Overview
The New Zealand Story, sometimes stylized as The NewZealand Story and occasionally called Kiwi Kraze, is a 1988 Arcade action game from Taito that was ported to a number of platforms. The player controls the kiwi bird Tiki and must rescue his fellow kiwis, including his girlfriend Phee-Phee, from the villainous Willy Walrus. Kiwis can be found at the end of each stage, which the player must progress through with a mix of platforming, vehicle sequences and shooting enemies with bolts to remove them.
The computer ports were published by UK company Ocean Software, which also published the NES game in Europe. The North American NES release was named Kiwi Kraze instead. It also saw a Japan-exclusive PC Engine port that would later be added to the Wii's Virtual Console (also Japan only). The Arcade version of The New Zealand Story was also added to the 2005 Taito Legends compilation.
Story
The story of The New Zealand Story takes place in the Zoological Garden of New Zealand's North Island. The two kiwis Tiki and his girlfriend Phee-Phee live happily together with the rest of the colony, until one day Wally Walrus comes to town. Wally captures the defenseless kiwis and carries them off to cages hidden in zoos and parks all over New Zealand. Trapped, they can only await their fate of being eaten by the Walrus!
Luckily, while Wally is busy thinking about kiwi meals, Tiki manages to escape from his cage and plans to save his girlfriend Phee-Phee and the rest of the colony. A race against time begins as Tiki battles with Wally's friends in the maze-like worlds of New Zealand's zoos, so that he can finally reach the evil Walrus and save his friends.
Gameplay
Lives, Continues and Scoring
Tiki starts the game with three lives. He can get a bonus life at 50,000 points and every additional 20,000 points after that. Tiki loses a life when he is hit or when he runs out of oxygen. The player does not have to start the level from the beginning, though. They can resume the game directly where Tiki died. At the beginning of the game the player does not have any continues, but after completing stage 2-4 and 4-5 they are awarded a continue.
Each time Tiki destroys an enemy the player gains 150 points. Additionally, enemies drop bonuses after being defeated. The bonus items are worth 100 extra points and in some cases Tiki also gets a special power from them.
Bonus items include:
- Fruit: These only give 100 extra points
- Weapons: Bow and Arrow, Bomb, Laser Gun, Plasma Ball.
- Joystick: This one is only useful for riding balloons. It allows the player to control the balloon in a more sophisticated way than they normally can. It allows Tiki to stay in mid-air (normally the only options are to go either up or down) and change the direction left, right, up and down.
- Book: The book immediately destroys all enemies on-screen.
- Potion: The potion grants Tiki temporal invincibility.
- Stopwatch: All enemies are immobilized for a limited amount of time.
Movement
Tiki has four basic abilities: he can shoot his bow, walk, jump and swim.
Jumping can be alternated in height by holding down the button longer or shorter.
When swimming, Tiki only has a limited supply of oxygen. He can attack enemies from the water when coming up for air by squirting water at them.
Tiki is furthermore able to fly with the help of balloons. Balloons can be found scattered around the levels or he can steal them from enemies. There are six different kinds of balloons in total. Each of them has different characteristics.
Levels
There are 21 levels in total. All the levels are set in real life locations in New Zealand.
The game begins in Auckland, then passes through Rotorua, The Waitomo Caves, Wellington Strait, Cook Strait and Hammer Springs to the final confrontation with Wally at Mount Cook. In every level Tiki has to save one of his kiwi friends, until he finally reaches his girlfriend Phee-Phee. The enemies, however, are not the only problem: There is a time limit for every level. If the player is too slow the Time Dragon will descend.
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