Kirby Mass Attack

I'm currently playing Kirby Mass Attack on my DS, I bought this awhile back, something to help tide me through this barren lack of any new games this year....

Holy CRAP I never thought I'd use the word "brutal" and "Kirby game" in the same sentence. What is developer  HAL Laboratory thinking here? It's *WAY* harder than most other Kirby games before it. I did play Kirby Canvas Curse, which is similar in that it uses all stylus to control Kirby, the control is actually more frustrating in that game... but it's also problematic here at times.

Kirby Mass Attack feels like it wants to be a Mario game in the challenge level. It ramps up the difficulty right away... I'm barely 10% in, and I've lost most of my 10 Kirbys-- which locks me out of being able to enter most of the levels. It even has the same big coins, except there are more per level. These coins are needed to unlock mini-games.

This is a game where you have to be brutally fast-- attack with savagery-- how bizarre is that, in a Kirby game?? But if you hesitate, the enemies will do their attack moves and you'll just get killed.  This is freakin' Kirby, HAL-- Kirby! The games are supposed to skew on the easier side.....

It is nice to have some challenge, but Mario hard is not called for here, nor is it appropriate. Is Kirby for younger gamers, or hardcores who grew up in the SNES generation? I'm not sure if this would be a good game for a young child.

It's not entirely the controls that frustrate, the big problem here is the lack of checkpoints. At least there is no time limit, and not too many regenerating enemies. But when you get the maximum 10 Kirbys, it is really hard to make them fit through areas that they NEED to fit through in order to, um, NOT DIE. I think there is a real lack of polish when it comes to the awkward stylus-only control.

Kirby Mass Attack even penalizes you for going between world levels-- if you do, you lose all your extra Kirbys! What is with the Mario-style punishment here?

Kirby Mass Attack has some really cute presentation & visual style... but the same can be said for the Mario games. It isn't unplayable, but it is annoying at times. I can only imagine the final boss will be stupid hard.

At least it's great to be playing my DS Lite again... when my 3DS needs to be charged-- since its battery dies SO fast-- I can use my DS Lite...


later
don