It's not that great.
I don't see anyone explaining why exactly they like this game so much but I can only guess because others don't intend on making a long analysis on a Kirby game, or they are biased by nostalgia. I beat this edition and played through most of the original as a kid, and I can say I never had strong memories about it aside from a few rooms. Beating it now after coming from other Kirby games, the game is plainly dated and I found myself rushing to just beat it after a while.
The presentation is cute, the hybrid artstyle and cutscenes are nice to see, but as far as gameplay goes, SSU doesn't do too much to add from the original — which I definitely have qualms over.
Air movement is very sad in this game. Previous entries weren't that great in this either, but it feels extremely noticable here. Jumps are not as pronounced (wheel still did not have this at the time, but felt like it could've been included), flying (a major trait of Kirby) feels like such a pain in the ass that it's better to avoid it over ground movement where possible, and many of the levels contain claustrophobic designs, sometimes cram-packed with enemies on top of hazard spam (either with lava or electricity as the main suspects) which all started to blur into one another instead of giving each place an overly distinct identity (aside from stages that were a 1-off gimmick). The worst part about this is that the amount of sources that inflict Heavy Knockdown to Kirby is very grinding, which only made me want to play more impatiently and roll my eyes when trying to brush away from a hazard ends up making you waste a few seconds, killing the pacing and action often. I assume the levels were left untouched from SS, but I feel like improvements could have been made to (at least) the level design. One-gap holes you must fall into, mazes galore and some other unintuitive puzzles (specific lava being passable when the rest isn't) drowned my joy out.
I don't have much to say about the rest, everyone loves Marx and Galacta Knight. Meta Knightmare felt the most fun to play and control with the energy system being cool enough, but I don't care too much about the "minigame" direction chosen. I personally prefer a centralized thing, and each segment didn't make me feel like replaying it. I understand why they went this route, though.
There is no bad Kirby game, and if managed to 97% the game then it was partially fun enough, but I have to give it my personal "OK" rating that made it a bit below Squeak Squad. Other games have more to offer and feel better to play, and all the "hip and cool" concepts of this game are mostly at the end of one's playthrough to postpone playing it (if you're not playing Kirbies in order). An alright game to spend an afternoon on.
I don't see anyone explaining why exactly they like this game so much but I can only guess because others don't intend on making a long analysis on a Kirby game, or they are biased by nostalgia. I beat this edition and played through most of the original as a kid, and I can say I never had strong memories about it aside from a few rooms. Beating it now after coming from other Kirby games, the game is plainly dated and I found myself rushing to just beat it after a while.
The presentation is cute, the hybrid artstyle and cutscenes are nice to see, but as far as gameplay goes, SSU doesn't do too much to add from the original — which I definitely have qualms over.
Air movement is very sad in this game. Previous entries weren't that great in this either, but it feels extremely noticable here. Jumps are not as pronounced (wheel still did not have this at the time, but felt like it could've been included), flying (a major trait of Kirby) feels like such a pain in the ass that it's better to avoid it over ground movement where possible, and many of the levels contain claustrophobic designs, sometimes cram-packed with enemies on top of hazard spam (either with lava or electricity as the main suspects) which all started to blur into one another instead of giving each place an overly distinct identity (aside from stages that were a 1-off gimmick). The worst part about this is that the amount of sources that inflict Heavy Knockdown to Kirby is very grinding, which only made me want to play more impatiently and roll my eyes when trying to brush away from a hazard ends up making you waste a few seconds, killing the pacing and action often. I assume the levels were left untouched from SS, but I feel like improvements could have been made to (at least) the level design. One-gap holes you must fall into, mazes galore and some other unintuitive puzzles (specific lava being passable when the rest isn't) drowned my joy out.
I don't have much to say about the rest, everyone loves Marx and Galacta Knight. Meta Knightmare felt the most fun to play and control with the energy system being cool enough, but I don't care too much about the "minigame" direction chosen. I personally prefer a centralized thing, and each segment didn't make me feel like replaying it. I understand why they went this route, though.
There is no bad Kirby game, and if managed to 97% the game then it was partially fun enough, but I have to give it my personal "OK" rating that made it a bit below Squeak Squad. Other games have more to offer and feel better to play, and all the "hip and cool" concepts of this game are mostly at the end of one's playthrough to postpone playing it (if you're not playing Kirbies in order). An alright game to spend an afternoon on.