Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel (Switch)

Powah Dunk | October 14, 2024 | Mini Review | No Comments

Aero The Acro-Bat has had two chances to shine in the mascot platforming world and now it’s time for his nemesis Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel to don the moniker of hero as he attempts to save his forest and outperform the Acro-Bat at his own act!

Set during Aero 2, Zero receives a letter saying his home is in danger and in a pang of heroism takes flight in order to save his home and his damsel in distress Amy, he’s soon shot down and has to use all the tricks in his book to stop the evil lumberjack and further with the heart of his girlfriend Amy.

It’s got a run of the mill story that is slightly more focused than that of the Aero games, an obvious twist towards the end but this is a SNES era platformer so judging it by its peers the story for the game is fine and gives us a decent enough reason as to why Zero is the hero this time and not Aero.

Zero has a completely different move set from Aero, leaning heavily in the direction of his “Kung Fu” design, he has throwing stars for ranged attacks, nunchucks for up close beatdowns and an aerial dive on a count of him being a flying squirrel.

The latter also allows for a different way of movement, get enough air with one of Zero’s dives and you can use your momentum to fly upwards, swooping majestically throughout levels, something the opening level doesn’t really do the best job of demonstrating to you. Zero is also a nippy little critter often at a detriment to him as you’ll careen towards an enemy with no time to stop, I guess he is called the Kamikaze Squirrel for a reason.

The game has 7 worlds with 2 stages each and plenty of bosses to keep you on your toes, it’s got the standard vehicle section that does a good enough job of pacing the game out but it isn’t a standout despite how gorgeous it looks, intact it’s a bit of a pain to get through but fortunately is over quite quickly.

Despite some quirky controls I fell quickly in love with Zero as I have done the previous two games but the faster pacing and fun boss fights helped edged this title out as my favourite of the trio, sections where a cross hair would chase you down made sure you kept your speed and accuracy and the boss fights were some of the best of the series, while technically the swan song of the series (outside of the GBA remaster of 1 due out soon) the Kamikaze Squirrel ended the series on a high note rather than a duff jump into a blow up swimming pool.

Again when it comes to updates it’s the usual QoL that has been done for the previous two titles, I will say I’m not in love with the U.I that was used for these, seems a little basic and almost homebrew but the additional extras such as the booklet and case scans and the sprite sheets to go along with the cheats and gameplay modifiers that Ratalaika Games always include does go a longer way to make this game an easy recommend.

As mentioned, this the end of the Aero trainline, while there is a GBA remake of the original on the horizon by Ratalaika Games in terms of original releases, that’s all she wrote. The series is a charming and mostly fun look at mascot platformers that were ingrained in the culture back in the 90s and for the low asking price of them even mild curiosity will be rewarded.