So today I'll be reviewing Kirby Star Allies. Man have I been excited for this beautiful game. I won't be talking about any spoilers at all in this review. I'll only be giving overviews of basic gameplay mechanics, talking about the music, taking about the art design, and my overall thoughts of the game. So let's get right into this review!

Let's start with mechanics. You have your regular old abilities from the past three Kirby games only now there's like 10 new layers.

For starters by pressing X you can throw a heart to befriend an enemy. You now press Y to drop your old ability and you can press L and Y to get rid of any ally you want to.

You can also hold up to activate friend abilities. For weapons like Ninja, Sword, and Yo Yo you can get any of four elemental attachments that have a little effect and do extra damage. Those being ice, water, fire, wind, and lightning. Lightning is the best because you just deal so much damage but of course you have to have a spark on your team and it's the worst of the elemental abilities. (It's got like, one move.) Beam also works as a substitute for spark but to be fair Beam is pretty slow.

All the elements are fun to tack on because if you don't want to carry around a Chilly you can just add frost to a weapon and drop him while still having the effects. So you can for example freeze waterfalls.

There's also special combos which are really just whatever they could think of. You can make a curling stone, or a cutter that flies upwards, or an icicle Lance.

They really do a good job at having every ability get some sort of move. There's also temporary power ups like Friend Throw, Chumbrella, web bounce, and the Fridge.

You make use of all of the abilities in fun puzzles that require you to think a bit. Of course the game will tell you and often hand you which abilities you need but you still have to preform the actions to solve the puzzle yourself.

Another new move for Kirby is the Piggyback. You just have to jump on an enemies head and you can control them. It's awesome to get a giant tower though it is a bit useless it's always nice to have just in case. You can also apparently do a team attack but I can't figure out for to do it.

There's still more you can do however. Say you want to swap your ability for an ally and you want that ally's ability. You can do that, and I've done it before. Simply drop your ability, eat your ally, (which you can do.) and throw a heart at the ability you dropped and boom. Perfect swap.

I really like how many options the game gives you so the experience is as pleasant as possible. Overall I love the controls.

Now onto the gimmick. Friend Powers. You'll sometimes reach these giant platforms where you can form different Friend Powers. There's four of these powers: Circle, where you roll down a hill into enemies. Train, where you can run up walls and across water. Star, where you fly around beating the crap out of enemies and quickly swapping your powers, and bridge. You help monkeys get keys into doors.

Every ability but train is used nicely and it feels like they really explored the concepts and fleshed them out. It makes for a great change in gameplay. Train is the only one they never really explored. You use it only 2-3 times and I didn't even know it could run across water until the Guest Star revealed it in what I believe is a new area.

Now let's talk about the abilities. Not counting the abilities you can only use once before they vanish and Sleep there's 24 abilities in this game not counting the combo moves.

The only ability to return from Robobot is ESP which is a shame because I loved poison. Circus is gone as is Bell and they've been replaced with the grand return of Beetle.

They really felt bad about cutting RtDL's abilities because Spear, while only useable by Bandana Dee it still is back, and Water are back again.

Then there's the staple abilities. Fire, ice, bomb, beam, and so on. One ability I'm really surprised to find missing is Wheelie. I thought that was a staple ability. I mean sure it might've looked awkward in a friend circle but the re-designed Spark enemy still looks weird since it doesn't have arms.

Some returning classics are the Love Letter to Dreamland 3, Clean. Which features all 3 of the Animal Buddies in that game and makes floating really fun. Seriously this is one of my favorite abilities now.

We also have staff which I just adore. Yo Yo which is pretty fun. Chef which really only has a moveset when it's an ally. And Suplex, it surprised the hell out of me that this came back and that it's really fun to use. Seriously you get to jump and flip around all over the place.

Oddly we lost Mirror which just came back and they even had an enemy designed so it made no sense to cut that one. And how had would it be to get a puzzle and a cool combo move with like, beam where it becomes a crystal and reflects the beam everywhere?

There's only 2 new abilities this time around (but not really because Marx, Gooey, Kine, Koo, and Rick are basically new. Even though technically they haven't been released yet.)

Painter and Spider. I like Painter. It's got a great moveset and I love that it can basically function as the Crash ability without being worthless outside of an explosion.

Spider is amazing. It's about time we get something for eating this spider enemy that's been in a ton of games and now we do. Spider is fun, it has some great damage output, and it isn't a gimmick ability like Circus and Doctor.

Now for the levels. They all have new concepts and ideas. They feel pretty long and often force you to battle a large group of enemies to progress. The levels are full of the main collectible puzzle pieces, the rare puzzle piece, and sometimes a switch to a bonus level. Gone are the 3 Code Cubes that if you collect them all you get access to a bonus stage. Now you just have to flip a switch. There's multiple per world and it's a nice substantial reward instead of the pointless limit to fight the boss that the Code Cubes offered.

The level select screen now has a bit of substance as well but really only in the final world and the first world. You can run around the entire map like if it was a 3D Kirby game and it's pretty fun. The landscapes are better looking then ever and I just love it.

The levels all look beautiful in HD. The backgrounds are stellar and the foregrounds are absolutely astounding. The music is also great, with the Friend Star theme being stuck in my head. It also includes a lot of great remakes of old themes including the 3DS games' miniboss theme which I LOVE!

As for worlds there's only 4 this time around but the last world is so massive even without all the extra stages that it really is equivalent to 2 worlds of the previous games.

The game is pretty short offering about 8-10 hours and about 16 hours to get %100 of the entire game. That's pretty short but there's a lot of replay value for this game. Not only does one of the bonus modes incentivize you to play more than once but there's no way you'll fill out the pictures your first time through and you can always start up another file with some fun challenges. I know in a bit I'm going to try a Minimal Allies Run because the game does require you to have allies at times but only on specific occasions.

The length isn't really that bad when you take into account multiple playthroughs. A copy abilityless run. Combo abilityless run. A Speedrun. Really the possibilities are endless.

The game really isn't that difficult but no Kirby game is. While it is easier with the allies you can always get rid of them for a really challenging experience. Bosses are harder than in previous games, it just doesn't feel like it with three CPUs by your side.

The bosses are all incredibly designed and there's a lot more of them than in previous games so it makes up for less worlds when you can play a full stage and fight a boss at the end.

The game does become a bit more difficult towards the end of the game where it throws all of its most creative ideas at you.

Let me just say the entire ending is amazing. That's all I'll say on that.

Now for the bonus modes. First you have Guest Star. Where you can pick an Ally to play as and you play as them instead of Kirby similar to DeDeDe Tour and Metanightmare Returns. It even has an awesome unique final boss that I won't spoil for you unlike someone (screw you Prosafia I just wanted to watch a trailer.)

Then the two mini games are... underwhelming. While the other ones looked to change up gameplay and give you a little mini adventure these are part games. Chop Chop is fun when you get into a rhythm but I can't stand the Baseball one. It's just 6 QTEs.

The Arena returns with a difficulty setting and yes it is very hard at the highest setting. This time is lowers your health and makes the healing items it gives you garbage, luckily you can pick your team so it's a bit more manageable. Honestly though it's really hard and it took everything I had to beat it.

So that was Kirby Star Allies. We know they'll be adding in bonus content, at least to some extent so we may see stuff like new abilities and even stages if we're lucky. Though if they make paid DLC for 20 bucks it better be like, a lot of new worlds and concepts.

Just one more thing before we end the review. As much as I love getting Kirby games every 2 years please Hal make a new engine already. This one seems really run to death and I would love to see what you guys could do with a fully 3D Kirby game.

As some of you may know there was a cancelled mainline Kirby game planned for the GameCube. We have some footage of it and it appears no only RtDL took inspiration from it but so did Star Allies. The game featured turning NPCs into friends similar to what we got in the newest game. There was also a cancelled 3D Kirby game, so what's to say they can't bring that back as well?

To conclude this Kirby Game is a celebration of over 25 years of Kirby. Whether it's fanservice, the final level, or just the way it moves forward with the help of the past. This game ties everything together.

The new games with its engine, the old games with making an enemy a friend and the old abilities, the anime with countless small references. This game really is a celebration of Kirby. This is the perfect way to end out this generation of Kirby and hopefully bring in a brand new game.

This is the best Kirby game out of the 4 and my 3rd favorite Kirby game of all time. This is a must have game if you're a Kirby fan and own a Switch. Thanks for reading and have a fantastic day. Bye!