Kolibri is a 1995 Sega 32X Shoot 'Em Up developed by Novotrade International, the same company behind the Ecco the Dolphin games; many of the same people who worked on the 16-bit Ecco games worked on Kolibri, including designer and producer Ed Annunziata.
In this game, the Earth is a living organism, with every lifeform upon it a cell in the greater whole. These 'cells' were created millions of years ago by a shard of crystal left over from an advanced planet exploding which happened to land on Earth; in the present day, it hums in the planetary core, providing the Earth organism with life energy.
But one day, another shard of the advanced planet falls to Earth. This dark crystal, irradiated by the original planetary explosion, infects and corrupts the lifeforms of Earth, in particular the arthropods. Like a cancer, infected life forms reproduce uncontrollably, and Earth begins to die.
Fortunately, the original Earth crystal was able to empower the hummingbird Kolibri with the last of its power. Now, Kolibri must travel across the Earth, neutralizing the dark crystal's cancerous forces and destroying it before Earth succumbs to the infection. His progress is split between autoscrolling 'transit' levels and free-roam 'puzzle' levels.
This game contains examples of:
- Alien Invasion: The dark crystal is functionally this. Instead of arriving with an army of its own, it instead corrupts the creatures of Earth to do its bidding.
- Amphibian Assault: Frogs act as instant-death hazards in many levels. It's not clear if this is a result of the corruption or if it's just frogs acting as natural hummingbird predators; notably, they can't be killed.
- Auto-Scrolling Level: About half the levels are constantly scrolling, usually acting as bookends to each set of levels in a particular biome.
- All There in the Manual: There is no story text in the game proper; everything about the Earth crystal, the dark crystal, and so on comes from the instruction booklet.
- Atrocious Arthropods: Most of the arthropods have become enemies thanks to the dark crystal.
- Badass Adorable: Kolibri himself, of course, being a cute hummingbird blasting his way through various enemies. And not without justification - Real Life hummingbirds are incredibly cute and incredibly aggressive.
- Big Bad: The dark crystal. It may or may not have any sentience of its own, but it's the driving force behind the metaphorical cancer that threatens the Earth, and eventually provides a final boss fight.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The arthropods are normal sized, but considering the player character is a bird about the size of a medium-sized insect, in context they count.
- Big Good: The Earth crystal, which with its dying strength gives Kolibri the powers he needs to save the world.
- Bubblegloop Swamp: The mangrove levels, Infestation, Expiry, and Metastasis, are swamp levels that cross this setting with Jungle Japes.
- Creator Thumbprint: Anyone who's played the Ecco the Dolphin games can tell the same people made this one, with its similar puzzle structure and brand of "environmentalism with sci-fi weirdness".
- Cute 'em Up: Though it has a fairly realistic art style for the subgenre, you're still a tiny hummingbird fighting insects instead of a spaceship.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Kolibri the kolibri is a 'foreign language' version of it; "kolibri" either directly means or is a root word for "hummingbird" in several European languages.
- Dreadful Dragonfly: One type of enemy are dragonflies corrupted by the dark crystal.
- Easing into the Adventure: Warning Signs gives the player time to get used to the basic controls and allows them to decide when to begin the game proper by sipping some nectar.
- Green Hill Zone: Kolibri's home meadow, featured in the levels Warning Signs, Rescue, and Eruption. Some later levels - Plains Infection, Terra Lesion, and Terra Decay - take place in what appears to be an African savannah.
- Green Rocks: The Earth crystal which initially grants Kolibri his powers, as well as the crystals in later levels that spawn powerups.
- Homing Projectile: Several of Kolibri's weapons have a homing feature, including the laser weapon.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: In the earliest levels, Kolibri can sip nectar to spawn health pickups. Justified by real-world hummingbirds famously having an actual hyperactive metabolism, to the point of having to hibernate instead of sleep every night lest they starve to death.
- Jungle Japes: The mangrove levels, Infestation, Expiry, and Metastasis are tropical jungle levels that cross this setting with Bubblegloop Swamp. Infected Forest and Old World Infection are more straightforward jungle levels.
- Life Meter: Takes the form of up to five miniature hummingbirds circling Kolibri. They only appear when he either heals or takes a hit.
- Load-Bearing Boss: When Kolibri destroys the dark crystal, its ziggurat lair collapses.
- Lock and Key Puzzle: Endemic in the puzzle levels, which require Kolibri to find a powerup that lets him blast stones blocking his way.
- Marathon Level: Remission is the final level, and it is a gargantuan maze that makes up around a third of the game's runtime all by itself - and that's if you don't get lost!
- Mayincatec: The dark crystal makes its home in some Maya-looking ruins, featured in the final levels: Penetration, Extraction, and Remission.
- The Maze: The puzzle levels get progressively more labyrinthine as the game progresses.
- Panspermia: The Earth crystal's arrival is an (apparently) unintentional version of this. Nothing intentionally seeded Earth, but life did ultimately arise because of a celestial object.
- The Plague: The game's story uses the Gaia Hypothesis and presents all life on Earth as part of a single 'body', with each living organism one of its 'cells'. The dark crystal's influence is likened to a cancer, corrupting the 'cells' and threatening to see them destroy their own 'body'. This mostly comes from the manual, but is also reflected in level names like "Metastasis" and "Remission".
- Plant Mooks: A fair number of flowers have fallen victim to the dark crystal's corruption, including buds that spit projectiles and flowers that attempt to devour Kolibri.
- Password Save: The game uses passwords in order to save progress.
- Pretty Butterflies: Some of the only arthropods that aren't affected by the dark crystal's corruption are butterflies.
- Respawning Enemies: Enemies respawn as soon as their starting positions scroll offscreen, which can hinder navigation in the puzzle levels.
- Scary Scorpions: Scorpions appear as level hazards in the hive levels.
- Scenery Porn: This game was in part meant to show off just what the 32X could do, and boy does it ever, with incredibly lush backgrounds for 1995.
- Single-Use Shield: A straightforward example - the shield rings protect Kolibri from only one hit before vanishing.
- Spiders Are Scary: They're actually less scary than some enemies since they're stuck in one place, but spiders still appear as hazards in a few levels.
- Stalking Mission: A downplayed example appears in the levels Terra Decay, Penetration, and Remission. Kolibri must follow a particular insectoid creature in order to pass through gates that are meant to keep out hummingbirds, but the creature doesn't acknowledge Kolibri at all - the challenge is in keeping up the tail while everything else is trying to kill you.
- Underground Level: New Infection and Deep Seeding take place in a cave, while Cold Entrance, Dark Cavity, Dark Obstruction, and To the Light all take place in an underground hive.
- Wicked Wasps: Wasps are as much part of the Earth organism as any other life form, but they appear to have been either particularly susceptible to the dark crystal's corrupting influence or particularly desirable hosts, and either way make up the bulk of its forces.
