Kirby & The Amazing Mirror
A wacky experiment involving cell phones and split personalities
Tags: Kirby & The Amazing Mirror Categories: GBA Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Feb 14th, 2005
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirby & The Amazing Mirror (title page) | 1 - 4 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Platformer | No | ||
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Of all the Nintendo franchises, the Kirby series seems to be the most underrated. First appearing on the original Game Boy’s black and white screen (err… black and green, rather) shortly after the device’s launch, Kirby’s free-floating platformer gameplay was unique enough to make it one of the few franchises born on the handheld that made a name for itself in those early days. Kirby’s Pinball Land is still fondly remembered as one of the best videogame pinball titles ever crafted. Even more recently, Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland fused absolutely stunning hand-painted 2D graphics and beautifully animated sprites with the excellent gameplay of his old NES title to make one of the best titles on the Game Boy Advance. And yet, people hear “Kirby” and think “meh”. Maybe it’s the pink.
That may be largely because, with the exception of a few of the series’ titles (like my personal favorite, Kirby Superstar), the Kirby games haven’t been particularly deep, usually beatable within a few hours and not offering much replay value outside of a few simple minigames. It seems that Kirby & the Amazing Mirror was designed to remedy all this.
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The game takes all the great gameplay and beautiful graphics of Nightmare in Dreamland and improves on them, and then adds a variety of gameplay tweaks in an attempt to infuse depth and substance into the series. Changes include a Super Metroid-esque level design with multiple Kirbys exploring the labyrinth at the same time, and a cell phone mechanic to call for reinforcements or “return to base”. These changes are somewhat hit-and-miss, definitely a positive step forward for the series but seemingly not fully thought-out.
The Super Metroid-inspired level design, for example, does add a bit of depth but falls short of the fun that layout can offer because Kirby never gets any new upgrades that allow access to earlier areas. It would have been wonderful if the maze’s center at least offered a repository for copy abilities, which are often necessary to open new pathways. But sadly you’re required to trek through the maze and locate the appropriate enemy and absorb its ability, and then trot back to the place you need to use it. This is unnecessarily frustrating, especially when the ability you want is somewhat rare.
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Also, the “multiple Kirby” thing doesn’t seem to bring much to the table either. You can track their progress as they move through the castle and even see what abilities they currently have, but they never really do anything. When you summon them to help you, they act randomly, even stupidly, refusing to stand on switches when you need them to, killing a boss outright before allowing you to absorb his rare ability, and running off on their own whenever they feel like it (in fact, they rarely want to ha out with you). All told, the multiple Kirbys are often a nuisance rather than helpful.
There’s also the usual smattering of minigames, and a multiplayer mode that lets you bring multiple players into the action. Nothing surprising, but nice to have anyways.
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As previously stated, this game takes Nightmare in Dreamland’s incredible hand-painted presentation and improves upon it, filling everything with subtle animation that makes everything even more lively. Kirby himself looks better too, being ridiculously well-animated for a character that’s little more than a pink circle with feet. This game certainly takes its predecessor’s crown as the title that’s probably the best-looking 2D game on the system.
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Unfortunately, the game just doesn’t feel quite as painstakingly designed and well-balanced as its predecessor. It’s still a wonderful game, and one of the best in the series, but every jump it makes forward seems to stumble a little. I beg that Flagship keeps trying, because they’re on the right track here and a few tweaks could take the improvements they’ve come up with and make them into an awesome game. It’s just… not there quite yet.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Possibly the best 2D graphics on the GBA + Great gameplay |
8.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- New features are kinda' hit-and-miss - Still not quite as deep as I'd like |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| It's a fun game that's absolutely gorgeous, but there's still some room for improvement in the gameplay. | |
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Tags: Kirby & The Amazing Mirror
Posted by Jake McNeill on Feb 14th, 2005 and is filed under GBA Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
