Like anybody who started gaming in the '90s, I'm a sucker for N64 aesthetics and collectathon platformers, but it's been a while since I've seen anything as exciting as Kero Quest 64. This indie platform game is coming from a team with loads of experience modding Nintendo classics, and after spending a bit of time with the demo, it's clear that experience is paying off.
Kero Quest 64 plays a lot like Super Mario 64. The main character shares pretty much Mario's entire moveset, right down to the fine details of the long jump you get from crouching and leaping, or the sideways flip you can execute by jumping as you reverse direction. Importantly, it feels great, and the few new moves - like a tongue-based grappling hook and a spinning attack - add some nice bits of differentiation from Mario.
I was taken with Kero Quest 64 the instant I heard the pleasant, jaunty tones of its title screen music, and I was sold about halfway through its opening level. The stages here are small but densely packed with platforming challenges, and they wrap in on themselves to help give you multiple paths to each objective. It's a delight, and I'm not afraid to say I was smashing that 'wishlist' button by the time I was done, and it's easy to see why the game blasted through its Kickstarter goal in short order.
Level designer BroDute has plenty of experience, having developed hundreds of custom Super Mario 64 stages over the years. "Still feels a bit weird after 12 years of making content for free to see such an amount of support," BroDute says in a Kickstarter post. "I'll always enjoy just making some levels with the intent of seeing someone play it eventually and have some fun in it."
Kero Quest 64 entered development "as a way to pass the time" when lead programmer MelonSpeedruns - also a prolific modder who's worked on projects like randomizers for various Zelda games - was laid off from his day job as a game dev, according to another project update. The team doubled with modeler TheRidiculousR and composer Jamphibious, and now the project's being published by GalaxyTrail, the outfit behind the beloved Sonic-like Freedom Planet.
For now, Kero Quest 64 is estimated to launch around August 2026, though the Kickstarter games that have actually met their initial deadlines are few and far between. You can head over to Steam to try the demo for yourself in the meantime.
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