Kirby’s Adventure Wii

Posted June 10, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

Kirby’s Adventure Wii actually had to be released somewhere in 2005 for GameCube, but that didn’t happen. Now the game has been transformed into a Wii version and it’s released to fill up a quiet release period.

Central to the story in this Kirby game is the arrival of an alien in a spaceship in Dreamland. Landing the spaceship didn’t go that smooth, and so Kirby and his new friends King Dedede, Meta Knight and Waddle Dee (indeed, the former enemies) find themselves looking for new parts to repair the spaceship. A simple background story, but it does the trick, especially when playing with kids.

The game is similar to the remake of an old classic. The gameplay is that of an old platformer, so out come the childhood memories with the jump button, the sidescrolling and the boss fights. In other words, we’re returning to the roots of the Kirby games. No yarn this time, but colourful backgrounds and Kirby of course still specialises in taking over enemy abilities, which is again central to the gameplay.

The resulting game is not bad. There are some very nice Kirby transformations, like one which gives Kirby as a special attack a gaint sword to crush his enemies. And, importantly, the game plays good. However, the classic touch and feel of Kirby’s Adventure is also the game’s greatest negative: once the childhood memories are gone, only an old game in a new box is left. The game just looks and feels old.

Luckily Kirby’s Adventure Wii has another ace up its sleeve: the multiplayer. The multiplayer mode allows up to four players to join in on the adventure. The other characters have their own special abilities, but Kirby is the only one who is able to copy enemy abilities. As if to avoid fighting over that first controller, it is therefore also possible to play with several Kirbies at the same time, all in a different colour. Working together is encouraged: the characters are able to stand on each other shoulders to execute a super powerful attack. Another asset is the accessibility of the game and the multiplayer: the controls are easy to learn and new players can join with the press of a button, even in the middle of a game.

Kirby’s Adventure Wii can be compared to a movie classic that is released again in a digitally cleaned version with a lot of extras as bonus. Ideal to relive memories of long gone gaming times or a chance to introduce the younger generation to a classic platformer. The multiplayer is the greatest asset of this game, especially for children or for games between parents and children.

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