Super Kiwi 64 feels like it depends on something. There is a cunning energy about it that cannot be ignored. Players of Siactro’s previous games can expect that, but this is not the case. Super Kiwi 64 is weird in its own special way, presenting a new guided tour of this indie developer’s mind.
Kiwi opens in a central area that connects eight main levels for an N64-style non-linear item collection platform. It looks like it’s been perfectly preserved in ice since the N64’s Silicon Graphics Reality Coprocessor era. It could have been released in 1999, mimicking the same Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. Even then, though, we were a bit wary, as the level of gloss was disproportionate to those headlines. But despite that, it just feels like yes anything else going on – something weird.
From the very first level, the messy edges were right in front of us. For example, the camera has a passport attitude towards the solidity of objects in the environment and will happily just cut through any scene you like… But there’s something going on with? Naturally, we use cameras to track through walls and see where we should be trying to get to. Is this by design? Are there any game mechanics built from 3D fundamentals that are clearly broken? Or is it really an anarchist punk aesthetic where you just relax about the camera and your bourgeois expectation that it will join the march of a solid environment? Is the camera intentionally failing as a mockery of itself and testing player expectations for value during the production of AAA games? Or could it be, maybe, just a bit of trash?
That last possibility is not far off. Too much of the Super Kiwi 64 is so slick that it’s all a big mistake: the controls are responsive and fun, the gimmick about the motions of poking your beak into a wall and jumping to climb (a) Mario Odyssey reference?) is satisfying. The level design, on the other hand, is extremely simple, with a red-key-open-red gate and a clear list of rarely well-hidden collectibles, if at all.
However, the defiant simplicity of things is so controlled that Siactro must certainly do it consciously. The kiwi bird’s millisecond celebratory pose as it collects a sold gem is comically lower than Mario’s – now over-hyped – twisting pose when collecting the Moon power. Blink and you’ll miss it, but, as a joke, it’s perfect. And like toree In previous games, the sparseness of Super Kiwi 64’s levels is excused by their brevity and very low difficulty. That said, while you can finish the entire game in an hour or two, it has a bunch of really mysterious secrets buried in it. Without spoiling, let’s just say they convinced us that the piece’s truly cursed vibe isn’t just in our heads.
Our experience with Super Kiwi 64 draws from this: we had a good time, but couldn’t always tell if it was because of the game or because of it. Either we found a gold coin in a muddy field or we found Elvis’ face in our bowl of porridge. If you want to try this, remember to bring your imagination along with your £2.69.
