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[Andyliini]

Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release date: March 16 2018
Developer: HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Platformer
Price: 59,99$ / 59,99€

Welcome back to Dreamworld, where the forces of darkness are running amok again. Join Kirby on his quest to restore peace to the world!
You are not alone this time, though. With a power of friendship, you can throw Friend Hearts at enemies you meet to make them your allies in your quest.
You can befriend many different creatures on your quest, and even better, you can give a Joy-Con to a friend in your living room.

First traditional Kirby-platformed in HD
Local co-op for up to four players
Each stage has hidden Illustration Pieces. Collect them to fill up a puzzle piece with original artwork
You can also use amiibo to earn additional Illustration Pieces
Unsure if you'll like the game? Try the demo available from eShop

Free Dream Friends are added to the game after launch. These packs include ability to befriend characters from legacy titles.

Dream Friend Pack 1
Available March 28th
Includes Rick & Kine & Coo, Marx and Gooey

Metacritic: 74

Quotes

Destructoid
I don't think HAL is very interested in drastically altering the Kirby formula at this point, and that's perfectly fine.

IGN
Whether you’re adventuring through Dream Land with up to three friends or playing with competent AI teammates, Kirby’s ever-rotating group of uniquely powered pals are the real stars of the show here. The creative ways you can combine abilities never gets old, which means there’s great potential for replayability especially with friends. I just wish the final boss battle hadn’t come just as the puzzles were starting to give me a challenge.

Nintendo Life
Kirby Star Allies is a fun, relaxing game that does a good job of showing off what makes the main Kirby series so great. The slow pace, diverse powers, beautiful environments, adorable enemy designs, and light difficulty ensure that this is an enjoyable ride from start to finish. But with that being said, there’s a lingering sense that the developer was a little too keen to play this one safe, and the lack of new ideas may come as a disappointment to series veterans. This is not the Super Mario Odyssey or The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild of the Kirby series, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad game.

Eurogamer
HAL Laboratory delivers a brilliant chemistry set of a 2D platformer.

E3 2017 Trailer:


Demo Trailer:


Launch Trailer:

 

[woopWOOP]

Hell yeah, this weekend's Kirby weekend

Didn't know of the exact dream friends release date. Two weeks is pretty quick, was afraid it'd take months for them to roll those out.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

Mmmmmm something about it just didnt grab me. The demo was charming but lacked depth or intelligence to me. I know its just a demo but the forced co-op and blah ai made the game ho hum to me. Above average production surely, but nothing stellar to rush out and buy.

Havent enjoyed a kirby game since kirbys dreamland on gameboy i played as a kid, maybe kirby games just arent for me.

 

[Phoenix RISING]

 

[staen]

Rick, Kine & Coo trailer:

 

[CloudStrife_ca]

I ended up getting this on launch day, I was surprised to find out most local EB Games locations were sold out. People are just clamoring for new first party Switch games in my area apparently. I'm into about the 3rd world and my own impression of the game is that its surprisingly clever with the use of your friends you pickup along the way. Not only terms of each friend providing a little something new in fighting along side you, but in terms of their abilities you'll utilize to unlock different areas, to the more scripted things like becoming a rolling ball of Kirby and friends knocking down everything infront of you that moves within the level.

It was a big bonus to find out as you progress you unlock classic characters to become your friends and play along side you, so far I've unlocked King Dedede and Meta Knight. You can acquire them and reacquire them at the coliseum to join you in your quest, in two player mode these characters become playable for player 2!

The support of Amiibos will give you a combination of health, currency and puzzle pieces, I have all the Kirby related Amiibos available and none yield different results than another, so more on the generic side but handy if you plan on completing all the puzzles.

So far I'm pretty happy with it, the visuals look great as expected on the Switch, its fun/ light hearted and Hal Laboratories handled everything as well as I had hoped.

 

[BackBackPunch]

This just confirms what I felt playing the demo-- that it's totally on autopilot in single player mode, and you don't actually have to do anything to progress.

 

[Phoenix RISING]

This just confirms what I felt playing the demo-- that it's totally on autopilot in single player mode, and you don't actually have to do anything to progress.

Let me know how multiplayer feels. I'm curious as to if there is any challenge.

 

[Vercimber]

Just to double-check, as I didn't download the demo, the game runs at 30fps, right?

 

[jadedm17]

Not worth the money but a lot of fun.

I will second what a YouTube said : Easier game EVER. Most situations of the actual game work themselves out, and even most of the actual challenge of finding puzzle pieces isn't hard.

 

[The Sane Psycho]

I played a little bit of this game, and it's really good so far. Not a top tier Kirby game as of yet like Crystal Shards, Superstar, Dream Course, or Epic Yarn, but very good nonetheless.

 

[Wolfgang Jr]

wtf is this shit? When Nintendo half-ass, they REALLY half-ass a game.

Can't wait to see how half-assed the straight port of Mario Tennis 64 turns out.

 

[Smasher89]

Was unsure about getting this at first, due to 30 fps, the demo and the pricetag. Then realized theres like no game from Nintendo until the next smash so might as well get it.
I'll just say this, the speedrun mode you'll unlock is really fun(and easily the part worth playing/replaying), there's soo much to do in that (since it's the meat of the game) alone that just to do it once with the different options, you have the most gametime in any kirbygame probably (based on just the 3ds ones atleast).

That said, would be nice to be able to compare highscores to friends ingame, since there's not any streetpass anymore.

 

[Andyliini]

I have not been following this game too closely, but at least it seems like it's being received well in Japan. According to Media Create, Star Allies sold 222 031 copies on it's first week on sale. I don't know if that number includes digital or not, but it's more than I anticipated. It should reach 1 million in sales sooner rather than later.

 

[Narroo]

Rick, Kine & Coo trailer:

My impression is that it's really meant to be a multiplayer game and the CPUs meant to play reasonably emulate that. If four people play, it's pretty easy for one to be useless and do nothing. The side effect is that in single player mode, you don't actually have to do anything!

 

[ar0s]

I'm enjoying it. It's easy as Kirby always is but it's very good fun. It's very hard to try to survive levels without taking a single hit. If I was restarting any time I took a hit it would be an extremely hard game. Kirby Souls. I recommend self-imposing a challenge like that if you find the game being easy puts you off.

It's like a fun playground and I am enjoying the variety of skills, moves and combos. It's just upbeat and good fun like all good Kirby games.

That said, I probably would not play it in a really long session, I've enjoyed doing a couple of levels then playing something else. Sweets as a snack is great but it's not really a main meal.

 

[woopWOOP]

Game's okay, but not as good as the 3DS entries IMO.
The 4-player co-op is fine, but the friendship formation gimmick where you turn into a wheel of death or a bridge are pretty lame. I actually prefer Triple Deluxe's super suck gimmick.
Game also could've used some more bosses aside from recolours. I do like that they brought Pon & Con back.

Having old characters as free DLC is really fun too for a Kirby fan like me. If it wasn't for that it'd be a 6/10 game for me, but now I'll probably end up replaying the game a bunch because of that, lol.
Speaking of which, Marx trailer was released yesterday. Expected him just kicking his ball around, but he's actually got a lot of his old boss moves. Neat!

 

[hiphopcr]

If this game doesn't get 10/10's the reviewer doesn't understand videogames.

Kirby's return to Dream Land was one of the most joyous games ever made and this looks very much in that vein.

 

[staen]

I have not been following this game too closely, but at least it seems like it's being received well in Japan. According to Media Create, Star Allies sold 222 031 copies on it's first week on sale. I don't know if that number includes digital or not, but it's more than I anticipated. It should reach 1 million in sales sooner rather than later.

Those are just physical copies. Star Allies also became the fastest selling Kirby game in the UK, charting at #2 for top sales that week. For comparison, both Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot debuted at #15 on UK sales charts.

Source

 

[woopWOOP]

And finally the Gooey trailer:



DLC releases tomorrow! Gonna be fun playing Helper to Hero with just the DLC crew.

 

[ar0s]

It just twigged Rick, Kine and Coo are one helper, correct?

 

[woopWOOP]

To keep this thread up to date, earlier the official Japanese Kirby Twitter account revealed Daroach for the second wave of free dream friends DLC:

 

[woopWOOP]

Double post bump, because the remaining Wave 2 Free DLC character trailers have been released and the update has just been released today!







Time to play through the whole game all over again!

 

[MB2Z]

I don’t understand their practice of releasing characters late, I mean it makes me regret completing the game before all of these dlc characters come out.

 

[woopWOOP]

Another bump because the third and final free DLC for this game has been released, today!



Comes with three new characters. plus another three-in-one for when you beat the new mode.

The set of stages for this new mode don't seem huge, but it changes the P1 Kirby into different dream friends as the stage goes on, so that's fun. Beats playing the same set of regular story mode stages again atleast.

From what I've played Magolor seems like another over the top and way too powerful character. Taranza has some pretty good moves and Suzie is a little trickier to use, atleast without elemental buffs. The bosses for the new mode are again a bunch of recolours, but this time they don't drop dead within seconds so you'll actually have to try to dodge some of those attacks.



All in all these were a pretty neat set of updates, giving us one character from each previous mainline Kirby game completely free of charge. I still wish there was a little more for me to use these characters with, but maybe I'm just being greedy. Really cool they managed to make so many old fan favourites playable and I hope they get to reappear in future titles as well. Hey, they already laid the groundwork here. Make a new Kirby Fighters Deluxe and cram them in there!

 

[Hudo]

So, now with New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe out, how does this compare? I quite like NSMBUDX and I wonder if I should get this game for some more 2D platforming lovin'.

 

[MB2Z]

So, now with New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe out, how does this compare? I quite like NSMBUDX and I wonder if I should get this game for some more 2D platforming lovin'.

I played NSMB + New Super Luigi U on Wiiu and I find NSMBUDX a better 2D platforming compared to Kirby Star Allies.