Is this Aero spin-off any good?
It’s Zero Hour! The evil Jacques Le Sheets has a twisted plot to create counterfeit money. And to make the paper, he’s ravaging the wooded homeland of Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel! Can you save the forest and turn Jacques into pulp? – Master Zero’s full arsenal of Ninja techniques and weapons, you’ll need them in later levels! – Hop a jet ski, speed boat and jet pack as you fly into battle at hyper speeds! – Swoop, spin and dive through fifteen levels! – 16 Megs make Zero’s flying-squirrel attack more fierce than ever! Get set to Zero-in on destruction, because this squirrel takes no prisoners!
I’ve already reviewed Aero the Acro-Bat and it’s sequel, so I was now familiar with a series that I wasn’t previously. I was surprised to find out that one of Aero’s enemies got his own spin-off in Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, which turns out to my surprise to be a very rare game that is selling for hundreds or in some cases, £1k+ depending on which version and the quality it is in. So I suppose you can now get it slightly cheaper here (insert sarcasm)…
Zero handles slightly different to Aero. There are standard platforming stages, but also jet skis, speed boats and jetpacks. It’s also tough as nails, though you can enable cheats and use save states plus rewind and fast-forward if you wish to make it easier on yourself. There’s a double Platinum to be had here and all you need to do to get each is to complete the game on both versions.
Some of the bosses can be a pain to defeat and a word of warning for those using cheats, you’ll need to disable invincibility to defeat the final boss right at the end or it won’t work. The good news is that the game’s cheat menu does tell you this and you can switch them on and off easily enough.
The visuals are typical of the era and look similar to Aero’s art style, as you would expect. The framerate is steady and the soundtrack is really catchy. I did have an issue with level trophies not popping first time round, but I replayed the levels a few days later and then they did, so I don’t know if a patch dropped or if it just started working. Either way, it should be fine now.
The Verdict
Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel is another great game in the Aero the Acro-Bat series. It’s a shame there’s only one game left in it to be released, but I personally found this to be the most enjoyable yet.