As was the case last year, XSEED only had one game to offer, and once again it’s quite intriguing.
This year’s XSEED offering on Nintendo was Ivy the Kiwi?, the new title from Yuji Naka, creator of Sonic the Hedgehog; yes, the question mark belongs there. This interesting title has you protecting a young kiwi, still trapped in its shell, as it ventures through dangerous levels littered with spikes, enemies and tricky-to-navigate architecture. You’ll be guiding her by drawing vines onto the screen, using the remote, that can be put to a variety of uses. You can create ramps for Ivy to walk on, you can create them while swinging upward to launch her, or you can grab a created vine and use it as a slingshot to launch her into her corkscrew attack. You can also locate boulders in some stages, which will destroy enemies and blocks for you if you can push it with either vines or Ivy. It took me a little bit of getting used to, about ten minutes or so, but after that I had a better idea of how to get Ivy where I wanted her to be. I still have trouble flinging her by rotating vines as I draw them, but it doesn’t seem like an overly difficult learning curve. It’s rather satisfying as well, finally getting Ivy out of a pit or wherever she is.
The goal is to get Ivy onto one of the parts of a podium at the end of each stage; the higher up on the podium, the more points you get. Playing the game straight through like that isn’t too difficult an endeavor, but I had more challenge trying to go for all the stage bonuses. Each stage has ten feathers hidden around for you to collect, requiring more skilled vine navigation on your part; if you do find all the feathers, the game will track your best time for the level. Harder to find are the hidden coins, which are stuck in a block in each stage; I was told that they would be blocks that would look out of place a bit, but shortly after the rep revealed a coin hidden in a completely arbitrary and innocent-looking corner block. So there’s going to be a challenge present for advanced players, but it looks like the really hard challenges may be a bit unfair. We’ll have to see.
The game has 50 stages before you beat it, and then after that it has 50 more, for 100 total stages. Once you finish the game, you can access the bonus option, which has you searching for a hidden key in each of the game’s levels, for extra replay value. There is also cooperative mode, where four players can draw three vines each on the screen to help out, or competitive mode, where you can draw vines on other people’s screens to mess with them. I couldn’t hear the game’s music too well, but it has a charming hand-drawn quality to it, with lighter brown, red and orange tones, and the artwork going squiggly like a hand-drawn flipbook when the game is in motion. The DS version is a rather faithful port, with the only noteable changes being the stylus controls and only one multiplayer mode, a race to find medals.
Ivy the Kiwi? is a game I’m going to keep my eye on for the next few months; it should be slated for a late summer release. Stay tuned to NintendoGal.com for more impressions.
