When I played Cavern of Dreams last year I was absolutely blown away and heard another similar game had come out right around the same time, so I was looking forward to eventually getting around to Corn Kidz 64. There are some things I really like about this game, I actually think most of the movement in the game is pretty cool and fun and some of the music is good (some is grating). The aesthetic is cool and the humor is occasionally amusing. There's really two main big problems and they work together to make the experience largely unpleasant.

The first is that the checkpoint system is horrible. There's not many of them, and the last one you went to isn't necessarily closer than just falling down, but there is a mechanic for teleporting back to the last checkpoint when you're falling so oftentimes using that is actually bad for you (and it costs you health to use this). Additionally, every level has extremely vertical components so you wind up feeling like every part of the game is Click Clock Wood from Banjo. Actually, in some ways the "Tower" is less guilty of this because it is linear, whereas in the 2nd level you might wind up teleporting to the opposite side of the map unexpectedly. There is also these "Mirror" challenge or mini-game areas but if you fail them you get kicked out of the mirror and also take damage, and if you die from this or in them you have to navigate through the level all the way back to the mirror instead of starting at it. This only happened to me for one mirror but it was really punishingly annoying. Also, for some reason the fall damage threshold is like absurdly low for a platformer, it feels like no matter how small a fall is you'll wind up smashing your face--would be nice to have something like Kazooie's flap ability or Mario's mid-air kick to avoid this.

The second huge problem is just that some aspects of the controls can be really janky. In particular, parts of the platforming are automated, one of your main movements is an ability where you launch forward and you often have to use this to bounce off certain things--generally speaking this will "lock on" and auto-aim you into targets but it is very common to miss that threshold and wind up flying off somewhere you don't expect--for example in the final level there are bouncing spring guys you have to launch into but sometimes you'll just wind up yeeting yourself off the tower and then have to teleport yourself back. Some of the platforms will also kind of auto-lock you on to land on them but it's not always clear if this is going to happen or not and if you use your launch ability then it cancels the lock-on so sometimes you'll automatically jump in such a way you don't expect and then do that. There's also these spider enemies that you have to launch into, then jump, then grab and climb their web which is actually really easy once you know how to do it reliably but if they're in their attack animation you just get completely screwed. All in all, this combination of sometimes weird controls and bad checkpointing winds up making things really frustrating by the end.

Also, the game is pretty short--just three levels with play-time being a bit inflated by the certainty of tediously retreading your steps from failures. I don't think the short length is really a problem, the price is cheap and also Cavern of Dreams also only had four levels but whereas that left me wanting more (and providing me with some postgame) this left me ready to be done (and not interested in whatever additional content there is). It is kind of weird because as I was playing the 2nd level I was thinking that I didn't like it that much but in retrospect it is probably the best level. It does some creative things and has a few interesting puzzles, but it is also a bit overly large especially for the only real complete "collectathon" level (final level has no collectibles and first is largely a tutorial).

All in all, I didn't hate the game but I don't recommend it. I highly suggest you pick up Cavern of Dreams if you haven't played it and this looks appealing, and then after that maybe consider playing this as well if you're still craving more, but between the two it is no contest imo.

um fantastic classic N64 type game. loved the character and world designs, loved the game play, and loved collecting things :) definitely a bit of a difficult platformer but worth it if you're looking for something like that, or something very retro feeling

Corn Kidz 64 desperately wants to be another Banjo or Mario 64. And it's just not. The basic sandbox elements are almost there, the writing is cute and funny at times, but the level design is just poor and frustrating.

You'll constantly feel like you're fighting finicky lock-on mechanics for the headbutt air dash, and the creator's idea of "difficulty" is that if you miss that finicky lock-on, the entire area you've been progressing on will reset significantly.

If the mechanics were better, or the levels designed to be more fun, this could really be something. It is just not quite.