Kirby Mass Attack Hands-On - Pikmin Meets Canvas Curse
By:
Andre Segers
|
August 11, 2011, 1:02 pm

Kirby has long been Nintendo’s go-to character for trying out new ideas. The poor pink puff has been flipped as a pinball, putted as a golf ball, and now he’s been split into 10 super small (and adorable!) kirbies in his upcoming DS adventure, Kirby Mass Attack. We recently had the chance to stop by Nintendo’s San Francisco office to put some serious hands-on time into his latest portable adventure.

Kirby Mass Attack, like most platformers, is broken into a series of Worlds, each containing a variety of stages. The catch is that at the start of each world, you begin as just a single Kirby, but you’ll soon be able to create up to 9 more by collecting fruit to fill a meter. It is with this Kirby posse that you’ll traverse the world, beat up enemies, and solve environmental puzzles.
 
 
What makes Mass Attack really stand out is how you control the kirbies. Basically, they treat your stylus as a God, following it wherever you tap. If you hold it down, say on the right side of the screen, they’ll do their best to chase after it as the screen scrolls, even jumping over small obstacles that may be in the way. A double-tap makes them run and if you need them to cross over some particularly dangerous terrain, such as a spike pit, you can simple hold the stylus near them to have them band together on a floating star that follows whatever path you draw with the stylus, much like Canvas Curse.
 
Of course, the kirbies can’t skip every barrier by themselves. Quite often you’ll encounter an enemy or some kind of object you need to interact with -- and this is where the controls become truly ingenious. In most cases, you’ll have to “flick” a Kirby toward something to interact or attack it. To do so, simply make a flicking motion from one of the kirbies toward the object you’re aiming for. If it’s an enemy they’re latching onto, they’ll begin pummeling it with their adorable pink fists of fury and you can even help them out by tapping on the enemy too.

Though the controls are simple, there is definitely a learning curve, particularly as you come to grips with managing a large batch of kirbies. Fortunately, once everything clicks, the controls really do feel great. There is little that is as satisfying as flicking mounds of kirbies every which way.
 

The game gets a ton of mileage out of the fact that you’re basically commander in chief of a small kirby army. For example one of the levels in World 3, Dedede Resort, had several large blocks bobbing in the water, each with a number written on it. Looking beneath the water, we could see various inaccessible collectibles connected to the side of the brick. To get at them, we had to rotate the blocks by having the kirbies stand on either side to weigh it down, causing the block to spin. If it failed to bulge, that meant we needed to up our kirby count to increase our weight! The game features a ton of environmental puzzles such as this, often bringing back memories of Pikmin.

And there’s another way in which Mass Attack is similar to Pikmin: animal control. You have to constantly keep an eye on the little guys and double-check that you’re not marching them into harm’s way. If a Kirby takes damage, he’ll turn sickly blue -- the only way to heal him is to either find a restoration ring, or complete the level. However, if he takes any more damage... well, let’s just say that apparently... all kirbies go to heaven. Luckily, you can give him a second chance if you manage to flick another kirby at him before he uses his little angel wings to fly off the screen.
 

My time with the main portion of the game ended taking on King Dedede himself, this time perched far above in a hot air balloon in a battle that spanned both screens. As he hovered above, he hurled large balloons containing time-bombs down upon my poor Kirby clan. It wasn’t long before I realized I had to fling kirbies into the balloons to knock them back into Dedede, hopefully timing it so they detonated on him instead of me. Of course, this is easier said than done, as a misfire would often knock the bomb right back into my pack of kirbies. After a few direct hits, Dedede takes the battle to the ground where you’ll really have to put your stylus maneuvering skills to the test in order to avoid his quick and powerful attacks. According to the Nintendo rep, I was the first one he had seen to defeat him on my first try, and I assure you it wasn’t easy.
 
Adding to the game’s depth are a varying amount of hidden medals per level that progressively unlock bonuses the more you find, such as a Music Player or even a series of mini-games. The one we were able to try out was a top-down Kirby shoot-em-up (yeah, bet you never expected to hear those words!) called Strato Patrol EOS. Like in the main game, you start off controlling a single Kirby, but can add up to nine more by freeing others being held by enemies. What makes this game unique from most shooters are the stylus controls. As you might have guessed, the kirbies follow the path you draw. The cool thing though is that the more kirbies you have, the more the tail-end lags behind, allowing you to target enemies on either side of the screen at the same time by drawing a crisscrossing path that have the kirbies moving around constantly (the Nintendo rep got a laugh out of my ‘figure 8’ technique.) Impressively, this game consists of several levels of varying themes, such as one that took place in a forest or high up in the sky.

By combing the stylus-driven controls of Kirby’s first DS outing, Canvas Curse, with the creature-management and environmental puzzle solving of Pikmin, Nintendo has crafted something very special. And fortunately, you’ll only have to wait until September 19th to try it out for yourself! Stay tuned to GameXplain for more on Kirby Mass Attack.
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Background Check: Andre
I would say I'm a moderately-big Kirby fan. Some of his games are ones I've really cherished, but others, like last year's Epic Yarn felt more like Epic Yawn.

Similar Experience

Kirby: Canvas Curse: Loved
Kirby's Epic Yarn: Meh
Kirby Super Star: Loved
Kirby's Pinball Land: Loved