Kirby Review (Spin-off Series)

Kirby

Premise: For a Kirby game not to be classified in the main series, it must somehow detract from the standard formula. Many of these aren't developed as full-fledged adventure games and instead are marketed as short mini-games you can play on the side. Unlike the 4 - 10 Hours I spend on your typical Kirby game, these type of games might have only held my attention for one hour. However, there are certain "full game" types that are simply designed differently, perhaps in a different art-style and/or without core mechanics (option to copy abilities for example). For the purpose of my review, I have divided the two archetypes accordingly by listing them as mini-games and adventure games below.

Rating System

1/5 - not worth spending your money on; 2/5 - mostly annoying but still has some redeeming qualities; 3/5 - Fun experience with some trouble; 4/5 - Great time and quite memorable; 5/5 - Perfect in every way.

(>")> Mini-Games (9 Total, 5 Remakes) <("<)

• Kirby's Pinball Land: Game #3 - Game Boy. November 27, 1993. Rating (2/5). Using the engine from Revenge of the Gator and later conceptually used in Pokemon Pinball, Kirby's Pinball Land uses the simple concept of knocking Kirby through several stages as did Sonic Spinball when it was released at almost the exact same time for the Sega Genesis. Unfortunately, my beady skills did not allow me to make any progress in the one hour I played the game. If you were really good at the game, I guess you could beat it in 30 minutes. An interesting, albeit shorter, version of Kirby Pinball was later added to Kirby: Mass Attack.
• Kirby's Dream Course: Game #4 - Super Nintendo. February 1, 1995. Rating (2/5). Let me first start off by stating that I am a horrible golf player. I'm good when a line shows me exactly where the ball is going to end up. However, the developers created puzzle courses where you must defeat every enemy on the map before a hole appears. Kirby also has a set amount of health that is lowered every time you strike him, run into spikes, or get hit with some deadly obstacle on the course. In order to make some head-way towards more meaningful medals, you will need to utilize all twenty abilities on top of measuring the strength of the shot, aim, spin, the amount of pressure on a bounce, and curving the direction of where your pink golf ball will end-up. Sadly, I lasted one hour before giving up on Course 3. Not only is it easy to accidentally punt your ball off the side of the map, but you lose any earned powers when you die.
• Kirby's Avalanche: Game #5 - Super Nintendo. April 25, 1995. Rating (1/5). This is a direct copy of Puyo Puyo with elements of Kirby's Dream Land 2 in it. Sega did the same thing with Dr. Robotnik Mean Bean Machine a couple years earlier. If I couldn't last 15 minutes inside the arcade version in Yakuza 6, there was no way I was going to make any progress in this game.
• Kirby's Block Ball: Game #7 - Game Boy. May 4, 1996. Rating (1/5). It is very clear they are trying for a version of Breakout this time around. They do mix things up by allowing you to use horizontal and vertical bars in some rooms, especially during a boss fight, but there is barely enough here to keep you preoccupied even with some of the copy abilities present. An interesting version of this was present in Kirby: Canvas Curse.

• Kirby's Star Stacker: Game #10 - Game Boy. July 14, 1997. Rating (1/5). So it's a stacking game like Puyo Puyo, but made easier with the fact you only have to connect two blocks (with stars being wild cards). I decided to move on after playing all the stages set on the hard difficulty.

  [Remake] Kirby's Super Star Stacker: Game #12 - Super Nintendo. November 30, 1997. Rating (1/5). Made a mere 4 months after the original version, the colored version introduces a campaign where you compete with the AI. I failed miserably.

• Kirby's Tilt n Tumble: Game #14 - Game Boy Color. April 9, 2001. Rating (1/5). Nintendo decided to make a Kirby game primarily using the handheld's Tilt feature with the added option to "flick" the cute roller by quickly lifting the device in the air. It can be extremely challenging to play.
• Kirby Air Ride: Game #16 - Nintendo Game Cube. October 13, 2003. Rating (2/5). No doubt to try and popularize on the Mario Kart idea, this is the one and only case the developers established a racing game for the Kirby saga. There are nine standard race courses in Air Ride, seven courses where you play with a top-down perspective reminiscent to Micro Machines in Top Ride, a very basic city landscape where you compete in collecting items in City Trial. With it's simplistic stage designs that barely connect anything we know in the Kirby universe, I'd give this game a pass.

• Kirby Slide: Game #17 - Game Boy Advance (E-reader). November-December 2003. Rating (1/5). Barely constituting as a "game" in the list, Nintendo included a 9-box sliding puzzle of Kirby for the Game Boy Advance E-Reader.

  [Remake] Kirby Fighters Deluxe: Game #27 - Nintendo 3DS (eShop). August 29, 2014. Rating (1/5). A mini-game pulled from Kirby: Triple Deluxe as a stand-alone with added features.

  [Remake] Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe: Game #28 - Nintendo 3DS (eShop). August 29, 2014. Rating (1/5). A mini-game pulled from Kirby: Triple Deluxe as a stand-alone with added features.

  [Remake] Team Kirby Clash Deluxe: Game #31 - Nintendo 3DS (eShop). April 12, 2017. Rating (1/5). A mini-game pulled from Kirby: Planet Robobot as a stand-alone with added features.

  [Remake] Kirby's Blowout Blast: Game #32 - Nintendo 3DS (eShop). July 6, 2017. Rating (1/5). A mini-game pulled from Kirby: Planet Robobot as a stand-alone with added features.

• Kirby Battle Royale: Game #33 - Nintendo 3DS. January 19, 2018. Rating (2/5). The odd-ball part about this game is that it appears to be another Kirby Fighters, but it plays with a top-down perspective originally seen in Kirby: Air Ride. There is the added difficulty of accumulating "Battle Coins" from leveling up your character by participating in basic events.

(>")> Adventure Games (4 Total, 1 Remake) <("<)

• Kirby: Canvas Curse: Game #19 - Nintendo DS. June 13, 2005. Rating (2/5). Also known as Kirby: Power Paintbrush in PAL regions, the developers over at Nintendo just had to do something different with the Kirby games on the Nintendo DS. For whatever reason, they decided to make the games force you to use the stylus to interact as the pink circle with quotation marks as eyes moves around the screen. So our little guy is constantly moving forward unless you draw lines with your "Magical Paintbrush" that lead him into another direction, click on him to use his abilities, or run into goo that stops him in his tracks. More is required as you click on enemies to stun them, draw lines to block projectiles, click on bombs to blow up the area, interact with wall switches, or click on objects to clear them. Each of the stages contain a good sum of medals to collect that help unlock songs, abilities during courses, characters with augmented abilities, more health, or different colored lines. Considering I only obtained 25 out of 250 Medals, we can say that the challenges to collect them were beyond my patience. Sadly, I was not able to defeat the final boss since not only did it require you to pass multiple phases by drawing lines in all sorts of ways but you must also click on Kirby to make him move. After a few tries, I decided to rage quit (after already taking multiple breaks while playing through the stages).
• Kirby and the Rainbow Curse: Game #29 - Nintendo Wii U. February 20, 2015 Rating (3/5). Although not technically a remake, I'd consider Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush, as it is known in PAL regions, to be the spiritual successor to Kirby: Canvas Curse. I'm not even sure why you would even look up at the television set since the vast majority of your time will be used carrying your stylus all around the screen in front of you. Immediately, you will notice that the biggest change about this game is the Claymotion artwork. However, the idea of drawing a line for our tiny vacuum ball is pulled directly from the other game. Kirby even rolls during the cutscenes! You may note that the game is much easier to handle than its predecessor with less pitfalls and better ways to collect items. There are treasure chests with figurines and music, sometimes hidden inside challenge rooms you have 15 seconds to react. Secret Diary pages can be obtained at the end of the level by reaching a certain point at the goal wheel. Some stages will allow the artist to re-draw our protagonist as Kirby Tank, Kirby Submarine or Kirby Rocket. Multiplayer is available, but not in the way you think. Extra players will become small Bandana Waddle Dee colored characters that can carry the first player around or use spears to attack enemies. In an attempt to balance this great advantage, the developers incorporated "Grab Hands" you must defeat that appear during some sections of the game. I'd also check in with specific amiibos: "When the Kirby amiibo is used, Kirby can Star Dash even without 100 point stars. Kirby wears a belt with a star. When the Meta Knight amiibo is used, Kirby can dash faster, and he gains Meta Knight's mask. When the King Dedede amiibo is used, Kirby gains an additional two health bars, so he starts a level with six health bars. However, amiibo can only be used in one stage once per day." The game does get relatively difficult when each stage plays out longer than expected and things like ghosts & lava can kill you instantly. I really didn't appreciate how they re-used the same bosses in the first three stages with modified behaviors in the following three stages. Though I was quite happy with my 85% completion after beating the game.
• Kirby Mass Attack: Game #23 - Nintendo DS. September 19, 2011. Rating (2/5). I'll let the trailer try to explain this game for me. Since this is a Nintendo DS game, you won't be physically moving Kirby. No, you will be using your stylus for just about everything. You will click the screen to command up to ten Kirbys at one time (depending on how much food you eat). Single click tells them where to go, double click makes them run, clicking on enemies tells them what to "pummel", and clicking on items tells them what to eat. Clicking the screen without lifting the stylus off will summon a star all the Kirbys will jump on and "ride" as you drag it around. Clicking on a Kirby and quickly dragging it across the screen will "flick" the Kirby to a certain location. If all of this sounds exhausting, that's because it is. Since all your actions depend on how you use your stylus, there will be several occasions where the game will do something completely different than your original intention. This repetitive motion is exacerbated when there are many spots in the game, including almost every boss fight, where you are rated on how quickly you can launch your durable cannonballs in the air. Another problem the game suffers from how it balances its difficulty. Every time one of your disposable soldiers runs into something they shouldn't, they turn blue. Unless colorized from a checkpoint, they can be hit again and their spirit slowly floats away unless you grab them. You must watch for other hazards that can harm your unit, as well as dodging anything that can instantly kill them all at once. If you are limited with how many Kirbys you have left, it can be a pain trying to bring down just one enemy. Don't even try clicking on an enemy in the air! Your only option to bring them down is to either flick a Kirby into them or have one ride a star high above the target and let go. There are no checkpoints during a stage. If you fail, the game registers as if you never played the stage to begin with. You don't have to do every single stage, but my biggest gripe is how they handled the final level. Not only do you need to collect every rainbow medal in every stage but then you need to fight harder difficulties of all the same bosses you previously encountered and start with only one Kirby. Aesthetically, everything about the game is great. Level design, music, stage mechanics, and all ten of the extras that are unlocked from collecting medals are fantastic. But, I have to admit, I was not able to finish the game.

• Kirby's Epic Yarn: Game #22 - Nintendo Wii. October 17, 2010. Rating (4/5). As the name of the game denotes, Kirby has now officially taken on the cutest form it could ever make. Even the music is cute! It feels like they were trying to capitalize on Sony's success of Little Big Planet that was released just a couple years earlier. The difficulty of the game has dropped to an all-time low now that it is impossible for you to die during a stage. Enemies can only harm you with their weapons, and the only repercussions of getting hurt is losing a number of your beads. This currency's only value is to buy more decorations for your apartment. Actually, almost everything revolves around that exact system. You can collect special patches that will attract certain friends to come for a visit and give you timed challenges of levels you already visited for - get this - a total of 100 different types of wallpaper for your room. You are able to play the game with a friend, but the way the camera handles both characters at once can get pretty chaotic. Despite all that, the game maintains its excellence through its variety of stages, mechanics, stages, and bosses. You can't absorb enemy abilities, but you will be able to transform in a multitude of different things, like a submarine, parachute, tank, digger, UFO, fire truck, monster truck, train, rocket, and dolphin.

  [Remake] Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn: Game #35 - Nintendo 3DS. March 8, 2019. Rating (4/5). Considering how the original game barely made use of the controller's motion control, it was inevitable to see a remake developed for the Nintendo 3DS. There are a lot of new features. They added "Ravel Ability" that let's you use some interesting abilities like yo-yo, button, knitting needles, marking pins, nylon, and wire. There are a couple of new modes and sub-games to try out. There are also a ton more furniture to collect for your apartment complex, if that was something you liked in its predecessor.

  What Games Should I Play?

  Review: There are many great games that were released over the years. If you have a Wii, you can buy the Kirby's Dream Collection that was released in 2012 with Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy), Kirby's Adventure (NES), Kirby's Dream Land 2 (Game Boy), Kirby Super Star (SNES), Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SNES), and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Nintendo 64). However, surprisingly the ones I recommend tend to do better on handheld devices. Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland and Kirby & The Amazing Mirror are both on the Game Boy Advance. Kirby: Squeak Squad, Kirby: Super Star Ultra, and Kirby: Mass Attack are on the Nintendo DS. Kirby: Triple Deluxe, Kirby: Planet Robobot, and Kirby Extra Epic Yarn are on the Nintendo 3DS. The style of gameplay you ultimately end up gravitating towards depends highly on what system you carry and what friends you have available.