ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A KIWI WHOSE FRIENDS HAD BEEN KIDNAPPED BY A LEOPARD SEAL. ARMED WITH A BOW AND ARROW, THE FLIGHTLESS BIRD TRIED VERY HARD TO FREE HIS PALS BUT WHETHER OR NOT HE SUCCEEDED WOULD DEPEND ON HUMAN HELP AND A FISTFUL OF COINS
New Zealand is a lush green country that once put The Hobbit on its national currency. It’s a nation that allows every school to hold a pound of uranium and one that recognises sheep shearing as a sport. It also has the kiwi bird as its national symbol – aflightless species plastered on the side of its military jets. Yet none of that is as bizarre as The NewZealand Story, a violent, mazey run-and-gun platformer that just happens to be stuffed to the brim with cutesy characters.
Released in the arcades by Taito in 1988, the game formed part of the developer’s second golden age alongside the likes of Bubble Bobble and Arkanoid. The main character was a kiwi called Tiki whose pals and girlfriend Phee-Phee happened to have been kidnapped by an evil leopard seal who was hellbent on selling them. As you may have guessed, it was up to Tiki to save the day, releasing the chicks from captivity while avoiding all manner of obstacles and nasties.
If that sounds simple enough, let’s get one thing straight from the off. It wasn’t. The NewZealand Story was hair-tearingly difficult and frustrating to the point that we’d hazard a guess many reading this right now will not have progressed through all of its five levels and associated stages. You really needed to keep your wits about you if you wanted to avoid failure and death. Thing is, there was something about the game that ensured you’d want one more go: sublime level design.
The game’s development came almost by accident. Before work began, the Taito team had been toiling away on a remake of another title called Crazy Balloon only to see it cancelled. “At that time, remakes of past works were popular and this was one of them,” explains programmer Kazutomo Ishida, referring to Taito’s 1980 coin-op in which you controlled a wobbling balloon through a course full of thorns, trying not to touch them.
