Kirby

Star Allies has fewer setpieces than previous games.

Especially compared to Robobot.

And while boss fights are normally my favourite part of Kirby too, the ones in this game except Grand Mam and Void Termina feel lackluster too. Your allies tear through them like tissue paper, many of them are incredibly lacking attack-wise, and they shoved a lot of EX-esque bosses into the final world instead of the extra mode, so it feels like they are recycling too many bosses.

edited 8th Apr '18 8:20:19 PM by Wariolander

The bosses can be better I admit (other than the 3 mages and Void Termina), but isn't steamrolling bosses with friends supposed to be satisfying? With all the cool mix power and all...

It might be cathartic but it doesn't make for very memorable fights when most of them end in a blink. They all try to do stuff with their Desperation Attack (or in Dedede's case, swoleness) but they still die quickly after that due to how a team of allies may as well be an always-active Crash.

Kirby's not meant to be hard, but if you want a boss to be memorable you have to give them room to do stuff and show off. They should be levels in their own right, not just flashier/beefier enemies that go down just as easy as the rest of them.

edited 8th Apr '18 9:26:27 PM by NesClassic

That's precisely why I play The Ultimate Choice with no helpers. It wouldn't be fun otherwise.

Looking back, RTDL also features 4 player coop, but the bosses manage to stand out there. Guess it's the combination of (most of) the guys being new (so that we've got none to expect) and, well, the gameplay isn't as chaotic as in Star Allies.

Isn't as chaotic despite the screen being smaller...

Looks like Star Allies will receive a patch that fixes the "CPU Friends kill enemies you wanted to inhale/make into a friend" issue

Good, I remember that being annoying

Anyway, now that I've played the game... while I liked it, I have to agree it was a bit easy for my taste, even for a Kirby game. The helper system is a cute and fun idea BUT having 3 CPU team members also attack all enemies makes it too easy, even for bosses (I'd probably be able to defeat most bosses just by flying around in the air, dodging attacks and letting the helpers do all the work) and I feel the base difficulty could have been bumped up just because of this mechanic (because of course people will use the main new feature of the game). The combined abilities were also fun at first but feel a bit "simplified" compared to, say, 64 (seeing how most are just the basic attack with added fire/ice/water/spark/wind powers) and the puzzles are usually not much of a challenge especially with how they spell the answer out for you (though at least it's not like those Kirby 3 puzzles where you have to bring an animal friend + ability combination that doesn't exist in that level, oh man those were a pain) It also felt a bit... short, but probably because of how easy it was.

...speaking of Kirby 3 I actually liked the puzzles (well, overall, certain specific puzzles were a pain... carefully brushing the flowers gaaah) and wouldn't mind something like that returning in a new game

edited 11th Apr '18 1:19:04 AM by Zanreo

Those weren't puzzles, sure you have to figure out what to do...

But I'd be more prone to simply call those challenge conditions...

edited 11th Apr '18 11:29:22 AM by randomness4

I wonder if younger players had problems with puzzles of previous games (Robobot in particular). I don't think those were that hard.

Sometimes you find a weirdly high-effort shitpost (LOUD AND CONTAINS STAR ALLIES SPOILERS)

Speaking of shitposting, when you fight the final boss using Kirby and Marx as a team.◊

So, who's Android 17 in this metaphor?

Bandanna Waddle Dee, he's the only one not in the spectator seats.

An old enemy who wasn't so bad to begin with, come back to help fight against evil when it counts for initially selfish but ultimately altruistic reasons?

Why Dedede, of course!

edited 22nd Apr '18 10:27:22 PM by KnownUnknown

Welp, only one of you can be right. Guess you'll have to kill each other over it.

Does Bandana Dee have a theme song? I think not!

Yeah but mine is corroborated by the artwork itself, Dedede's up in the stands. And in Piccolo's place in the shot that it's parodying.

Finally got to beating the final boss of Kirby Star Allies. That was really fun, and I loved the boss animations once you fight its true form.

I love the little detail of it making the Zero-Two angel face.

Star Allies has the best debut month in the US of any Kirby game according to the NPD, having a 90% better debut month than the previous holder, Nightmare in Dreamland.

90% better in terms of revenue, not units sold. Still an outstanding boost in sales, but not an absurd one.

Even with my issues with the game, I'm glad to hear of its success. More Kirby in more homes is never a bad thing. I wonder if they'll give the next game a bigger budget. I'd kill for a Kirby soundtrack with live instrumentation...

So I bought Return to Dream Land a while back and finally dived into it.

It's pretty good, though you can tell right off the bat it's the template by which the current crop of Kirby games are molded from.

edited 26th Apr '18 2:40:20 PM by Mr.Badguy