#SWITCH KIRBY STAR ALLIES REVIEW SERIES#
#SWITCH KIRBY STAR ALLIES REVIEW FREE#

There’s a requisite water level, one in an icy area that makes the player slide, and even one with fireballs that cause players to move out of the way from the flaming projectiles. This element of experimentation helps the stages stay interesting throughout Kirby Star Allies, even if they can skew on the generic side. This can also be done with computer-controlled characters, but it never feels quite as planned out even when a cool combo move occurs. I found the game was at its best when played with a friend, as players are able to combine abilities in some really creative ways. Up to four players can join in on the action, and it’s a perfect showcase of the Joy-Con’s versatility. While the recruiting aspect doesn’t make a huge impact immediately, it does turn Kirby Star Allies into a cooperative title. It’s a tried and true formula, and one that fans have come to really enjoy. Besides that change, players will find a pretty standard Kirby 64-style game that will force players to obtain certain abilities to solve some puzzles and defeat foes. Yes, that means that Kirby can finally just chill with three Knuckle Joes. This time around, players can recruit would-be enemies into their squad of heroes.

#SWITCH KIRBY STAR ALLIES REVIEW SERIES#

Like most recent Kirby games, there’s a gimmick that takes the series beyond its normal mix of copied abilities.

#SWITCH KIRBY STAR ALLIES REVIEW FREE#

There are other nostalgic touches too the jigsaw pieces you collect unlock guest illustrations celebrating the history of the games, and the in-game Dream Palaces let you recruit popular heroes from the series' past, with more to come via free updates.Related reading: Our review of one of the Kirby games on Nintendo 3DS

Of course none of it is exactly new for the series - you could recruit enemies in Super Star, solve clever puzzles rooms in Dream Land 3 and combine abilities together in Crystal Shards - and it's partly that throwback factor that makes it feel special.

There's the requisite nonsense story about an extraterrestrial threat, the optional secrets, the cascade of boss battles, and of course the collection of mini-games for you to try out when you're done with the main quest. The structure of the game will be very familiar to longtime fans, even if the scale of the main story mode is a little grander. And big boss battles are generally proceeded with a special device that lets you redistribute your powers, and set your party. Swapping around is a bit awkward, if for example you want to trade abilities with an AI partner, but in a pinch you can always go piggyback to temporarily control them directly. Kirby can ingest enemies to take their powers or throw hearts to add a friend, meanwhile the other players can use their avatar's own ability, or throw a heart to switch to someone different. I was worried that players two to four would feel slighted that player one gets to be Kirby and they have to be enemies, but actually there's very little functional difference. In fact the whole system has the potential to be clunky and frustrating, but thanks to some very clever design it's just kind of charming throughout.

Ice abilities are not only cool, they do extra damage against hotheads like these. Obviously this is most satisfying if you're playing with real human friends, but I was very impressed with how good the AI was at knowing what I wanted them to do. Or you might need to apply electricity to a staff in order to reach a power socket and open a gate. More often then not, achieving these optional goals will require specific abilities, or specific combinations of abilities, to be used in certain ways.įor example you might need one character with a parasol to cover a player using a fire. In Star Allies, secret switches in many levels lead to hidden and more challenging stages, while completionists will spend a long time scouring for rainbow puzzle pieces. Kirby games are famously easy, which is great as it means people of all ages and skill levels can enjoy them, but there's a lot of hidden depth for more dedicated players to find. It's super satisfying to find and befriend specific enemies to try out all the combinations, but it gives an extra layer of complexity to the game's more puzzly side too. Extra potent abilities like Cook, Mike or Festival can have devastating effects if used just right.

Switch kirby star allies review