Super Kiwi 64 feels connected to something. There’s a sly energy about it that’s impossible to ignore. Players of Siatro’s previous games might expect this, but it just isn’t the same. Super Kiwi 64 is quirky in its own way and offers a new guided tour of the mind of this indie developer.
Kiwi opens in a hub area connecting eight main levels for an N64-style non-linear item collection platformer. It seems the N64’s Silicon Graphics have been perfectly preserved in glacial ice since the days of the Reality Coprocessor. It could have been released in 1999, it is copied in the same way banjo kazooie and Donkey Kong 64🇧🇷 Even then, we’d be a bit cautious, as the level of polish isn’t up to par with these titles. But even so, it just feels like there is anything goes – something strange.
The jagged edges from the first level were right in front of us. For example, the camera has one laissez-faire attitude to the solidity of the surrounding objects and will gladly go through any decoration you like … But one thing Continue with this? We naturally used the camera to spy between the walls and see where we should try to go. Was it by design? Are there game mechanics built from visibly broken 3D foundations? Or is it a truly anarchic punk aesthetic where you just have to think about the camera and the bourgeois expectation that it should participate in a solid environment? Is the camera intentionally flawed as a parody of itself and an exploration of player value expectations in AAA game production? Or maybe a little rubbish?
This last possibility is not far-fetched. Too much of Super Kiwi 64 is too polished to be considered a big mistake: the controls are responsive and fun, the movement gimmick of slamming the beak into the wall and climbing up (a mario odyssey reference?) is satisfactory. On the other hand, the level design is incredibly simple, with a red key-opening-red-door and an obvious number of rare collectibles that can be hidden well.
However, the denial simplicity of the whole thing is so controlled that Sictro must do it consciously. Kiwi’s microsecond celebratory pose while collecting gems is comically undersold compared to Mario’s – now greatly exaggerated – twirl as he collects Power Moon. Blink and you’ll miss it, but if taken as a joke, it’s perfect. And as so the scarcity of Super Kiwi 64 levels in previous games is attributed to their brevity and very low difficulty. That said, while you can finish the entire game in an hour or two, it does have some really cryptic secrets hidden within. Without prejudice, let’s just say that they convinced us that the truly cursed atmosphere of the work is not only in our heads.
Our experience with Super Kiwi 64 boils down to this: we had a good time, but we couldn’t always tell if it was because of or in spite of the game. Either we found a gold coin in a muddy field or we found Elvis’ face in porridge. If you try this, make sure you bring your imagination along with the £2.69.
