I hesitated to say Kaze finds itself grouped with Cuphead, Hollow Knight, and Shovel Knight, as far as indie videogames are concerned. Although neither Tropical Freeze nor Rayman Legends were what I call casual playthroughs, per se, (it depends on what you’re trying to get out of each of them) I would argue Kaze and the Wild Masks is significantly more difficult than either of them. Hereafter though, it does warrant mentioning that Kaze and the Wild Masks doesn’t mess around with its difficulty either. Everything feels right with how Kaze moves and jumps around, her double-jump and the special-abilities she uncovers throughout her journey. Other similar indie videogames, even ones I thoroughly enjoyed, are able to sometimes come together with a very appealing aesthetic, but their gameplay degrades the longer you spend with it. The gameplay is fun and creative, complimented once more by the amount of care that clearly went into the finished product. Storyline has never been the meat of most 2-D platformers, and although the framework is certainly appreciated, it isn’t make-or-break when it doesn’t flourish. Thankfully though, the same can be said about the very best of them, like Country or Rayman Legends. The cutscenes and story bits are largely told through stilled illustrations, backed by written word, and aren’t anything I left remembering after I played it. The storyline is straightforward and, ultimately, something that can easily be taken or left.
This is a videogame that pays tribute and yet, does justice to the genre before it. Everything is crisp, vibrant, and topnotch. The appeal of how Kaze and the Wild Masks looks is that it isn’t a cheap knockoff nor is it a thrown together homage of Donkey Kong Country, what Kaze and the Wild Masks accomplishes is a highly-polished, very clean platformer.
The genre isn’t evolving or moving forward, it is resting on its laurels and left to the player to sift through the cheap knockoffs in-order to create themselves a longstanding, makeshift franchise. In the end though, if everyone is writing love letters, no one is making the videogames that tomorrow’s generation will want to pay homage to.
They’re developers who loved Mario or Crash Bandicoot, or Donkey Kong, and now, they want to pay homage to it in someway. Truth is, we’ve seen a lot of videogames from a lot of indie developers that all have the marketing and background. Set in a lush, vibrant 2D landscape, Kaze and the Wild Masks is very aesthetically appeasing, accomplishing a beautiful art style that I came to appreciate and then, adore by the end. The only difference is that Yooka-Laylee had some of the crewmembers from Banjo involved in its development, whereas game developer Pixelhive is mostly newcomers, banding together to write a love letter to 2D platformers. Whether it be the age-old gimmick of hiding letters someplace in each level, or the mechanics and movements of how the player progresses, like Yooka-Laylee was to Banjo-Kazooie, Kaze and the Wild Masks could easily call be mistaken for a spiritual successor to Donkey Kong Country. Straightaway, I appreciated the influences that Kaze and the Wild Masks wears on its sleeves, with a lot of inspiration drawn from Donkey Kong Country. Like any friend, Kaze started out as a stranger, but, as we know, not every stranger ends up a friend. Likewise, it has to be said that I have been burned once or twice over the years. Sure, once or twice is fine, but do it a dozen times, and you’ll be filling the sting of it. As much as I want to support a smaller company, like many of you, I can’t exactly throw that kind of money at every videogames that piques my interest. Trying to write about a low of different videogames can be a double-edged sword. It is a videogame that was on my radar straightaway, but I was apprehensive because of the thirty-dollar price point. Kaze and the Wild Masks is a videogame I’d like to bring players to. Although you will find a million reviews of the latest Zelda, I’d like Die Die Retry to bring players someplace they might not otherwise have been. A lot of the videogames I partake in are from smaller companies and are often unknown from the public at large (not all of them, but a lot of them). I have often had times when I have talked about the videogames I am playing (when I rattle off names like Dandy Ace and Curse of the Dead Gods, or Welcome to Hanwell and Injection Pi 23) and I am met with a Michael Myers style head tilt.
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