A playthrough of Taito's 1991 arcade platformer for the NES, Kiwi Kraze: A Bird-Brained Adventure!

Kiwi Kraze is the NES port of Taito's popular 1988 arcade platformer The NewZealand Story. The North American version is the only version of the game called Kiwi Kraze: the PAL release retains its original coin-op title.

Kiwi Kraze is a simple platformer in which the player, as Tiki the kiwi, has to travel across New Zealand - comprised of twenty unique stages - to save his friends and girlfriend from their kidnapper, a giant, disagreeable pink walrus that gets around using a giant balloon.

Even by 1980s video game telling standards the setup is completely ridiculous, but it's all in good fun and sets up the cutesy gameplay well. The mechanics are fairly simple here: the stages are generally set up as mazes of platforms and obstacles, and Tiki has to make his way to the goal - a cage housing one of his avian buddies - armed with his bow and whatever extras he can find along the way.

Tiki can shoot to clear the enemies in his path, but since the levels focus more on navigation than on battling bad guys, the real challenge lies in the platforming action itself. Many stages feature a multitude of spike traps, underwater areas, and difficult jumps that must be cleared to reach the end, but just like the evil walrus, you too can use balloons to get around. You can jump on top of them and steer them through narrow corridors, but be careful, because grazing any obstacles will instantly pop it!

And on that note, Tiki is no more resilient than his balloons - one hit will instantly kill him, and when you die, the stage is reset, so you have to finish each level in a single life. The levels are all pretty short, but they get very difficult by the end. The game never tries to hide its arcade roots, and the difficulty level hasn't been dialed back very far from its coin-guzzling cabinet counterpart. Fortunately, it is quite beatable with some practice and memorization - the controls are good and the enemies don't generally blindside you (unless you aren't paying attention!), but despite Kiwi Kraze being a short game, finishing it will take plenty of time, effort, and patience. The game over screen will be a familiar sight by the time you've mastered it, I assure you.

The dramatic reduction in color depth means that the game's graphics suffer in comparison to the arcade original, but it still looks good for an NES title. The sprite work is clean and simple, their cutesy animations convey a good amount of personality, and slowdown and flicker are generally kept under control. The visuals get a bit repetitive by the end of the game - everything uses the same tile sets, and most of the stages are a hideous shade of bright yellow or pink - but between those and the background images, the graphics establish the storybook-like setting nicely. I particularly liked the fun nods to Bubble Bobble (like that first stage boss!).

The music on the other hand, is awesome. There isn't much of it besides the single tune that plays in every level, but luckily, that one tune is super cheery and catchy, and (for me, at least) it never got old. Such is the magic of any Follin soundtrack - there aren't many tracks, but they always leave a lasting impression, and Tim and Geoff's work in Kiwi Kraze is no different.

The NES port of The NewZealand Story is exactly what you hoped for back in the day when it came to good arcade translations. The presentation was compromised, of course, but the spirit of the game is alive and kicking on the 8-bit console. If you've been hankering for a platformer that is fair but difficult, Kiwi Kraze is a lot of fun.

Somebody requested this one quite a while back, but for the life of me I can't remember who. Either way, I'm considering this request fulfilled, and if the person who asked for it reads this, I hope that my playing lives up to your expectations! :)
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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