NO NEED TO MESS WITH THIS CLASSIC

NEWZEALAND STORY RETURNS... BUT WITHOUT THE SOUL OF THE ORIGINAL

- CHERYL MULLIN

I got my very first taste of The NewZealand Story thanks to my dad, who came home spending a morning at the local car boot sale with a clutch of disks for my Atari ST.

Alongside a couple of The Medway Boys compilations was an original copy of this classic, which had been released just a few years before.

This glorious little platformer started life in arcades in 1988, and followed the fortunes of Tiki, an adorable Kiwi, who is on a mission to save his girlfriend Phee Phee — and several other cute Kiwi chicks from the evil clutches of a large blue leopard seal.

Just 12 short months after its arcade debut, The NewZealand Story was ported to most major computers and consoles at the time which is how a teenage me found herself obsessed with trying to help Tiki complete his mission on my trusty Atari.

In the 36 years since its release, it's appeared on various collections including Taito's own Milestones 2 in 2023, and it's always a joy to revisit.

So you can imagine my surprise when I learned that the game had been remade.

Remaking a beloved title is always a risk, so I was intrigued to see what developer Bitobob had done with it.