As I mentioned before, 2023 saw the release of three big N64 throwback games: Cavern Of Dreams, Corn Kidz 64, and Pseudoregalia, none of which I got to play. Cavern Of Dreams finally came out on Switch and I quite enjoyed it, and now it's Corn Kidz's turn. Unfortunately, I hate to say it but I'm not quite as enthusiastic over this one.
Corn Kidz 64 has you play as a goat dude named Seve who wanders into a gas station to get some nachos, only to end up in a dream world with a weird girl named Alexis. Now, you have to explore this dream world, find a way to escape, and get Seve his nachos. It's a very ridiculous and nonsensical story, but the darkly comedic writing still made it a fairly enjoyable narrative to follow. In terms of pure movement, Seve controls really well, there's a good weight to him that feels quite nice. Being a goat, he can headbutt in pretty much every direction, which he can use to pound stakes into the ground, stab it into walls, home in on enemies, and best of all, stick his horn into screws and spin them around. It's very Mario Galaxy, and it feels great. The other major move Seve has is a single wall jump which he can aim in any direction ala Super Mario Sunshine. This also feels very good, and you get a lot of freedom in terms of where you aim your wall jump. Right from the get-go, you'll quickly be tasked with chaining wall jumps and headbutts, and when everything clicks, it can feel incredibly good to bounce all over the place.
However, this is where my first big issue comes, because Corn Kidz 64 doesn't always click. The camera in Corn Kidz is not very good, but not in the way you'd think. A lot of N64 3D platformers had poor cameras, usually either due to limited controls or clipping issues. That's not a problem in Corn Kidz 64, instead its problem is that the camera seems to auto-center on its Y axis. This means that you kinda have to hold down the right joystick to be able to even look slightly up, and even then, it feels like you're not given full control of where you're looking. It's not fun to have to constantly wrestle with the camera, but it's especially unfun in a game with so much precision platforming. Speaking of which, yeah Corn Kidz 64 is pretty damn tough, and punishing. This is a game that often asks you to climb up high, but it also has some brutal fall damage that's pretty tough to gauge. There are cases where it felt like I should've taken damage but didn't, and other cases where I barely fell and took damage. It's finicky and inconsistent, and I just don't think it's the right fit for Corn Kidz 64 in particular.
Corn Kidz 64 only really has a single world to explore along with a slightly smaller tutorial area, but it's absolutely crammed with hidden secrets. The main collectible are the 360 XP blocks hidden around, which can help you uncover even more areas by getting enough of them. You'll have to pay very close attention to your surroundings to get these things, they can be quite hidden, though thankfully you only need like half of them to beat the game. That being said, I'm not a huge fan of this concept. With so many of them, I just don't feel like the XP blocks have nearly enough worth for how much effort it takes to get them, especially with the game not having any bigger collectibles like a Jiggy or Power Star. It feels pretty shitty and unsatisfying to make your way to the end of a brutal platforming gauntlet only to be rewarded with a single XP Cube, it's like the Moons in Odyssey but the complete opposite issue. And if you decide to go for 100% completion, prepare for hell. Corn Kidz 64 has some of the cruelest collectible placements I've ever
seen in this genre, there's some truly dastardly "needle in a haystack"
hidden spots that I couldn't even imagine finding on my own. I mentioned
that Cavern Of Dreams could sometimes feel a bit cryptic, but Corn Kidz
64 makes that game feel like God Of War: Ragnarok by comparison. No way would I be able to 100% this game, but that's assuming I even had the patience to beat it. Yeah, I ended up dropping this one after a bit. The frustration factor was just too much, and I realized I wasn't enjoying it all.
As far as the presentation goes, though, Corn Kidz 64 kinda nails it. I wouldn't say it emulates the N64 aesthetic quite as well as Cavern Of Dreams does, but it still does a pretty good job at capturing that console's distinctly surreal atmosphere. I also like how many options you have to change the game's look, ranging from console-accurate 240p, to CRT scanlines, to a hilariously useless 3D mode, to more HD 1080p visuals akin to the Banjo Kazooie remaster. The character animations, particularly for Seve, is incredibly fluid and expressive, really making him feel like a cartoon character on par with the Looney Tunes. Speaking of which, the overall world design of Corn Kidz 64 feels like a cartoon from the early 2000s like Invader Zim. There's a grungy, anarchic vibe to it that I quite like. However, I will say that the music didn't really do too much for me. From what I can tell, the music was borrowed from other sources and thus wasn't specifically made for this game. That's not exactly a bad thing since most of the tracks do fit their settings quite well, but their harsh synths and general EDM vibe doesn't fit the N64 aesthetic in the slightest.
Corn Kidz 64 feels like it's made by someone completely obsessed with the N64 era of 3D platformers, warts and all. It takes all of the best aspects of those games and the worst aspects of those games and amps them up to eleven. Thus, I feel like Corn Kidz 64 will only really 100% land for you if you can meet the game where it's at, if you're equally obsessed with N64 era 3D platformers, and unfortunately, I'm not fully there. The movement and exploration of Corn Kidz 64 is certainly great, but its ridiculously cryptic nature, weak camera, and frustratingly punishing level design ended up frustrating me more than not.
3/5 Stars
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