You ought to know how I feel about Kirby games, and what I think is necessary for a really good Kirby game. I elaborated on as much in my review of the colorful but unexciting Kirby’s Epic Yarn. At E3, however, I was surprised to find a playable demonstration of Nintendo’s newest announced game in the franchise, the tentatively named Kirby Wii. I was even more surprised to find that the game felt just as well crafted and fun as Kirby Super Star. In fact, Kirby Wii may be even better than that.

Like many of Nintendo’s recent revamps of classic titles, the game is played by holding the Wii remote sideways. Kirby has all his basic actions as you remember them. I’m especially glad they didn’t tamper with his flying ability like in Kirby 64 and Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Like Super Star, Kirby can copy attacks from enemies or get them from special pedestals, and use them in a variety of ways; especially the new Leaf, Whip and Water abilities. Certain special enemies also give Kirby “super” abilities, like swinging a humongous sword or sending a flaming dragon across the screen. These powerful attacks have a limited number of uses and can affect the stage’s terrain, often opening up paths.

Also like Super Star, the Wii title supports local co-op play, and this time allows as many as four players. However, rather than creating helper characters based on the ability Kirby has, players 2-4 can be Metaknight, King Dedede or a bandana wearing Waddle Dee. These characters have their own trademark weapons to attack with, so they’re a bit more limited compared to Kirby. And although I’m not 100% sure of this, Kirby seemed to be the only character who could enter doors. So whoever plays as Kirby is essentially “in charge.” However, there do seem to be special items that all characters can use, one of which I saw was a head-mounted cannon.

Co-op does add some interesting features, though. Kirby can suck up his allies and use them as projectiles seemingly without hurting them. Players can also ride on top of other players, even as far as making a four player totem pole. Additionally, if one player goes too far off screen, he’ll automatically teleport back to the group. The game also retains the ability for a player to “kiss share” life restoring items a short period after grabbing them.

The stages seemed pretty typical Kirby fare with what was shown. As mentioned above, some of the terrain is destroyable with “super” weapons. However, the most striking new feature is a sort of “dark world” the players enter upon finding a star-shaped hole in the stage. This transports players to a grayscale land where a liquid wall of death continually approaches from the left. Kirby can push the wall back by spitting projectiles at it. One really effective means of this is a new ability of Kirby’s: shaking the remote while Kirby is inhaling allows him to suck up numerous blocks and enemies and spit out an enormous star. I’m not entirely sure if this always works or if it only comes up in special situations like this. Stages also have star items strewn about them, which I don’t know the purpose of (originally I thought they fueled the super attacks). There are also gears, which seem to be collectables.

Playing the game feels fantastic. Admittedly, I played as Metaknight during my session, and a lot of my Kirby insight is from observation. Nevertheless, I played the game as if I were playing Super Star, and everything in that regard is sharp and rewarding. The physics and controls all feel proper. If there’s one thing I can find to critique, it’s that Kirby’s super moves pause the action until they complete. One player who was doing this over and over to try and level the terrain sheepishly apologized to the rest of us. Other than this snag, however, I’m remiss to find any major problems with what I played.

And the best part is it seems the game is coming pretty soon. I was told by the representative that it would be hitting stores in September, specifically September 21st if I remember right. I feel this might need to be taken with a grain of salt, but if true it means we’re finally going to get a damn good Kirby game in just a few months.

Tags: E3 2011, HAL Laboratory, hands-on impressions, kirby, Kirby Wii, Nintendo, preview

This entry was posted on Monday, June 13th, 2011 at 5:00 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.