New Zealand Story Revolution Review

So you want a story before you go to bed? Very well, I’ll tell you the story of New Zealand. Once, there was a little kiwi bird whose friends were kidnapped by a leopard seal. To rescue them, this kiwi had to brave spike-ridden mazes and run from crazy owls riding flying toy ducks, and he died several times along the way. Scared, yet? You should be. Goodnight.

Seriously, though, New Zealand Story Revolution is a kooky game. You could call it a platformer (in fact, please do), but much of the game forces you to take to the skies. Few of the enemies are ground-based. Rather, they’re flying around on balloons or spaceships or toy ducks. If you knock them off, you can steal their ride, and this is actually the coolest part about the game. Every “vehicle” has a different feel and can often be ridden by holding onto the bottom or sitting on top for different effects. Balloons are kind of slow and require you to hold a button down to get them to rise whereas spaceships can be moved freely with the D-pad (and are quite fast, to boot). There’s even a really heavy, really slow one that has spikes dangling from the bottom. All this gives the game a unique, somewhat chaotic style.

And I do mean chaotic.

New Zealand Story Revolution is a remake of an 80s arcade game, and those old-school roots definitely shine through. Enemies respawn often and in large numbers. Since most of them are of the flying variety, things quickly get complicated and overwhelming. It doesn’t help that there are many spikes protruding out of the floors, walls, and ceilings. These spikes are a real nuisance, because they blend in a little too well with the background, leading to many unfair deaths. Your character, the kiwi, doesn’t have a lot of finesse, as it is. His double jump is very stiff, causing you to frequently fall short and land on a bed of spikes. But then the kiwi dances when that happens, so I think he actually enjoys getting hurt.

Your kiwi isn’t entirely helpless, though. He can fly small distances on his own, which comes in handy a lot more than you’d think when surrounded by balloons and spaceships. He also has a bow with no limit on how many arrows it can fire at a time. The bow is an archaic feature, however, because it can only fire forward. Well, by holding the R button, you can adjust the angle of the bow, but it’s such a slow process, and the game is so hectic, you rarely have time to stop and do this.

Some of you will probably revel in the fact that a seemingly cute and adorable game is so thick on old-school ass-kicking. But this is the DS, and you know what happens when old games get brought back to life on the DS. New Zealand Story offers up a fair amount of touch-based gimmickry. There are several instances where you have to turn a wheel to open a door or balance the kiwi on a tightrope or drop a weight on a see-saw to catapult to a new area. None of this is fun in any sense, but what really adds insult to injury is how the game wants you to do these touch-based tasks and play the normal platformer at the same time. At– the– same– time. So while you’re trying to turn the wheel to open a door, monsters are still shooting at you. I normally complain about things like this being too demanding for left-handed gamers, but it’s just the opposite here. Right-handers will find it impossible to jump and/or shoot while messing with the touch screen. I feel so sorry for you.

The game, then, fluctuates between fun and frustrating on a regular basis. The first run through (and abrupt death in) a level will undoubtedly piss you off, but then you do it again and realize you were able to get much farther than before. The game is conquerable–it’s really not that difficult–which means the 20 levels go by pretty fast. There are warps that let you skip levels, though, so you may end up having to go back and play some areas again. And if you can beat every level, you’ll open up expert mode (as if the game wasn’t aggravating enough already).

Final Comments

New Zealand Story Revolution is very hit and miss. The fact that it’s a classic platformer makes me want to love it, no questions asked, especially because it uses vehicles in such a creative way. However, the game often feels very clunky, convoluted, and unfair. Granted, if you are familiar with the original, you don’t care about anything I’ve just said. But nobody can deny that the inclusion of the touch screen is very misplaced and inappropriate. Overall, New Zealand Story is a decent, short-lived game that fans of platformers will enjoy, but it’s not going to win a permanent place in your heart.