Kirby Star Allies (Switch)
Apr. 26th, 2020 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroKirby, as usual, is minding his own business when a series of mysterious purple glowing hearts crash into Dream Land and interrupt his nap. He’ll have to recruit some friends and track down the source of the problems, likely defeating a few eldritch abominations along the way.
Remember Kirby Superstar for the SNES? They expanded the secondary helper character into three such characters, and you can play it with up to four players, but only the first has to actually be good at the game. That makes this an EXCELLENT game to play with your children, especially if you’ve been playing side-scrolling platformers since you were their age. The helpers can’t fall into pits (they just teleport to Kirby) and can be revived or re-created by Kirby easily. If you don’t have a group, the helpers are CPU-controlled and their AI is decent.
In addition to the normal enemies-turned-allies, you can recruit “Dream Friends” from previous games at the Dream Palace in each area. The randomizer in the Dream Palace is frustrating, because there are so many characters and some of them are much cooler than others (who would ever pick Gooey when Susie is available?) and you just have to keep going back and hoping you get someone good. (As you unlock more characters, the reel slows down more and you can more easily choose the one you want. After you finish story mode, the bonus modes often allow you to just choose from a list.)
There’s plenty of material you can keep replaying. If you just marathoned the main game, you could get everything in under 8 hours. There’s also a Guest Star story mode that lets you play a compressed version of the main game as any of the helper characters; a Boss Rush mode; and a Heroes in Another Dimension set of hard post-game stages. Oddly, 100% completion of the game requires doing well at the Chop Champs and Star Slam Heroes minigames, but doesn’t require doing Heroes in Another Dimension or finishing the Celebration puzzle pictures.
Overall: This was a fabulous game for playing with Jethrien and ARR during our lockdown adventures. And it has gotten ARR on a Kirby kick that includes also playing the Kirby Dream Collection with me and watching Kirby Right Back At Ya. Totally recommended.
Remember Kirby Superstar for the SNES? They expanded the secondary helper character into three such characters, and you can play it with up to four players, but only the first has to actually be good at the game. That makes this an EXCELLENT game to play with your children, especially if you’ve been playing side-scrolling platformers since you were their age. The helpers can’t fall into pits (they just teleport to Kirby) and can be revived or re-created by Kirby easily. If you don’t have a group, the helpers are CPU-controlled and their AI is decent.
In addition to the normal enemies-turned-allies, you can recruit “Dream Friends” from previous games at the Dream Palace in each area. The randomizer in the Dream Palace is frustrating, because there are so many characters and some of them are much cooler than others (who would ever pick Gooey when Susie is available?) and you just have to keep going back and hoping you get someone good. (As you unlock more characters, the reel slows down more and you can more easily choose the one you want. After you finish story mode, the bonus modes often allow you to just choose from a list.)
There’s plenty of material you can keep replaying. If you just marathoned the main game, you could get everything in under 8 hours. There’s also a Guest Star story mode that lets you play a compressed version of the main game as any of the helper characters; a Boss Rush mode; and a Heroes in Another Dimension set of hard post-game stages. Oddly, 100% completion of the game requires doing well at the Chop Champs and Star Slam Heroes minigames, but doesn’t require doing Heroes in Another Dimension or finishing the Celebration puzzle pictures.
Overall: This was a fabulous game for playing with Jethrien and ARR during our lockdown adventures. And it has gotten ARR on a Kirby kick that includes also playing the Kirby Dream Collection with me and watching Kirby Right Back At Ya. Totally recommended.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-27 01:44 pm (UTC)I haven't tried Animal Crossing since the GameCube era, but Alex and I had a great time with the two Dragon Quest Builders games last year. We also just started in on Secret of Mana last night.