Actual rating 3.5⭐ rounded up because I love the Donkey Kong nostalgia.

Kaze and the Wild Masks is so absolutely close to being one of the best platformers I've played in years. The controls are tight. The music is good. The levels are beautiful. The world's are interesting but there were 2 things that kept me from enjoying this game to the absolute maximum.

The first is how blatantly this is trying to capture the Donkey Kong (of the SNES era) magic. Now this is what drew me into this game in the first place. It's what made me pay the overpriced $30 for the game, and yet it's one of it's downfalls. Why? Well, I think it's because; instead of being inspired by it at times it felt like a straight up rip off. I'm starting to understand the difference between the 2. Enemies that look different but do the same animations and even pretty much the same sound effects. At first it made me smile, and then it made me realize that I just wanted to play Donkey Kong instead. It was a strange feeling.

The second thing was that the game was to freaking difficult. It's hard to tow the line on difficulty. That wonderful spot where the game is hard and you feel accomplished when you finish a hard part, but not so hard you basically have to memorize the level. That's where this game got. I almost couldn't complete sections later in the game without having to memorize the level. These are things I should be doing for trophies, or speed running. But I was doing it to just complete the game. I think that difficulty curve is a little to high overall.

But I did beat the game and I did enjoy it. This developer has some special sauce up their sleeve though and I will gladly play their next game, although maybe not day and date release next time.

If you are a Donkey Kong fan, or even a platformer fan in general this game is certainly worth a shot, but I would wait for a sale. $20 would have been the sweet spot for this one I believe.

If there's something every retro gamer should be saturated on thanks to the last decade, it's the availability of 90's-inspired platformers. In conjunction with the growth of the indie market and a generation of developers grown up with classic Nintendo and Sega, homages to iconic franchises have drastically increased in numbers. I'm not sure this is just a good thing.

Kaze and the Wild Masks falls comfortably into this category, being a sidescroller blatantly influenced by Donkey Kong Country. This is both its greatest strength and most crucial flaw. Because of its inspiration, the strengths of Rare's original trilogy - great variation in stage concepts, fun secrets, smart enemy placements and overall polish in level design - shines through.

However, the consequence of this worshipping of another game's design principles, is that Kaze feels more like a fan mod than its own game. The moveset in terms of speed, ground-and air momentum as well as specific abilities, is close to a carbon copy of Dixie Kong. This copy-paste mentality extends to much of the levels as well - you collect KAZE-letters instead of KONG-letters, spring arrows replaces barrels. Many stages even takes the exact concepts from Donkey Kong Country, such as Stop & Go-Station from DKC1 and Toxic Tower from DKC 2.

These restrictions destroys what could have been one of the games most distinct features - the vegetable theme. With all the enemies being some sort of edible plants, both the gameplay and narrative could have benefitted immensely form all sort of creative ideas. Worlds could have been centred around unique aspects of different greens - an Italian vineyard with grapes and olives, a giant freezer, a beanstalk or a farmer's market. What we get is just exactly the sort of areas found in Donkey Kong Country, with vegetables and fruit enemies that replicate the animal henchmen to King K. Rool instead of providing their own unique gimmicks.

For a game so obsessed with being derivative, it's ironic how little they allow themselves to take note on the ideas brought to the series by Retro Studios. A major quality found in Donkey Kong Country Returns is how many levels - apart from being great platforming experiences - also creates mini narratives. Notable examples includes the octopus that chases you throughout Stormy Shore, or enraging a squad of increasingly ferocious underground workers in Mole Patrol. Kaze fails to include any satisfying build up or dramaturgy of this sort in its level design.

A final puzzle piece missing that was a key factor creating the atmosphere in Donkey Kong Country, is the mesmerizing music. The soundtrack is pretty unmemorable, with nothing more than exactly what you would expect a snow level or a cave level to sound like. It doesn't help that the pixel graphic style is just as uninspired, and some of the illustrated custscenes and the level finished-screen looks like really cheap fanart.

Kaze and the wild masks wears its heritage proudly, but neither succeeds in distinguishing itself from its monkey origin nor reaching the heights that Rare and Retro Studios have done in their prime with their respective take on the Donkey Kong-formula. The core design is okay, but I hope Pixelhive allows themselves to utilise their talents in more interesting ways going forward.