Kirby Mass Attack is the spiritual sequel to Kirby’s Canvas Curse, so it’s interesting to note that Kirby began and ended the lifespan of the DS with these two quirky titles. The pink puff is back and he’s not alone. In fact, he’s backed up by nine clones of himself. The antagonists of the game this time around, Necrodeus and his Skull Gang, have acquired a magic wand and used its power to split Kirby into ten smaller versions of himself.
These mini Kirby’s can no longer inhale enemies and instead rely on swarming and pummeling foes to death. The most satisfying feeling I’d get while playing this game is commanding a pack of murderous Kirby’s and having them pounce on and destroy seemingly harmless little bean pod enemies. Imagine a helpless little creature just wandering back and forth before a gang of pink blobs set on it and destroy it.
Like Canvas Curse, Mass Attack is played entirely with the stylus. For the most part, this control schemes works well. You direct the Kirbys with taps and flicks of the stylus. Unfortunately I have a few minor complaints with this system. When you have the max of ten Kirbys, I found them to be slightly unwieldy. When they would bunch up together, some would accidentally get caught up in enemy attacks. My other complaint was with the flicks to get Kirbys airborne. Many times I would have to do multiple ones before the game would register it. You have to do a longer motion than I would think necessary.
The game is broken up into four worlds each with a different theme. Each of these worlds consists of around ten levels capped off by a boss battle. Old favorites like Wispy Woods and King Dedede show up to try and stop the Kirbys. There is plenty of challenge here for people who think that Kirby games are too easy. Each regular level has between 3 and 5 medals to collect. In addition one of these medals is a rainbow one and all of them are required to unlock the final boss battle. The levels are graded on Gold, Silver, Bronze, or no ranking depending on how well you do in a level. The game even has a checklist system with several pages worth of in game achievements.
All of this is wonderful but it doesn’t touch on the best feature. Kirby Mass Attack features several amazing unlockable games. There’s a basic whack-a-mole type game, a spacey 2d shooter where Kirby is the plane, and several others. The most notable is a timed RPG type battler. It is the second best RPG type experience featuring Kirby — The best is obviously the RPG boss battles from The Great Cave Offensive in Kirby Superstar.
This review is based on a copy of the game purchased by the reviewer.
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