A Blast From the Past

If you told me fifteen years ago that possibly the best days for the 2D platformer were ahead of me, I’d have said you were out of your mind, but with games like Kaze and the Wild Masks releasing, that may be the case. While once the dominant genre of the games industry, until the launch of digital platforms, it seemed their day had passed.

The rise of digital-first games provided salvation for the genre. Able to release games that didn’t need to be full-price to be viable, we’ve seen a huge variety of wonderful games. Some like Super Meat Boy and Celeste have worked to push the genre forward, while others are happy to provide nostalgia and a solid experience. Kaze and the Wild Masks unquestionably fits into the second category, taking strong inspiration from the classics, particularly a famous partnership between Nintendo and Rare. While it doesn’t have a lot to say that’s particularly original, this is one of the tightest platformers I’ve played in years.

She’s One Ka-ze Rabbit!

Kaze finds herself in trouble when her latest adventure unleashes a curse. Not only does it trap her best friend Hogo in an ancient artifact, but it also transforms her world and brings the local plants such as carrots and tomatoes to life. They’re eager to eat the locals who were planning to eat them! There’s not a ton of story, and what is here is presented without dialogue or even much in the way of animation. Mostly you’ll just have a few scenes of still images that might move around a bit.

That doesn’t stop it from having a ton of personality. With her floppy rabbit ears, big eyes, and flowing scarf, Kaze looks great and would have been right at home during the heyday of the mascot platfomer. Enemies are also highly expressive, with zany reactions when you hit them. Bosses are stylish and fit in well as a natural evolution of more common enemies. Excellent, expressive animation really lets you feel their pain when they lose and their glee when they’re winning.

When Kaze starts moving, things get even better. Consistently strong level design and tight controls are here in spades. Remotely experienced players will breeze through the early parts of Kaze, with those excellent controls avoiding any sort of cheap deaths. In the early parts of the game, this will lead to few deaths at all. Kaze has various moves, including an ear twirl that allows you to glide and a ground pound, which lets you storm downward. The moves necessary to handle any situation are readily available. That lasts through the entire game, even if the easy difficulty doesn’t.

Monkey See Rabbit Do

While everything plays great, it won’t take long for many players to feel things are perhaps a bit too familiar. Kaze takes inspiration from various genre classics, but the influence of the Donkey Kong Country games is blatant. You could even argue it goes a bit over the line. It comes across in almost every aspect of the gameplay. Several enemies feel like their patterns are right from that earlier title. While in Donkey Kong Country, you collect the letters to spell KONG in each level, here you’re spelling KAZE. Those ear glide and ground pound moves I mentioned earlier feel lifted directly from that series. Even Kaze’s sense of momentum feels right out of those games.

The titular wild masks are no exception either. Throughout Kaze, you’ll have levels where you find a mask that lets you transform into one of four different animals. The eagle and shark masks almost identically mimic the animal buddies that help Donkey Kong in his adventures. Sure, in this case, you transform into the animal instead of riding them, but the gameplay is much the same. It all plays well, and if you love those earlier games, that might not be an issue. These don’t, however, help the game to establish its own identity.

Burrowing a New Path

Not everything in Kaze is torn from another game. Lizard and tiger masks show some originality and actually ended up being my favorites of the bunch. The tiger allows you to rocket through the air and climb walls which may not make much sense for a tiger, but it’s certainly fun. The precision allowed really drives home how great everything feels here. The lizard turns the game into an auto-runner, and while I was initially nervous about this as I had terrible flashbacks to early phone games, there was no need to be concerned. These are some of the most memorable levels in the game, particularly some that have you running to keep lights on to keep enemies dormant. The precision required here can get frustrating at times, but there’s a real sense of satisfaction when you finally pull it off.

Kaze also does a great job of bringing modern sensibilities to parts of the game, particularly when it comes to difficulty options. The difficulty curve here isn’t unreasonable, though things do ramp up as early as the second world, and by the third, some levels will push even experienced players.

An easy mode is available for those who find the main difficulty to be a bit too much. It doesn’t fundamentally alter the entire game, but it inserts extra checkpoints and allows Kaze to take one additional hit. This does a nice job of keeping the feel of the game and not allowing players to breeze through things while making it possible for most players to see the ending if they’re persistent. Any part that becomes too much even with this help also allows you to skip to the end of the level after you die enough times. Not the most satisfying option, but it’s there if there’s just that one spot you can’t get through.

An Adventure Worth Gliding Into

Kaze and the Wild Masks is definitely derivative and could have used a bit more originality to stand out. Still, I can’t imagine players who love the Donkey Kong Country series not taking to it. With excellent controls, tons of character, and a great look, it’s just a great play from start to finish. It’s almost like this is the fourth Super Nintendo Donkey Kong game we never got, only with a modern coat of paint and just enough updates to feel like it belongs in 2021. If that sounds like it’s down your burrow, then Kaze has an adventure for you.

Final Verdict: 4/5

Available on: PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia, PC, Mac; Publisher:  Soedesco; Developer: PixelHive; Players: 1; Released: March 26th, 2021; ESRB: E for Everyone; MSRP: $29.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of  Kaze and the Wild Masks provided by the publisher.