Kirby is like a big pink bus - you wait ages for a game of his, and three come at once. After the amazing Kirby's Epic Yarn released earlier this year, Nintendo are treating us to not just one - but two - brand new Kirby games in 2011. On the Wii, we'll be playing the interesting looking 'Kirby Wii' (tentative title at the moment), while the DS gets its very own game, in the form of Kirby Mass Attack. At this rate, I'm going to be broke come Christmas...
(Waddle) Doo want this game... Although leaping from block to block looks tricky there.
Just like the 222 to Halesowen, Kirby Wii has taken it's sweet time getting here - it was originally announced for the GameCube, way back in 2005, before being shifted onto the Wii in 2007 - and when Kirby's Epic Yarn was announced, everyone assumed the original Kirby Wii game had died a death. Nothing was really heard about it until January this year, when Nintendo triumphantly announced it'd be resurrecting the project, and letting it finally see a release.For those of you who aren't too familiar with Kirby - or maybe have only played Kirby's Epic Yarn - you may be unaware of the more unique abilities of our pink platforming hero. Rather than unravelling the foes he comes across like in Kirby's Epic yarn, the hungry little chap tends to just open his mouth and inhale his enemies whole, absorbing any special abilities they have as he swallows them - for example, if you swallow one of the enemies who carries a sword, Kirby will gain the 'Sword' ability, donning a familiar green cap and wielding a sword of his own...
For the last time, no I have not been going through your stuff, Link.
But several things make this Kirby game stand out as different to his other games - for a start, there are a few new abilities to add to his list - a new 'Whip' power, where Kirby dons a cowboy hat and gains the ability to lasso enemies, and a new 'Leaf' ability, where Kirby attacks surrounded by a whirlwind of leaves.There's also new 'Super Abilities' - if Kirby inhales a specific enemy, he gains a powered-up version of whatever ability he's got, with screen-destroying consequences. The trailer for the game shows the sheer power of the 'Super Sword', where he uses a MASSIVE sword to destroy a whole army of Waddle Dees. There's just too much happiness in this trailer. It looks amazing:
And, following in the footsteps of New Super Mario Brothers Wii (a game it's actually rather similar to), Kirby Wii will let four people play together co-operatively, as Kirby and three of his friends (Meta Knight, King Dedede and Waddle Dee). Although Kirby isn't a stranger to 4 player co-op - way back on the Game Boy Advance in 2004, 4 of you could play as different coloured Kirbys on a quest to find the fragments of a mirror in the imaginatively-named Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (assuming you you had enough friends, copies of the game and link cables, anyway) - this is a much more convenient way of playing with your friends, and a feature that adds a wide variety of ways for the whole family (and people of different, how shall we say, gaming abilities), to get together and have fun.
You see, not even Kirby's friends can escape his enormous appetite either, as he's able to inhale them and fire them at enemies. Handy for protecting your friends from an attack, or possibly even saving them if they've just managed to accidentally wander off a cliff, sucking your friends up into Kirby's massive gob can provide quite the life line to your friends - and a great way to take out any enemies that happen to be looking at you the wrong way.
There is a plot here, although it's hardly anything Dickensian in its form. Tending to feature a form of greater evil, some trees, King Dedede/Meta Knight, a large helping of tomatoes and a story that somehow sees Kirby being the only one who can secure the future happiness of Dream Land, Kirby Wii's a little bit different. Beginning with an alien spaceship crash-landing on the planet Pop Star (where Kirby lives), pieces of the poor alien's ship get scattered across the land, leaving a crew of down in the dumps aliens stuck on a planet with Kirby. But being the helpful soul that he is, the pink puffball decides to lend a helping hand in locating the ship's parts so the aliens can return home. It's nothing fancy, but at least it's a bit different to normal.
Kirby, endorsing blob-on-tree violence since 1993.
Kirby Wii is due out this Autumn in America - about the same time as Kirby's Epic Yarn was released over there last year, and we had to wait until February for him to make his way over to the UK. Hopefully, we don't get a repeat of that with this game...
