxy 1, TimeSplitters 3 by TimeSplitters 2, etc. It's more of the same, really; it's more like Donkey Kong Country Returns than Donkey Kong Country Returns ever was.

Thing is, I bloody love it for that.

DKC2 in particular is one of my favourite games ever, though Kaze is clearly an homage (a love letter, even) to the entire SNES trilogy. Kaze handles just like Dixie. As far as I can tell each of the enemies is a direct clone of a Kremling. The levels each echo particular environments I played back in the 90s (though there is no re-using of aesthetic across levels, which I really appreciated) with memorable features recreated. At times even the music contains flourishes that I'm sure I recognise!

So if I'm being honest, I'm not certain that this game would resonate with anyone who hasn't got strong, fond memories of playing Rare's 2D platformers. Even the controls (Kaze's Dixie-esque ability to float in particular) aren't that well-explained to newbies. But it just didn't matter. It was just so pleasingly familiar. It's like revisiting one of your favourite games and discovering there's a whole game's worth of extra content left to tackle that you'd never previously found.

That's not to say it has no new ideas of its own, but they're mostly QOL improvements to enhance what is already a fantastic experience. There are no "lives" - if you die, the game throws you straight back in with minimal interruption (you go back to the level start or last checkpoint). Likewise with the bonus levels - if you fail, the game lets you reattempt until you succeed, rather than forcing you to play the whole level through again and find the bonus level in order to try it. It's a great feature, particularly as some of them are really, really tough. But it doesn't seem unfair (so far) - I'm about 20% through the game after about an hour's play - and each time I've died it's provoked a wry smile rather than a knuckle-clenching fury at any perceived injustice. However, maybe that's because I have this peculiar sense that I've been here before.

If I had to pick faults, the enemies lack charm (as does Kaze herself arguably - particular during cut-scenes) and there is definitely some slowdown at times, which is a bit ludicrous giving how little a workout the Switch seems to be getting technically. So I'm not that surprised to hear Balla report of crashes later in the game. But so far neither of these have been deal breakers.

I hope I've only scratched the surface because I've adored what I've played so far.

Drumstick wrote:Balla's done a grand job of selling that game to me.

Mate, you have to get it. It's Donkey Kong Country 4.

Boom! Been on holiday for a little while - that was definitely a post to put me in a good mood.

Really happy you're loving the game and I think your more 'critical' observations are very fair. It is lovely though isn't it? Nice one

Balladeer wrote:Fair enough!


Basically, Kaze wants to be Donkey Kong Country really badly. Specifically, it wants to be DKC2 with Dixie. Sometimes it's painful how much it wants to be DKC2. There's Kaze's ear-powered hovering move, slingshots that replace barrel cannons, power-ups that give you a max of one extra hit, collecting K-A-Z-E every level, Wild Masks that are basically Donkey Kong's animal friends in a different guise, and the big one for me: high difficulty with sparse checkpoints.

The trouble for Kaze is that a new bar has been set for tough platformers. Y'all know which game I'm talking about - or if you don't at least OrangeRakoon does. It's a game that can throw lots of memory-requiring sequences at you because its hero (or maybe heroine ) feels so good to control and because you're rarely more than ten seconds away from where you died. This is the standard I expect from my hard games, especially when memorisation is almost required, and Kaze has a fair few of those moments. I eventually turned on casual mode, but that doesn't help as much as you'd think: the extra checkpoints aren't that frequent, and they don't apply to the boss battles, which have to be beaten in one go.

If I was chomping at the bit to see what was behind the next roadblock then it would have been an easier sell, and the later Donkey Kong Country games had several temptations in their gameplay and aesthetics to encourage this. I wasn't. Kaze is pretty enough for a spritey game, but has a largely forgettable soundtrack, not much in the way of set-pieces (that haven't been done before, better, in ooh I dunno games starring a big monkey), and average level design. All of this lowered the incentive to press on through the frustration.

I did finish Kaze in the end, though, and found it a completely average experience. That would be my final word on it, if it wasn't for the fact that it crashed five times over my 5-10h playtime. Happily I never lost much progress, but for such a simple game, that's unforgivable. So I would say, even if you do think that 2D platforming peaked with the Donkey Kong Country games, you should get it on another more stable platform. The rest of us can steer clear without fear of missing out. Er, except for Dan at this point I guess.

Herdanos wrote:Just been uploading MK8D vids and found this...

twitter.com/dangameposts/status/1542882843906387968

This was on my first attempt through the level (I died shortly after the video) and I loved how organic and intuitive this sequence was to play through