KAZE AND THE WILD MASKS - A love letter to 90s platformers, coming in 2019!


Kaze and the Wild Masks - the beach

 I just found out about a very cute 2D platformer which is being developed by Vox Games Studio!
It's called "Kaze and the Wild Masks", and it looks VERY promising, being a homage to the 90s 16-bit platformer classics such as the Donkey Kong Country games!



Tiny Toons Adventures - Super Nes
Buster in "Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster Busts a Nut"!
You're playing "Kaze", a little blue bunny who really reminds me of "Buster" in the old Tiny Toons games on Megadrive and Super Nintendo.
Except this time, it's a bunny girl! ❤️️🐰

The story: a comet strikes your peaceful "Carrotland"(mmm my kind of country! ahem...😋), turning all the plants crazy and aggressive, wreaking havoc around the place!
Which reminds me once more of another classic: Robotnik who turns the animals to agressive robots in the Sonic the Hedgehog series!
Definitely, this game is truly inspired by our favorite classics!

Anyway, Kaze is apparently very agile, although I didn't notice any double-jump in the trailer, which means that we'll have to be very precise when we try to kill an enemy, which is done the Mario way, jumping on his head! (By the way, have you ever tried to do this in real life? 😅)

She can also spin her ears to fly for a few seconds, which now reminds me of Earthworm Jim, who used his... er... head? ... Like a propeller to fly a bit... lol

Kaze and the Wild Masks - Kaze can fly thanks to her long ears
Kaze(wind in Japanese! It depends on the Kanji though.) can fly for a bit thanks to her long ears!

One of the nicest features will be to be able to change forms, like in Donkey Kong Country, or Pandemonium(13:05 in the video)!
When you find the special masks which used to belong to the legendary guardians of Carrotland, you'll be able to roam the skies as an eagle, or delve deep into the sea as a shark!

Kaze and the Wild Masks - gorgeous colors in the lava level
Colors are really gorgeous in this game! I can't wait to play it!😍
One of the few things that worries me is that some areas look hardcore to me.
And even the description makes me think that the developers might be trying to create one of these super hard platformers made for speedrunning only:
   "Featuring intense gameplay, encouraging players to find the perfect trajectory, emphasizing on delightful combos that will reward players with extra bonuses." Uh-oh...😓

The developer promise simple and intuitive controls, but also that "the game challenges the curious and skilled players making it really difficult to beat."

As usual, I'll emit some critics! (hey you know me, I have to protect my whiner reputation!😂
Only two things:
1) The character always looks angry. Then again, Sonic the Hedgehog kinda looks angry all the time too.. But I'm not sure it fits well the cute style of the game. The contrast is very obvious especially when you look at good old Tiny Toons on Megadrive. Buster looked so innocent! lol Kaze looks like she has her periods or something! 😂
2) Same critic for the music, actually. It IS good😎. But it's borderline metal, which seems again a bit inappropriate for the overall theme of the game, don't you think? 
On the bright side, at least it's not damn 8-bit Nes music like in Infectonator 3... lol

Anyway, with its extremely well done pixel art and "frame-by-frame" animation, old-school platforming and gameplay diversity, I think that we can expect the best from these guys! The game is around 60% done, according to the developers, so maybe we can hope for a release in early 2019? 😘   

Don't forget to check the game's official Twitter and the Steam page!
 
Kaze and the Wild Masks - dark foggy and creepy forest with blue colors
This level actually reminds me of the Transylvania level in Quackshot on Megadrive!

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