I'm a sucker for a good hidden gem and Nintendo's Kuru Kuru Kururin series has some of the most criminally overlooked hidden gems out there. It's a real shame none of the games came out in America because they're all stellar, each iterating on the last. However, it's the third and last entry in the series, Kururin Squash, that truly stands out as not just the best Kururin game, but one of my favorite Gamecube games period.
If you aren't familiar with the Kururin series, here's a quick rundown. The Kuru Kuru Kururin games are about the titular bird Kururin whose family repeatedly go missing, and he has to pilot his propeller-shaped vehicle called the Helirin to try and find them. The main jist of Kururin is that the Helirin is constantly rotating and you have to carefully navigate it through tight mazes. It's a simple premise but it makes for an incredibly engaging action-puzzle game built around navigation, timing, and precision.
The controls are simple too, you just use the D-Pad (or joystick in Squash's stage) to move, use either or both of the A and B buttons to speed up, and use the L or R buttons to speed up the Helirin's rotation. The first two games were on GBA and they already felt pretty good, but right from the get-go, Squash solidifies itself as a massive improvement by allowing you to use a joystick, which gave you full 360 degree movement and unparalleled levels of precision. This actually makes Squash arguably the easiest game in the series, but it feels so good to play that it's hard to really care.
Most Kururin games keep the level design fairly basic. Every once in a while, you get a new level mechanic like springs that flip your rotation, cannons that shoot spiked balls to dodge, and crushers, but the difficulty curve is usually from how the mazes you need to solve get increasingly tighter and more complex. And it worked great for the first two games, but Squash adds a lot more variety into the mix. For starters, each of the five worlds introduces a powerup that the Helirin can use. Some of the powerups are more combat focused, like how World 1 gives you boxing gloves attached to the ends of the propeller and how World 5 does the same but with lasers. Not only is it super satisfying to fight enemies with these new weapons because of the sound design and sense of impact, but it still falls in line with the philosophy of Kururin since it's still about aligning the Helirin just right to land your attack.
Other powerups are more puzzle-focused like World 4's whirlwinds that you use to push stuff around, and my personal favorite, the oars that let you dive underwater giving you two planes of obstacles to deal with at a given time. The only powerup to feel like kind of a gimmick is World 3's which puts you on a quickly moving rail in stages that are more focused on twitchy fast-paced dodging, but it's still enjoyable in its own right and feels like a nice change of pace midway through the game. The other major addition that Kururin Squash makes that none of the previous games had are actual boss fights, each of which are genuinely a ton of fun and test you on the powerups for each world. While I've seen some prefer the simplicity of the first two games and totally get it, I love the added variety of Squash because so much of that variety is fun and expands on the formula in interesting ways.
The Kururin games are typically jam-packed with content, but Squash in particularly feels like it's overflowing with stuff to do. The main campaign has 40 stages each having a bunch of objectives to get like finding all the coins, not taking damage, and most importantly, beating all the best times. Yeah, Kururin is actually a very fun speedrunning series, with each level containing a ton of neat shortcuts and time-savers you can take if you're particularly skilled at the game. There's also a shop with a ton of stuff to buy that you can use to customize your ship as well as even more records to beat, further encouraging speedrunning in a series that . On top of that, there's a Challenge Mode with 40 more stages solely focused on navigation without any of the powerups, a pretty fun local multiplayer mode with a battle mode and a bunch of minigames, and some unlockable harder versions of the campaign like the Slippery Slip Mode where the propeller is gone but your Helirin never stops moving and you can't use the powerups. There's even a silly downloadable GBA minigame just because. It's not a very good minigame, but it's there. If you're just playing it normally, Kururin Squash is a fine length, not super long but it doesn't overstay its welcome. But with all those extra modes, unlockables, and secrets, Kururin Squash is immensely replayable especially if you want to get into speedrunning it.
For a game about moving a spinning stick around a maze, Kururin Squash actually looks super appealing. The environments are super colorful and surreal, as are the enemies and obstacles you encounter. The UI is clean and slick, and all the menus and cutscenes use this wonderfully charming puppetry look that has aged incredibly well. But the best thing about Squash's presentation is hands down the music. The composer of the Kururin series, Atsuhiro Motoyama, is one of my personal favorite composers for his versatility and distinctly happy style. He also worked on the Umihara Kawase soundtracks which I also love to death, but Kururin Squash has one of his best scores to date. The soundtracks for the first two Kururin games on GBA were already fantastic, but Squash has the benefit of CD audio and it really shows. The whole score has that distinct Motoyama whimsy while also being super varied, from the calming and fluffy early world themes, to the more techno-heavy and intense themes near the end of the game. Even the map and boss themes are absolute bangers, it's a soundtrack that makes me happy just listening to it.
Overall, Kururin Squash is just a nearly perfect game for me, and it pains me that it never released in America because I don't really understand why? It's not all that weird or anything, it's just a silly puzzle game about a bird. But it's an incredibly well-executed silly puzzle game about a bird that takes the already great mechanics of the previous games and refines and expands them to perfection, all the while adding in tons of content, compelling speedrunning potential, a very charming visual style, and a phenomenal soundtrack. It's everything I look for in an obscure hidden gem and then some.
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