Kuru Kuru Kururin

Overview

Kuru Kuru Kururin is a puzzle game created for the Game Boy Advance, and released only in Japan (March 21, 2001) and Europe (June 22, 2001). It eventually made its way to North America via the Wii U Virtual Console in February 2016. The game is the first in the Kururin series, with later sequels on both the Game Boy Advance (Kururin Paradise) and the GameCube (Kururin Squash).

Story

While there is very little story given the action/puzzle based nature of the game. The game tells the story of Kururin who has lost his brethren over the world of the game. Therefore, he decides to find them in his slowly spinning helicopter contraption called a Helirin and trains with Teacher Hare before setting out on his journey.

Gameplay

The basic principle of the game is to guide the spinning stick through a variety of different mazes and obstacles withing the courses. The puzzle element comes with the methods of getting through the obstacles relating to the angle of the blades at the time when passing through. Therefore, paths must be thought out before hand and timing for passing throughout the levels must be worked out beforehand. By pressing the a or b button the player could speed up the Helirin or by pressing both together could speed it up even more, When sped up the rotating remained at the same speed but the Helirin as a whole moved faster. Using this technique was integral to the latter levels of the game. Times of completion for each of the levels was held in both the adventure and challenge modes and became the main focus after the game had been completed.

Game Modes

When the player sets up a game save they must first decide between normal and easy modes where in the easy mode the Helirin is half the length of that in the normal mode. They are then met with the main menu from which there are five different modes.

Adventure

The adventure mode is the main story mode of the game. It takes the player first through the five training levels with the friendly Teacher Hare where the player learns the basic mechanics of the game. They are then sent out to the overworld much like an early Mario game. There are 11 worlds each with three levels which the player must beat in order. This includes the Grasslands, Ocean, Jungle, Cake Land, Cave, Cloud Land, Star Land, Ice Land, Machine Land, Ghost Castle and The Last Land. One of his brothers or sisters are found in each of the worlds along the way with other bonuses like the options for different color schemes or shapes for the Helirin for use in the Make Up mode. If a world was completed without losing any lives then the player attained a star at that level location.

Practice

This mode simply allowed the player to play any of the adventure mode levels except for the training levels. The only addition was to allow the player to start the level from any of the checkpoints along the way so that a particularly hard section could be practiced repeatedly easily. The overworld appeared in a blue and white faded out style in this mode to differentiate.

Make Up

This mode simply allowed for the color and shape of the Helirin to be modified with no change to gameplay. Any of the brothers and sisters collected can be added onto the wings of the Helirin which perch when the machine is still and when moving fly behind following before it remains stationary again.

Challenge

This mode featured much shorter levels than those featured in the adventure mode but applied all of the same principles. The mode was made up of 11 levels each with five stages within. As in the adventure mode a star was gained at each level completed successfully without losing any lives.

VS Mode

The VS Mode allowed for both single and multi-pack play. The number of stages could be selected along with the options to either select each stage or for random selection. There was also an allowance to issue handicaps in the amount of lives and also the length of the Helirin. The VS Mode is a simple race to finish each level with the winner of the most levels being declared the overall winner.