Kirby Squeak Squad Flagship, Natsume/Nintendo
Review by Anthony
I’ve always found Kirby games fun. In my mind, they really broke the mold with Kirby’s Adventure when they had Kirby upgrade his powers based on enemies he sucked in. Since then he’s had many games, running from very unique, to great, to forgettable. And though I’ve loved just about every Kirby game I’ve played, there are many that I’ve never bothered seeking out for purchase. Why? Well, because I know what Kirby games are like.
If you scan through reviews of Kirby games past, one recurring theme you might find is “too easy”, and the other is probably “too short”. For all the fun to be had with Kirby games, the experience is often all too brief, and once you reach a certain moderate level of gaming prowess, the likelihood that you’ll be challenged by them in any way significantly diminishes. Such is the case for Kirby Squeak Squad, a lovely, but painfully overpriced, traditional Kirby-style romp on the DS.
What’s good:
- Gameplay is as solid as ever. The only major change I noted to the “style” of gameplay is that Kirby appears to be moving faster than his typical, floaty self of past. Otherwise, flying around, inhaling enemies, taking their powers, using them to pull off all kinds of attacks, and using abilities to explore for secrets in the stage… it was a great gameplay core and it’s stayed that way.
- Kirby’s inhaled power-ups are cooler than ever here. They expanded on many past powers.. giving some that traditionally had only one or two abilities several more… or in some cases, combining two into a more useful ability. For instance, taking the dull “Spark” ability from Kirby’s Adventure and the “Plasma” ability from Kirby Superstar, they combined them both to have one where you can charge energy to unleash a bigger electrical shock sphere or send it out as an attack. Only a few seemed uninspired - most were cool to play as.
- Collection options like being able to change Kirby’s color, changing the bottom screen view, and unlocking a Kirby “Ghost” ability where he possesses enemy minds, were all a nice touch.
What’s neutral:
- The ability to collect items in bubbles and store them on the bottom screen for later use was a cool idea, and would’ve surely landed it in the “good” category… if not for the treasure collection problem. See, you can at any time hold up to five items, whether it be an inhaled power-up, restorative items, or portions of a 1-up. The thing is, stages often have up to three treasure chests to collect, which count as one of those five items. It stands to reason that you can often collect all three in a single run-through… so that leaves only two spaces. Further, you can’t pause and organize them, so in the heat of the treasure-collecting moments, you’ll have to quickly use or abandon items to make room for it while enemies try to take it away. I would’ve rather them given less inventory spaces and not counted the treasures as an item.
- Searching stages for hidden doors and treasures is fun and all, but I’d say it’s just a smidge too easy this time. I didn’t spend a moment scratching my head over something I was missing, and in the past, some Kirby games have made me pause to do so. Not this time; if I missed something, it was probably just me taking the wrong door or missing a timed event. I’d loved to have seen more ability-specific ones, invisible doors and genuine puzzles. Bummer.
- I found the fact that they auto-saved, yet required you to do a soft reset to even get back to the title screen an odd addition. Plus it doesn’t save your lives collected, so that feels like a waste.
What’s bad:
- As usual, it’s over way too fast. It’ll be a couple hours tops to get through the game and gather all the treasures. What makes this a particular shame too is how easily this can make you miss out on trying more of the abilities or even giving you a reason to utilize them. Although it took me a couple hours trying to be thorough, reports from people doing the timed runs is you can beat it and collect every treasure in under 90 minutes. Ouch, guys. It took me maybe 10 minutes tops to beat all three of the extra mini-games included on the hardest level too, so yeesh.
- Speaking of beating it, the reward for beating the game, beyond all of the collectible items, is unlocking “Extra Mode”! What’s Extra Mode? Well, the better question is “Why?”, because Extra Mode is simply the normal game, but you’re timed, cannot save, and losing all of your lives is a game over. Really, guys? I know some gamers still exist out there who want to play every ounce of a game, and will do time trials to challenge themselves… but most of us don’t care.
- Asking $30 for a game of that length is a crime, popular mascot or not. I’d tolerate $15, but even $20 is pushing it.
I know back in the day, it was common to have games that were over in an hour or less… but now, really? I know the cart can hold more information (Yoshi’s Island DS gave me much more playtime), and while level design takes work, I’m sure, simply fleshing them out and adding more puzzle elements like in the past could’ve gone a long way toward improving the lifespan. Hell, you can store up multiple abilities and change on the fly... that could’ve opened up all sorts of new ability-switching related puzzles! Even Kirby’s Dream Course managed that.
And it’s a shame too, because as usual, I genuinely enjoyed my time with the little pink ball of fluff, and it’s nice to see him getting progressively more badass as far as his powers go. But if I have no reason to visit him again four hours after we first hung out, well hey, I guess he’s not really my friend after all!!
Do you think he’ll call?
If you scan through reviews of Kirby games past, one recurring theme you might find is “too easy”, and the other is probably “too short”. For all the fun to be had with Kirby games, the experience is often all too brief, and once you reach a certain moderate level of gaming prowess, the likelihood that you’ll be challenged by them in any way significantly diminishes. Such is the case for Kirby Squeak Squad, a lovely, but painfully overpriced, traditional Kirby-style romp on the DS.
What’s good:
- Gameplay is as solid as ever. The only major change I noted to the “style” of gameplay is that Kirby appears to be moving faster than his typical, floaty self of past. Otherwise, flying around, inhaling enemies, taking their powers, using them to pull off all kinds of attacks, and using abilities to explore for secrets in the stage… it was a great gameplay core and it’s stayed that way.
- Kirby’s inhaled power-ups are cooler than ever here. They expanded on many past powers.. giving some that traditionally had only one or two abilities several more… or in some cases, combining two into a more useful ability. For instance, taking the dull “Spark” ability from Kirby’s Adventure and the “Plasma” ability from Kirby Superstar, they combined them both to have one where you can charge energy to unleash a bigger electrical shock sphere or send it out as an attack. Only a few seemed uninspired - most were cool to play as.
- Collection options like being able to change Kirby’s color, changing the bottom screen view, and unlocking a Kirby “Ghost” ability where he possesses enemy minds, were all a nice touch.
What’s neutral:
- The ability to collect items in bubbles and store them on the bottom screen for later use was a cool idea, and would’ve surely landed it in the “good” category… if not for the treasure collection problem. See, you can at any time hold up to five items, whether it be an inhaled power-up, restorative items, or portions of a 1-up. The thing is, stages often have up to three treasure chests to collect, which count as one of those five items. It stands to reason that you can often collect all three in a single run-through… so that leaves only two spaces. Further, you can’t pause and organize them, so in the heat of the treasure-collecting moments, you’ll have to quickly use or abandon items to make room for it while enemies try to take it away. I would’ve rather them given less inventory spaces and not counted the treasures as an item.
- Searching stages for hidden doors and treasures is fun and all, but I’d say it’s just a smidge too easy this time. I didn’t spend a moment scratching my head over something I was missing, and in the past, some Kirby games have made me pause to do so. Not this time; if I missed something, it was probably just me taking the wrong door or missing a timed event. I’d loved to have seen more ability-specific ones, invisible doors and genuine puzzles. Bummer.
- I found the fact that they auto-saved, yet required you to do a soft reset to even get back to the title screen an odd addition. Plus it doesn’t save your lives collected, so that feels like a waste.
What’s bad:
- As usual, it’s over way too fast. It’ll be a couple hours tops to get through the game and gather all the treasures. What makes this a particular shame too is how easily this can make you miss out on trying more of the abilities or even giving you a reason to utilize them. Although it took me a couple hours trying to be thorough, reports from people doing the timed runs is you can beat it and collect every treasure in under 90 minutes. Ouch, guys. It took me maybe 10 minutes tops to beat all three of the extra mini-games included on the hardest level too, so yeesh.
- Speaking of beating it, the reward for beating the game, beyond all of the collectible items, is unlocking “Extra Mode”! What’s Extra Mode? Well, the better question is “Why?”, because Extra Mode is simply the normal game, but you’re timed, cannot save, and losing all of your lives is a game over. Really, guys? I know some gamers still exist out there who want to play every ounce of a game, and will do time trials to challenge themselves… but most of us don’t care.
- Asking $30 for a game of that length is a crime, popular mascot or not. I’d tolerate $15, but even $20 is pushing it.
I know back in the day, it was common to have games that were over in an hour or less… but now, really? I know the cart can hold more information (Yoshi’s Island DS gave me much more playtime), and while level design takes work, I’m sure, simply fleshing them out and adding more puzzle elements like in the past could’ve gone a long way toward improving the lifespan. Hell, you can store up multiple abilities and change on the fly... that could’ve opened up all sorts of new ability-switching related puzzles! Even Kirby’s Dream Course managed that.
And it’s a shame too, because as usual, I genuinely enjoyed my time with the little pink ball of fluff, and it’s nice to see him getting progressively more badass as far as his powers go. But if I have no reason to visit him again four hours after we first hung out, well hey, I guess he’s not really my friend after all!!
Do you think he’ll call?
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