Kirby: Triple Deluxe

Wow, that online or instore? Might have to go jump in the car!

Both! I just got it from whitechapel!

Wow, that online or instore? Might have to go jump in the car!

Dude, I mentioned it on Saturday. Look up a few posts.

Glad to see others snapping it up. Prepare to smile as you play this game.

Dude, I mentioned it on Saturday. Look up a few posts.

 

Glad to see others snapping it up. Prepare to smile as you play this game.

Ahhh, hadn't seen the previous page of posts. Well I have it now, am two stages in atm, seems like fairly standard awesome Kirby fare!

I mean I've seen it being heavily criticised for being too easy, something that never happened for Super Star.

I think times have changed. Whilst I still love, and have often replayed, Kirby Super Star I can't help but admit it's not all that much of a challenge(excepting maybe GreatCaveOffensive). Maybe it's because I've played before or no, but going back I'd say it's similarly on par with other entries in the series. *Maybe* the later titles are a tad easier, but still I wouldn't call it a great jump or anything. For me Kirby's never really been about the difficult, more the wealth of choice on how you choose to attack and the secrets and items to discover/collect along the way.

Well I've bought a promotional club Nintendo code, hopefully going to get Kirby as the free game. Looking forward to it!

If it's any consolation Sheikah I feel they've mixed up the bosses a bit - so they've been a bit more challenging than I expected(still relatively easy, though I've died here and there). It's probably more due to me just not knowing/being used to their attacks/patterns yet, but it's nice to see something's keeping me on my toes. I've been collecting most sun stones(stage collectibles which have become slightly standard) as I go through each stage, repeating through it if I miss any - can't say any have been devilishly hard to get so far but poss missable if you don't clock a puzzle fast enough. Keychains are a nice little collectable addition, though I'm lacking in knowing their point/what determines them(ie can you just play the same level over and over and slowly collect the whole collection?).

Think last I was at I had just finished world 2, so onward and upwards(alol) to world 3! Enjoying it as expected with Kirby, vibrant as always with a kicking soundtrack, and some nice but not overdone uses of 3D and the two-plane mechanic. Hypernova bit made me 'wat' a bit at first but it's an enjoyable occasional mixup.

Just finished the story mode.

What a wonderful and imaginative game! I reckon the developers must have had such a laugh putting this together, I certainly had a lot of fun playing through it.

This is one of the most polished games I've played in a very long time, it's absolutely packed with attention to detail. :awesome:

One of those little details which really made me smile was...

...Kirby sucking up the health bar of bosses in Hypernova mode.

I was also happy to see...

...2 new modes unlock upon beating the game too, especially as they seem to be focused on speed running/high scores!

They should keep me playing for a while yet.

Posted this in the eShop thread but will plonk it here as well.

#Kirby Fighters Deluxe & Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe will arrive on Nintendo #eShop for #3DS on 13/02!

I'm planning on replaying this on the new 3DS so i can experience the super-steady 3D with the game. I'm not finished yet, but i believe i'm close to finishing.

Edit: And i'm done, finished the final level earlier. What a fantastic game, very well done. The detail in the game is fantastic and the music is something very enjoyable.

Finally got round to playing through Triple Deluxe! Great game... but as a longtime Kirby fan, it is a bit disappointing in some ways... Note, there will be spoilers!

Now it's hard to talk about Triple Deluxe without referencing Return to Dreamland/Kirby's Adventure Wii, because it is clearly built using that game as a foundation and it never quite manages to escape from its shadow...

Let's start with the good. The visuals are simply amazing! It's probably the best looking 3DS game out there and it runs like a dream! It's a real technical marvel, perhaps even moreso than Return to Dreamland was for Wii! (But it comes at a price... which I will go into detail on later...)

Likewise, the gameplay feels great as well. As it blatantly runs on a modified version of RTD's engine, Kirby feels great to move around and the returning powers are (for the most part) just as fun as before. The new powers (Bell, Beetle, Circus, Archer) are all fun to use, but out of the four new ones, Beetle is by far the most fun to use! It's a BEAST! (I feel that Archer is overrated though, at least in the main game) Ridiculously agile & powerful as hell and using it to throw stuff back is also extremely satisfying as well!

The best bit of the game in general though are the bits that really show off what the 3DS can do though. The parts that have you tilting the system are great fun, even if they tend to revisit the same ideas a bit too often for my liking, but especially speaking, the S3D implementation is superb! One of the very best uses for S3D on the system for sure! Whether it is used for perspective based tricks & puzzles, obstacles that come at you from the background, used to make things clearer and easier to make out as interactable, or (and this deserves special commendation), the boss battles! It is sublime!

Speaking of which... This game has some utterly fantastic miniboss and boss fights! Some of the very best in the series! This is the one thing that I really felt was a bit of a let down in RTD, so I'm glad to see that they really went to town on making some really memorable and spectacular fights with loads of crazy and varied boss attack patterns that really keep you on your toes! (You'll find yourself constantly just thinking... WOAH! ). They all make fantastic use of S3D and even all the old returning ones all feel fresh and new. This is the biggest highlight of the game for me!

Oh and I can't not mention the sub-games. They're probably the two best sub-games in the entire series; after all, they made enhanced versions as separate games on the eShop for a good reason

Now... I do think it's a great game, but there are some things about it that do drag it down in my eyes though and they're not small problems...

Most of all, the game suffers from some really unfortunate pacing problems. You spend far too much of your time just... waiting... Due to how spectacular the visuals are for 3DS, you'll notice that each room is generally pretty small in size in comparison to most other Kirby games... and the loading times are noticeably longer than in RTD so they do start to grate after a while...

... however, it gets worse though because the game is utterly filled to the brim with loads of lengthy and unskippable transitional animations; as well as super flashy (but totally awesome!) cutscenes for the Hypernova ability (more on that later) that go on for ages and are unskippable. Also another big problem is the fact that for some ridiculous reason, if you're going back into a level to pick up some of the Sun Stones that you missed, you can't just quit the level after collecting it (you have to go through the entire level again if you want it to save you picking up the missing stone) - WHY!? It's so stupid! Every other Kirby game allows you to just pick up the missed collectable and quit straight afterwards with it saving, why did they mess that up here!? It just drags the pacing down even more!

Also, the level design outside of the motion controlled parts isn't really up to the same standard as RTD in general. It's not bad, but it's a bit meandering and noticeably slower in pace than RTD (again, there are lots of times where you find yourself waiting for paths to open up, or having to go round and round in circles). Just too much waiting in general :p

I also feel that the game lacks a bit of identity of its own. It's clearly built on the same formula as RTD and for me, is lacking in surprise. I pretty much knew how the game would play out all the way through, long before anything happened (the penultimate level in particular, really stands out as a near complete carbon copy of RTD, right down to the distorted guitar remix of the Hypernova music! - but just isn't as satisfying as what they did in RTD). Outside of the 3D use and the motion controls, it doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from RTD and as a whole, feels a bit like a diet version of RTD in a lot of ways. This also extends to some of the returning powers like Spark that really suffer from the loss of Wii Remote shaking controls (not being able to shake to power up while running makes it much less fun to use; especially because it's running on RTD's engine, its loss is particularly noticeable because it feels like it should be there...). The level designs are smaller and more cramped in generals too (a sensible choice, due to the lack of need to support 4 player multiplayer), but it also contributes to that "diet RTD" feeling. Ultimately the game is at its best when it stands on its own two feet and doesn't lean on its RTD based origins, it's just a shame that it doesn't do more to differentiate itself outside of the "3DS bits".

All of the game's unlocks and secrets are generally as expected if you've played RTD beforehand as it all plays out in almost exactly the same way (save for Dedede Tour, which is basically like the unlockable Meta Knightmare mode from Nightmare in Dreamland and Kirby Superstar Ultra - but it's not as fun because the game's slow pacing just doesn't lend itself well to speed running). Also, the Sun Stones aren't particularly well hidden and very rarely did I ever find myself overlooking them (which is just as well, since going back for them feels like a chore in this game); now this is coming from the perspective of someone who has played and beaten every single Kirby game, so if you haven't played RTD (or many other Kirby games), this problem probably wont really apply to you so much, but for me; outside of the 3DS specific stuff, the level designs and secrets in general feel very much paint-by-numbers to me (I also didn't really find the Streetpass functions or Keychain collection stuff particularly compelling, but they're decent enough extras).

Likewise, the soundtrack is a bit of a disappointment. Outside of a couple of standout tunes (most notably the main Floralia theme and the boss battle theme) most of the new music doesn't really stand out all that much to me - and when you get to the EX stages, the re-use of RTD music really doesn't do the Triple Deluxe original music any favours by comparison...

Finally, the whole Hypernova gimmick is basically just a direct replacement for the Super Abilities in RTD and I don't think it's as fun to play with. There just isn't much player agency available with it as it's basically just a glorified way of watching cutscenes throughout the levels for the most part (to be fair though, they are awesome cutscenes though! Kirby is such an incredible arsehole in this game that they're just hilarious ), though there are moments where it is used for some clever miniboss battles and light puzzle solving as well - still, I can't not really compare it to RTD's super abilities and it just isn't as varied and ultimately a less fun take on the same concept.

That being said though, it's still a fantastic game and well worth your time; be you a longtime fan of Kirby or otherwise : peace: - in fact, I think you'll generally get more out of it if you actually haven't played many Kirby games before because it does recycle a lot of ideas from past games (particularly Return to Dreamland, which it leans far too heavily on for inspiration)