Deep inside the earth's core, there is a crystal from another world. This crystal is the earth's life force, and essential to it's survival. One day, a dark crystal falls from the sky and damages the earth's crystal. Desperate, the earth's crystal rockets to the surface and empowers Kolibri with the abilities he needs to defeat the dark crystal.—MobyGames
In 1983, the Hungarian government formed Novotrade International (later renamed to Appaloosa Interactive) as a way to get hold of foreign currency. They often worked with E. Ettore (Ed) Annunziata, an American designer best known for Ecco the Dolphin. All the Ecco games were coded by Novotrade (they had nothing to do with Chakan, however).
There are some obvious similarities of Kolibri with Agony. Not only are both shooters with a bird as the player avatar, Kolibri's title screen quite obviously imitates Agony's. But this is where the similarities end, and in their cores the two games are quite different.
In spite of its uncommon theme, Agony is still a typical fantasy game. The enemies are mostly demons. Landscapes are beautiful, but often bizarre, with burning trees and strange ruins and crimson skies, not that different from Targhan or Shadow of the Beast. The owl, after all, is not really an owl, but a sorcerer's apprentice who has to pass an ordeal in this shape.
Kolibri on the other hand is often very close to a simulation. The landscape is primeval, but realistic, with no fantasy add-ons. The eponymous hummingbird is exactly that, a hummingbird, and it has to do hummingbird things like sucking nectar out of flowers. That it might be capable of shooting lasers out of its eyes with the right powerup is just a concession to the genre. After all, this game is by the makers of Ecco the Dolphin.
Unlike Ecco the Dolphin, Kolibri was never ported to another platform. It remains the most original game on the 32X.
Maze-like stages have you searching for special attacks that allow you to destroy rocky walls that bar your progression onwards, adding a distinct puzzle sheen on top of an already atypical shooter. These stages stack the odds, making you search claustrophobic caves that can level you with super-sized drops of condensation should you fail to time a desperate dash through a storm of smaller drips wrong or forcing you to navigate corridors with strong headwinds that try to redirect you into the hungry mouths of nearby toads or lizards.
The backgrounds are great; beautiful mountains, streams, trees, and flowers really add to the sensation that your character is part of nature. Not only are the Background beautiful, they are also quite varied; you aren't stuck staring at one beautiful rendered tree over and over again. The enemies are various insects and reptiles, and though that isn't a very exciting idea on paper, the developers took the time to make the enemies as or even more gorgeous than Kolibri his/her self.
