Although the height years of the 3D platformer style have been within the late ’90s and early 2000s, there’s been a little bit of a resurgence in attention-grabbing new style entries in recent times. Titles akin to Glyph and Lunistice have proven that smaller platforming tasks may be simply as compelling because the extra well-known examples, and now we’ve BogoSoft’s Corn Kidz 64 persevering with that pattern with one thing decidedly retro. Following the adventures of a spunky goat named Seve, this title goals to emulate the spirit of an N64 platformer as precisely as attainable. It largely succeeds; Corn Kidz 64 truly seems like a misplaced recreation from this period, and regardless that it has some notable shortcomings, that is general an gratifying and enjoyable retro romp.
Corn Kidz 64 is a real collectathon at coronary heart, tasking you with selecting up varied doodads squirreled away in each conceivable nook of those modestly-sized playgrounds. Your primary collectible is a big assortment of cubes that grant you “XP” for every one you seize—after getting sufficient of them, you’ll have the ability to unlock doorways that gate entry to tougher challenges that disguise much more cubes. Moreover, there are different issues to do, like knocking over all of the trash cans in a stage or discovering a small assortment of bottle caps to trade for corn syrup, which raises your max well being.
Although you’re in the end funneled down a comparatively linear route, you’re given loads of leeway in every space over what to give attention to. Very similar to in Banjo-Kazooie or Donkey Kong 64, there are issues to grab up in every single place, so it’s actually a matter of simply seeing one thing attention-grabbing and climbing or operating over to determine what’s hidden round it. This strategy feels pure and we admire that it lets you resolve what you wish to problem your self with—if navigating these jumps is simply too irritating, simply wander away some other place and are available again to attempt once more later.
Seve’s moveset isn’t almost as versatile as Mario’s, however he manages to get loads of mileage out of a homing strike and ground-pound transfer. The homing strike can be utilized to loosen screws or to snag bomb birds to toss at weak partitions. There are many gimmicks littered all through the atmosphere to assist increase his talents, too, akin to a line of floating rings that allow you to use your homing strike a number of occasions with out touching the bottom, or sure forms of partitions that may be wall-jumped infinitely.
With the best way every little thing’s organized, Corn Kidz 64 feels well-paced, by no means losing any house or needlessly padding out the expertise as some platformers are notoriously responsible of. Each stage is filled with stuff to do with out feeling tedious, and there are usually new gimmicks and challenges offered to maintain issues feeling recent. An entire run ought to solely take you about eight to 10 hours, however Corn Kidz 64 makes essentially the most of each minute.
For its presentation, Corn Kidz 64 seems to be prefer it’s straight out of 1997, even going so far as supplying you with the boxy 4:3 facet ratio and fuzzy scanlines. You’ll be able to go into the settings to tune these show choices to resemble one thing extra fashionable, however we most popular the lo-fi strategy and felt that it match fairly properly with the artwork course. The artwork model itself options all of the blocky fashions and blurry textures you’d anticipate out of an N64 platformer, however we appreciated the darker, nearly menacing, vibe to the visuals. One thing about these worlds is simply off in a delightfully creepy and eccentric type of means, which creates an attention-grabbing environment as you discover deeper.
The soundtrack equally has that old-school MIDI really feel, with a brief assortment of cartoonish tracks that additionally do job of feeding into that ominous environment. It’s not a very memorable assortment of tracks, nevertheless it suits the aesthetic completely and helps add that additional layer to the retro immersion.
There have been a couple of notable points we bumped into that dampened the expertise, nonetheless. For one factor, there’s some fairly noticeable enter lag on this Swap model, which lends the gameplay a sluggish and unresponsive feeling. You regulate to the lag a bit with observe, and the problem of the extent design is general saved comparatively low, however we skilled loads of occasions the place extra precision was required and the controls simply weren’t as much as the duty, resulting in some irritating missed jumps and wasted efforts.
Moreover, the digital camera is one other challenge, making Corn Kidz 64 maybe just a little too paying homage to the retro video games it clearly channels. There are a lot of occasions the place digital camera management is proscribed or fastened, and the attitude typically fails to present you a snug view of the platforming problem. Even if you do have extra management over placement, there’s an unwieldy clunkiness that makes it really feel such as you’re combating to get it in the fitting spot. You might say the poor digital camera is sort of charming contemplating the way it’s proper on-brand for the period, however all the identical, we might’ve favored to see this facet improved.
Conclusion
Corn Kidz 64 seems like a real title from the N64 period and we commend the developer for his or her skill to efficiently recreate that retro expertise. An ideal size, good pacing, and various design all work on this recreation’s favor, although its sluggish controls and awkward digital camera maintain it again from greatness. All the identical, it’s solely seven bucks—we’d give this one a suggestion to anybody in search of a good new 3D platformer for his or her library.
