Kaze and the Wild Masks

[Maryokutai]

Full disclosure: I've only played the demo so far (about ten levels IIRC) but I was positively surprised by it and since it releases today I felt like giving it a little exposure.

 

The short version is that this is basically Donkey Kong Country 4 (or 6 depending on how you approach non-numbered sequels). The titular rabbit lady might not be an ape, but she will collect certain letters throughout stages, teleport into secret areas with time limits, gain different abilities to fly or swim by putting on different masks (a very 2020 take on DK's animals) and doing so while going through classic sidescrolling levels that may or may not be inspired by a lot of beloved stages from Nintendo's franchise. The difficulty level is more on the challenging side, but never frustrating, a nice middle ground that forces you to pay attention and focus without the game being designed around the player experiencing a thousand deaths and more.

 

That said, it never feels like a rip-off. It's more Crash Team Racing than Giana Sisters, in other words. Playability is ace, the visual design is pretty cute ─ can't really remember the soundtrack from my time with the demo, but just be safe, don't expect David Wise.

 

As soon as I've made my mind up on where I want to play this (future-proof on Xbox or portable on Switch?) I'm going to hopefully add a bit more impressions to this thread.

 

 

[Maryokutai]

I've played through the first two worlds now. The second boss was a bit of a pain simply because there's lots of stuff you have to avoid before you can hit him, meaning if you die right at the end you have to go through all those motions again.

 

Other than that this has been excellent so far. It's a very polished experience all around and feels like a game Nintendo/Rare did it the 90's but somehow forgot to release. Kaze herself would have felt right at home during that time too, it's a very old-school character design and I love her stern expression despite the fact she's just a cute little bunny hopping around.

 

There's a couple of nice QOL improvements over the classics as well. There are, thankfully, no lives anymore. Secret stages can be repeated if you fail, which is a good thing since some of those are brutal. Dying and re-trying those stages doesn't impact the "no damage" trophy you receive when beating the "main" part of a stage without getting hit.

 

Interestingly, after I beat the first world the game asked me if I wanted to rate it on the Xbox Store. I hadn't seen that before but it kind of makes sense. For every Hades out there there are dozens if not hundreds of indie games that fly under the radar. This seems to be one of them, unfortunately. I can only recommend it if you liked classic 2D platformers though, it's just really good.

[Pikman]

How hard is this game?! Some of the levels are just killing me, maybe world 3 or 4? The ones where you're either constantly moving or something is chasing you. 
I really want to finish it and I don't care about 100% at this point, I just want to beat it 😅

Oh, it is also totally brilliant!