With the countdown to the release of the Wii U drawing ever closer, Nintendo offers one last release for the Wii, honoring the 20th Anniversary of their pudgy pink star with an endless appetite, Kirby.
This special edition release wraps a soundtrack and art book within some adorable packaging, along with six of Kirby’s earliest adventures, so let’s break that down below.
For the second year in a row Nintendo’s pink pudgy star brings his insatiable appetite for adventure to the Wii, as well as his seemingly never-ending vendetta against a familiar tree. It would be forgivable to view this release with a pinch of cynicism, as a kneejerk attempt to pad out a Wii release schedule that hasn’t thinned out so much as dried up with the shift in focus to the 3DS and Wii U.
And though it only took a day to lightly pass through Return to Dream Land, I’m not feeling quite that cynical. Kirby’s latest outing sports significantly less yarn this year, instead offering a traditional Kirby platformer that gives Hal Laboratory another chance to strut their penchant for visual flair and rather magical stage design. However, Kirby’s return does suffer for want of a point to all the wonderful abilities Hal can grant him, and in the absence of any real challenge the finer points become so ridiculously subtle that one could miss the treats entirely for never being encouraged to discover them.
The old rules apply, and Kirby once again becomes who he eats, which makes the menu of potential powers the emphasis, and though stages never slouch about finding space for moments of inspiration that leave me smiling at how clever Hal continues to be, the playing is much more an act of design appreciation over tactile engagement.
HAL Laboratory was the first developer to truly show just how cool games could be on the Nintendo DS. Those of us who survived the dark, dreary days that were the DS’s first few months of existence know how slim the pickings were. But, like the sun breaking after a long night, along came Kirby Canvas Curse, and gone was any buyer’s remorse we had been feeling.
Canvas Curse skillfully demonstrated that the DS’s touch screen could be used for more than gimmicky mini-games, while also taking the Kirby series in an interesting new direction. I still play it on a regular basis all these years later – it is fabulous, and if you haven’t played it, do yourself a favor and track it down immediately.
Now we find ourselves in the twilight of the Nintendo DS’s reign, and HAL returns once again with an absolute knockout release. Kirby Mass Attack, like its cousin Canvas Curse, does away with a traditional control scheme and opts instead for stylus-driven control. Thankfully, the wizards at HAL superbly integrated this type of control scheme into engaging and intelligent level design and aesthetics, and the end result is one of the most interesting, innovative, and fun games to hit the Nintendo DS in quite some time.
As the puntastic title suggests, immense amounts of yarn were spooled and stitched together to form Kirby’s long awaited return to proper console platforming. And as far as visual / narrative gimmickry goes, you’d be hard pressed to find a better example of a game that brings back the tactile feel of a classic franchise whilst presenting an entirely new aesthetic to capture the eyes, mixing new and old ideas that preserve plenty of the old time Nintendo charm that keeps me coming back.
Kirby’s a critter of simple pleasures, and this latest adventure matches that philosophy by turning the WiiMote sideways to wax a bit nostalgic on straightforward NES styled controls. The simplicity of the game leaves me feeling far less words are required than usual, though I could certainly go on about Kirby’s cute abuse – his excited arm flailing animation for example is cuter than a basket full of baby bunnies.
All the same, the depth of the stitch work that creates the visuals deserves some words, as does the way in which the game weaves together a toybox of ideas that is simply a pleasure to play with.
No matter what else happens today, Kirby’s Epic Yarn has really surprised and charmed me – entirely because I wasn’t expecting the game, but more over that I certainly wasn’t expecting to care quite so much if the little guy did come back for another adventure. As I said earlier, the amount of side-scrolling being seen in several games today makes me feel ten years old again, but it’s the entire virtual fabric world Kirby brings with him that drives that nostalgia home.
The minute game footage began to play, I was immediately remembering the first time I played Yoshi’s Island, and that’s something I never imagined I’d say, type, or emote in any way.
Of course Kirby can also turn into things, and you can catch some art for said transformations after the break – including the always important massive robotic tank.
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