For the first time in my life, I played video games on consoles in 1996. It was a Sega Mega Drive where I had the opportunity to play colorful platform games (Sonic the Hedgehog, Disney's Aladdin and Earthworm Jim). Two years later, my parents bought me a PlayStation and I immediately fell in love with the Crash Bandicoot series.
Even today, almost thirty years later, children's platformers are one of my favorite genres for relaxation and fun. I have to admit, even though I am familiar with the games of the past, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel was not a familiar title to me.
It is a game that was originally released at the end of 1994 for Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo. Interestingly, Japanese Sunsoft was the publisher. Apparently, as soon as few heard about kamikaze squirrel, it is to be expected that it did not become a cult title among fans of the genre.
After the successful digital re-release of the more famous Aero the Acro-Bat games, independent game publisher Ratalaika Games and Japanese publisher LLC Shinyuden have re-released the game for all current consoles (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch).
Starting the game on PlayStation 5 I saw that it is completely identical to the original with minor improvements. The difficulty level is too much for anyone who has played modern platformer titles in the last few years. Fortunately, codes have been thrown in that make traversal much easier (immortality, unlimited lives, unlimited shuriken, unlimited hovering, etc.), position recording at all times, rewind and turbo.
15 different levels including those that contain the use of vehicles are full of vicious enemies and numerous obstacles. Unskilled players will really have problems when transitioning. Squirrel Zero is luckily a pretty good ninja warrior, armed with shurikens and adept at jumping and attacking. Of course, why should everything be simple when there are also occasional bosses who know how to annoy,
Story? It's quite simple, the squirrel Zero has to save the forest where he lives from destruction. What more can be said about the gameplay? If you played the original Rayman and similar games on the original PlayStation, MS-DOS, Amiga or Super Nintendo, you won't have any big unknowns while playing. The return to the mid-1990s will be instant. Anyone else born after 2000 who grew up on Rayman Legends, and the last 2D games in the Super Mario series will be surprised at how difficult and masochist-friendly the games used to be.
To add value to this retro reissue, it includes bonus material such as a gallery containing original illustrations, images of the boxes, manuals and jukebox. It's not much, but it's enough to justify a nostalgic purchase and make the player happy. Unfortunately, the interviews or the presentation of the working version were not included as an appendix.
[modula id="1166"]Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel is the ideal game if you are a big fan of platform games from the 1990s and would like to play every game released in the genre. To everyone else, we would recommend reissues of better-known titles, such as the upcoming Gex collection or the Croc remaster.
A copy of the game was provided by the publisher Ratalaika Games for review purposes.
