PixlBit

Many unique and interesting games came out for the Nintendo Wii in it's life. A lot tried their best to experiment with the Wii motion controls. Some even had DS counterparts. Today we have such an interesting title. This week's Wii review: Ivy the Kiwi? A game I bought for $10.

Ivy the Kiwi?, is a unique game developed by studio Prope. Prope is lead by former Sonic the Hedghog creator Yuji Naka. Various Wii titles came to the Wii under Prope's development team. Games such as Let's Tap, had you bang your hands on a table as your wii remote layed on top of a cardboard box, and they also produced the greatly and vastly superior Rodea: The Sky Soldier for Nintendo Wii (I will continue parading and championing the Wii version as long as I can!!) As a puzzle-action-platformer, Ivy the Kiwi? takes a stab at several different genres, succeeding more often than it fails.

Ivy plays the role of the classic "ugly duckling" character who is different from the rest and thus sets off to find his/her mother. Ivy the Kiwi? mixes it's story of The Ugly Duckling with Dr. Sueuss' "Are You My Mother?"  The story is minimal, told only through storybook-style cutscenes. If you know the above mentioned stories then you'll get the plot. Ivy's only real character trait is that he/she constantly runs forward, and it's up to you to help guide him/her to the exit of each stage.

Kirby's Canvas Curse initially popped into my head  as I created vines to guide Ivy through the stages. As I began to get the hang of the game, it struck me that what I was basically playing was a hybrid of Kirby's Canvas Curse and a puzzle game of sorts.The stages in Ivy the Kiwi? are all rather shorts and can be easily finished in under five minutes. Most of them might not take that long and can be finished in two minutes or less. Each of the stages also contains ten feathers, none of which are particularly necessary other then bragging rights for completing the game 100%, and thus the majority of gameplay falls back on making sure you've combed over the entire stage to get Ivy toward the exit.

Unlike the control style of Kirby's Canvas Curse, Ivy uses nothing but straight vines, and you can't use any more than three at a time. By Using the Wii Remote, you'll draw vines on the screen to give Ivy a path over various obstacles (The standard bottomless pits and spikes, as well as enemies) and you can also use vines to help control Ivy's speed or stop Ivy from walking into a spike pit. There is some puzzle item management in the form of a boulder that can plow through weakened walls later on the games later stages. In these, you must bring the boulder through the stage alongside Ivy, which can create some headaches as the boulder does not have the constant forward momentum that the character does.  Navigating both Ivy and the boulder through a corridor featuring enemies, spikes, or poisonous droplets becomes a hassle in some of the later stages, and is quite difficult. In fact, if you happen to lose your boulder at any time it will spawn at it's original point in the stage forcing you to backtrack.

The game doesn't have a fairly even difficulty scale over the 50 stages in the main game, with the first 30-40 feeling fairly mind numbingly easy and simple, and the last 10-20 being considerably more difficult to not die in. It's more of a difficulty spike. There are way too many easy stages, as I blew through the first half of the main game without losing any of my lives, and yet when I got to the final 10-15 levels in the game, I found myself dying at least 5-10 times on each stage.

After the main game is complete, 50 new bonus stages are unlocked which are all slightly different variations of the stages in the main game.  Each of the bonus stages includes a key which must be found before the exit can be reached.  These stages are a lot more difficult, especially near the end. And don't get me started on the bonus boulder stages.

The game contains up to four player split-screen multiplayer, as well as a two player co-op in the main game. There is also a two player versus game mode that simply has both players competing for the same goal in the same stage.  You can see how far your opponent is ahead of you, but their character doesn't actually show on the screen on like a track style board. Basically you'll only know if you know the level layout. The lack of any real mini-game for multiplayer is a bit disappointing, but if you have a few friends who enjoy the basic mechanic of Ivy the Kiwi? you can have a lot of fun competing for best times and high scores.

The art style deserves a mention as well. It is very well done, with everythiing in the game looking hand drawn and carefully sketched, including the fantastic background art.  Unfortunately, most of the game is colored with either a shade of brown or grey that makes the art blend together poorly, making some of the backgrounds seem dreary and uninteresting. As mentioned above, the game has a storybook-style presentation that is mainly noticeable and is really where the art style stands out. And although the game only has a few tracks they are well done and you may find yourself humming along with them.

 Critical Opinion: 7.4/10- Ivy the Kiwi? is a winner. Simple and effective while moving along at a nice pace. The stages in the main game aren't long at all, but there is replayability in trying to beat your own scores and going through the bonus stages or getting all the bird feathers.  It's not an incredibly deep experience, but if you like challenging your wrist and looking at pretty, detailed hand drawn backgrounds(for the most part), this game might very well be worth checking out.

Personal Opinion: 7/10- It's really hard for me. I usually tend to score higher than my critical counter part. However the controls aren't perfect and the fact you can't control Ivy leads to some cheap deaths. The boulder stages are frustrating, but yet somehow I managed to enjoy the game overall despite the sudden difficulty spike after getting over 35 levels into the game.

Overall Determination: 7.2/10-  What a Bargain!