By Dan Spence on May 20th 2015

Kirby: Triple Deluxe represents Kirby’s first official outing on the 3DS, and frankly, it’s one of the most enjoyable Kirby games yet. Kirby: Triple Deluxe is a fun-filled platforming adventure that has charm in spades.

The game’s story involves a giant beanstalk growing underneath Dream Land that carries various parts of Kirby’s world up into the sky-land of Floralia. A new villain named Taranza has kidnapped King Dedede so Kirby sets out on his journey to save the King. Fairly standard stuff, but let’s be honest: you’re probably not going to be playing a Kirby game for its in-depth plotlines.

Graphically, the game is very presentable and looks similar to its Wii predecessor, Kirby’s Adventure Wii: with lots of brightly coloured levels that make the game feel cheerful and fun. The models – while simple – look good and do well in matching their older sprite-based counterparts to a tee.

Gameplay-wise, Triple Deluxe is standard Kirby fare: basic platforming/floating with Kirby’s trademark enemy absorption ability thrown in for good measure. It’s the traditional Kirby action that Kirby fans love and there’s not much else like it. A few new copy-abilities make their debut including: Archer, Beetle (my favourite!), Bell and Circus. All of the game’s absorbable abilities have been fleshed out and expanded upon; giving them new moves and adding more flexibility to each ability than ever before.

The biggest new addition to Kirby’s repertoire is the Hypernova ability. Gained by eating a miracle fruit that only appears in certain levels; Hypernova amplifies Kirby’s already prominent inhalation abilities to the level of a black hole. This allows Kirby to affect huge objects which could include anything: from moving massive boulders to uprooting giant trees.

Hypernova in action.

Hypernova’s main use however, is for solving puzzles. The puzzles are never particularly difficult; ranging from blocking stage hazards with a well placed block to destroying a wall with a wrecking ball. These puzzles are fairly simple in nature but the size of the objects being manipulated, along with the animations of the Hypernova ability make them feel satisfying nonetheless.

Kirby sucks balls. Teehee!

Another new feature allows Kirby to move between the background and foreground via the use of special warp stars. This feature is used often and to great effect, a few examples of this include: cannons firing at Kirby from the background, racing a character in the background to obtain a key, Kirby affecting the background with special items and a background mirror that reflects potential stage hazards that would otherwise be impossible to see. While this gameplay mechanic sounds somewhat gimmicky, it never seems to grow stale; the game constantly manages to find fresh and interesting ways to use the background/foreground dynamic and implements it in a myriad of ways throughout the course of the game. The game never lets it feel like a gimmick, it just feels like part of the game.

Several of Triple Deluxe’s puzzles do involve the use of motion controls (tilting the 3DS to the left and right), although thankfully these segments are few and far between. To be honest, I found the motion controls to be fairly unobtrusive and while they didn’t really add much to the game they definitely didn’t do anything to detract from it, either.

Each level in Kirby: Triple Deluxe contains a number of sunstones (between 1 and 5), a certain number of which are required to access each island’s boss. Some of these sunstones lie in plain sight while others need to be hunted for; hidden in secret areas or locked away behind one of the game’s many puzzles. Collect all of an island’s sunstones and you’ll unlock an EX Level: an extra level as a reward for all your hard work.

Triple Deluxe contains several other game modes (5 modes in total despite the game’s title) these are: Story mode, Kirby Fighters, Dedede’s Drum Dash, Arena, and Dedede Tour they differ as follows:

Story mode: the main game.

Kirby Fighters: a competitive multiplayer mode that allows you to select a copy ability and do battle with other Kirbys. A number of items and stage hazards add to the fun. Kirby Fighters has a number of similarities to Super Smash Bros, no doubt due to the fact that both games were developed by HAL Laboratory.

Dedede’s Drum Dash: a rhythm action game that involves using King Dedede to jump between a series of drums to collect coins and avoid enemies while doing your best to match the beat of some of the game’s songs. This game isn’t especially deep but is enjoyable, nonetheless. It definitely ramps up the difficulty with some of the later songs.

Arena: Triple Deluxe’s standard boss-rush mode. Most Kirby games have one and it’s a nice addition, even if it’s nothing that we haven’t seen before. It does contain a few hidden secrets, however.

Dedede Tour: a number of Kirby games contain “Meta Knightmare” (Nightmare in Dream Land, Super Star Ultra) a mode that allows you play through the entire game as Meta Knight instead of Kirby with a higher difficulty level and extra bosses. Instead of Meta Knightmare, Dedede Tour lets you play through the game’s main story in control of King Dedede; with each of the game’s worlds condensed into a single level. The mode functions as a time-trial of sorts, recording the player’s best level completion times and sharing them with others via StreetPass. King Dedede gets quite a variety of moves and is very distinct from Kirby, but I was slightly disappointed to see that his own inhalation abilities were seemingly absent.

While fairly easy for the most part, the game does manage to pose more of a challenge in its later stages. The game’s hidden secrets and trickier-to-find sunstones do help to add to its replayability but even once I’ve found every secret, I know that I’ll be replaying numerous levels of Kirby: Triple Deluxe for quite some time because like the Kirby games that came before it: it is, at it’s core: fun.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe is one of those games that has bags of Nintendo polish. It’s all the little details and extras that help to make this a fun game. From visual gags like allowing the hypernova ability to inhale boss lifebars to Kirby breaking the fourth wall and waving at the player every time he hops on a warp star; it’s the nice little touches like these that make the game even more delightful.

Overall, Kirby: Triple Deluxe is an enjoyable, clever platformer filled with that inimitable Kirby-brand of fun and charm that any Kirby fan will appreciate. Even though a large number of newcomers to the series will likely dismiss it due to its colourful visuals and childlike appeal, those who can look past these supposed “indiscretions” are in for a real treat. With its fun gameplay, great design and substantial extra modes, Kirby: Triple Deluxe is definitely worth checking out.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe is RECOMMENDED