Review: Kirby Mass Attack

Kirby Mass Attack is a platform game for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by HAL Laboratory.

A bunch of Kirbys about to pull the string on  an octopus monster.

Kirby is vacationing on the Popopo Islands when the evil Necrodeus uses his magic staff to split Kirby into ten Kirbys, weakening Kirby so that he cannot use his trademark copying ability. Without his copy ability, the ten Kribys have to travel through the Popopo Islands, hunt down Necrodeus, and get his staff so Kirby can return to normal.

In Kirby Mass Attack, you start off with one Kirby, but by eating fruit you create more Kirbys, up to ten Kirbys. Fruit is found just floating around, or on dead enemies. Different kinds of fruit are worth different amount of points, and you need one hundred points to make another Kirby. You need to have a couple of Kirbys in your group to open up later levels.

You have two attacks: tapping an enemy with the stylus so all the Kirbys gang up on him and beat him up, and using the stylus to flick the Kirbys at the enemy. More Kirbys means more damage is done to enemies you wail on, and more Kirby ammo to throw. Bigger enemies are usually invulnerable to the “gang up on” attack and can only be hurt by the flicking attack, including all the mini-bosses.

Sometimes the game uses both screens for boss fights.

A Kirby can take two attacks before they turn into a ghost. When that happens you have a couple of seconds to grab the Kirby ghost before it floats off screen and drag it back into the group.

A blue Kirby means it only has one hit left.

The game is five worlds long, with ten levels and a boss fight per world.

All the obstacles you encounter have something to do with using the ability to flick the Kirbys, like flicking them at a switch on the ceiling, or destroying a bunch of bricks blocking the way, or throwing them at a moving enemy while dodging its projectiles. None of these puzzles are ever difficult, at most you will get in trouble for not moving the Kirbys out of the way of something coming to crush them.

The problem with Kirby Mass Attack is that is in incredibly boring. It is based around the one gimmick of flicking the Kirbys, which is almost never fun. It is so boring that it took me forever to beat this game because I could not stand playing through more than one world before I had to go do something more interesting, like read a book or play a completely different game. It is not exciting flinging Kirbys at enemies or obstacles repeatedly, no matter how many different kinds of buttons or enemies the game comes up with. And that is the only thing the game has going for it, for the most part.

The AI for the Kirbys is not very good either. You get them to move by tapping on the screen where you want them to go. The Kirbys are normally responsive, but they can get stuck behind objects.

The game does use the multiple Kirbys idea creatively a couple of times, like in a level where you drive a tank and use the Kirbys as ammo, or when the Kirbys are in a balloon and you have to move them so that the balloon floats in a certain direction. But these moments are rare.

Every level has either three or five medals hidden in it. These are a pain to get because they are often in places that you only have one chance to get, and if you miss it you have to go through the entire level again. Often two medals are on differently branching paths so you have to go through the level at least twice to get all of them. A couple of medals need all ten Kirbys to reach too.

I probably should not have bothered to try and collect them all, but if I did not the game would have been over in a second. Plus, one medal is every level is a rainbow medal, and you have to find all of those to beat the game.

At least there are hints available for ever medal that you can read at any time.

If you are hoping for more story than I wrote, you are going to be disappointed.

Kirby Mass Attack is a one note game that gets old almost immediately. It may have a gameplay element that has not been done in other games, but that does not mean you need to see it.