This review contains spoilers
Next up on the impromptu Kirby 100% marathon was going to replay Triple Deluxe, and I'll be honest, going into this game I didn't really think much of it. I remember it being a quaint and straightfoward approach to a typical Kirby game, but it was on the 3DS, it had a new gimmick, and it took advantage of the gyroscope stuff with the 3DS for a lot of puzzles and whatnot.
While there might be a couple aspects I remember, this game overall doesn't ring that much in my head as "stand-out", and I wanted to see if that still held up... It did.
Ok so like I said, typical Kirby adventure. You got 6 worlds, each of the worlds spell out some word with their intials, and each world has a boss stage, 5-6 normal stages, and the EX stage that unlocks after collecting all of the game's major collectibles (in this case Sun Stones) for that world. Kirby gets access to an array of copy abilities good for combat, puzzles, traversal, or some combo of the three, and your goal is to get through a relatively linear level while solving it's puzzles and beating it's fights and collecting all the collectibles.
This game along with introducing a few new copy abilities introduces Hypernova, which after eating some random fruit, the black hole in kirby's gut suddenly goes supernova, and lets Kirby inhale much more than ever, which is used for puzzles from traversal, arrangment, or even puzzle bosses. For being this game's unique box-seller mechanic, It's pretty ok. It's not as varied as the 5 super abilities from RtD, but they also get some good mileage out of the ability's use with the puzzle variety, and being put in some charming moments. Help a snowman find it's head, be the big bad wolf as you uhh... suck up the houses of the three little pi- waddle dees. Suck up a train for all the game cares.
The copy abilities are also pretty standard. Of the 24 in the game, Bell, Archer, Circus and Beetle are all new. They are all fun to use. Bell and Archer have always been in my higher graces but Beetle and Circus took a bit to get their appeal. Circus can feel a little antiquated due to it's erratic movement but beetle is plent of fun to slash and grab at foes with. The rest are all returning, which is typical for this series. They did remove water unfortunately from RtD but they did bring back Spear, Whip, and Leaf, the latter being one of my favorites, and the rest are more classical abilties like ice, sword, fire, hammer, etc.
The one thing I did note about this game's abilities, especially before the DX version of RtD is that some of the older movesets changed. Sword and Fire apparently got some new stuff if it being brought over to RtDDX is make sense, but even before then, they took away some stuff from a few other abilities. Now Ice lost the Ice Ball which was kind of a meh move. But they stripped beam of it's SUPER MOVE, Needle is missing it's spindash, and Spark especially is lacking it's up and down thunderbolts. That always felt like such an odd omission to me since while the main move spark has is nice, it's also kind of not my favorite to spam the D-Pad just for a charge.
I will say i'm actually kind of surprised how many abilities this game introduced, especially since I always remembered TDX to be a bit underwhelming in it's Copy Ability List. I dunno why,
Anyways, the side modes are all fine. Dedede Drum Dash and Kirby Fighters would go on to be extended modes you can play in other games, and the latter even got a sequel, but they're both just pretty standard. Fighters is kind of jank, and Drum Dash is just a bit more than I'd ask for a Rhythm game, but it's fine all the same. I'm not a fan of the backbeat mechanic, where you clap while you're in the air, but I do like the platforming aspect and timing your jumps to the beat. It's neat.
Dedede Tour is an overall much better package than Extra Mode from RtD, because it being offered as a Speedrunner's mode with Dedede makes having to speed up the game a necessity, plus it gets rid of the need to look for Sun Stones, just food, 1-ups, and keychains. I will say though that it does feel kind of bloated near the end, but that's just because Royal Road as a world both in the main game and in the side mode can feel kind of bloated for last levels. Just for example, my run in all other worlds were like 10-20 minutes. In the final, nearly 60 minutes. Dedede is fun to play though. I mean has hammer, but with a couple more tools.
And the Arenas, well there's not much to say. The final boss gets an extra desperation phase which caught me off guard since I thought that was something that got started with Robobot, but I guess not. And they're pretty standard otherwise. I used archer for a bit, but I ended up beating both with Hammer. Good damage, wide range, invulnerability on the dash attack and hammer spin, what more could you need? Well other than the kind of guard that archer and leaf have. While im on archer row quick, I do wanna mention that it's weird the move where you hide and are damage invulnerable is done by just crouching. That feels wrong, like it should be on guard. The guard and quickstep in this game are kind of mid anyways, so I wouldn't mind if it was replaced with that tbh.
And I think the last thing I can care to mention is nitpicks? I already mentioned it, but I think Royal Road is kind of bloated. Now this being the final stage, it wants to reuse older themes, introduce some new ones, and put you through the more daring parts of the game like a boss rush or a prison break, but while those are kind of cool, the amount to do in those levels feels like it can drag on for a bit more than i'd like.
My favorite world however would probably be Old Odyssey. It had good music and setpieces, I love the level themeing starting at canyons with waddle dee trains to mountains high in the sky, and ending at the peaks of snowy wastelands with igloos and skiing waddle dee, and I like this game's take on Kracko.
The biggest nit to pick from this game however would probably be Keychains. They aren't that bad, but how the game handles them is a bit less than preferrable at times. There are 256 of them in total, 36 of them being rare keychains, and the other 220 being standard ones you get through RNG. Firstly, I'd like it if they actually tracked how many and which kinds you got during a level. There were more than a few times I couldn't remember if I got the rare keychain of that level and had to go back and get it. And I do think i'm mixed on it being required for 100% completion.
I would get it more if they weren't just models you look at. Like, there's no lore like in Forgotten Land, they aren't even cosmetics like what Robobot will get, they just are there fer fanservice, and that's kind of it. At least give the rare keychains something. It was kind of annoying getting to be done with the true arena only to see the profile at 98% because I still had a 100 more keychains to get. After an hour or two of grinding out 2-1, I eventually got what I needed, but that still feels a bit wasteful. Granted, that's only if you're 100%'ing, and it's not like you really have to pay attention otherwise. I did it because I like 100%'ing kirby games, but clearly based on the first profile from years ago sitting at 88%, back then I didn't care enough, and was fine as is.
Either way, Kirby Triple Deluxe I think is just a servicable game. Sure, I don't like how bloated Royal Road is, some of the side content is either easy to forget or just kind of dumb, and it was a bit of a shock to come off of this from RtDDX, because I was used to Kirby not losing his ability after get breathed on, and I was use to the control scheme I set for RtDDX, which was not here in this game, meaning I had to relearn this game again. Fucked up if I do say so. But for all of the nitpicks I have, it's still good. Level Design is solid, the ability collection is solid, the bosses are all at least solid (if not aces with the Dedede fight, Sectionia's first fight, Paintra and Coily Rattler), the music is really solid, Hypernova is at least charming and still solid, and uhh... it's good.
I think the problem I'm having is I don't think it's that memorable. Yeah the sectionia story is pretty sad, some abilities are really neat, Pyribbit can burn in hell for all I care, but uhh.. that's it. It's good, but I would still say it's not really stand-out for Kirby, especially since I do have the hindsight of what would come next. I think the best way to say is it plays things a bit too safe for me to care as much.
If there is one thing I really remember about this game, it's the commercial for it. It and Super Star Ultra's always stick in my mind, but specifically the lines "HYPERNOVAAAAAAA! SAYONARA SUCKKAAAAAAAA!" will never leave my brain.
While there might be a couple aspects I remember, this game overall doesn't ring that much in my head as "stand-out", and I wanted to see if that still held up... It did.
Ok so like I said, typical Kirby adventure. You got 6 worlds, each of the worlds spell out some word with their intials, and each world has a boss stage, 5-6 normal stages, and the EX stage that unlocks after collecting all of the game's major collectibles (in this case Sun Stones) for that world. Kirby gets access to an array of copy abilities good for combat, puzzles, traversal, or some combo of the three, and your goal is to get through a relatively linear level while solving it's puzzles and beating it's fights and collecting all the collectibles.
This game along with introducing a few new copy abilities introduces Hypernova, which after eating some random fruit, the black hole in kirby's gut suddenly goes supernova, and lets Kirby inhale much more than ever, which is used for puzzles from traversal, arrangment, or even puzzle bosses. For being this game's unique box-seller mechanic, It's pretty ok. It's not as varied as the 5 super abilities from RtD, but they also get some good mileage out of the ability's use with the puzzle variety, and being put in some charming moments. Help a snowman find it's head, be the big bad wolf as you uhh... suck up the houses of the three little pi- waddle dees. Suck up a train for all the game cares.
The copy abilities are also pretty standard. Of the 24 in the game, Bell, Archer, Circus and Beetle are all new. They are all fun to use. Bell and Archer have always been in my higher graces but Beetle and Circus took a bit to get their appeal. Circus can feel a little antiquated due to it's erratic movement but beetle is plent of fun to slash and grab at foes with. The rest are all returning, which is typical for this series. They did remove water unfortunately from RtD but they did bring back Spear, Whip, and Leaf, the latter being one of my favorites, and the rest are more classical abilties like ice, sword, fire, hammer, etc.
The one thing I did note about this game's abilities, especially before the DX version of RtD is that some of the older movesets changed. Sword and Fire apparently got some new stuff if it being brought over to RtDDX is make sense, but even before then, they took away some stuff from a few other abilities. Now Ice lost the Ice Ball which was kind of a meh move. But they stripped beam of it's SUPER MOVE, Needle is missing it's spindash, and Spark especially is lacking it's up and down thunderbolts. That always felt like such an odd omission to me since while the main move spark has is nice, it's also kind of not my favorite to spam the D-Pad just for a charge.
I will say i'm actually kind of surprised how many abilities this game introduced, especially since I always remembered TDX to be a bit underwhelming in it's Copy Ability List. I dunno why,
Anyways, the side modes are all fine. Dedede Drum Dash and Kirby Fighters would go on to be extended modes you can play in other games, and the latter even got a sequel, but they're both just pretty standard. Fighters is kind of jank, and Drum Dash is just a bit more than I'd ask for a Rhythm game, but it's fine all the same. I'm not a fan of the backbeat mechanic, where you clap while you're in the air, but I do like the platforming aspect and timing your jumps to the beat. It's neat.
Dedede Tour is an overall much better package than Extra Mode from RtD, because it being offered as a Speedrunner's mode with Dedede makes having to speed up the game a necessity, plus it gets rid of the need to look for Sun Stones, just food, 1-ups, and keychains. I will say though that it does feel kind of bloated near the end, but that's just because Royal Road as a world both in the main game and in the side mode can feel kind of bloated for last levels. Just for example, my run in all other worlds were like 10-20 minutes. In the final, nearly 60 minutes. Dedede is fun to play though. I mean has hammer, but with a couple more tools.
And the Arenas, well there's not much to say. The final boss gets an extra desperation phase which caught me off guard since I thought that was something that got started with Robobot, but I guess not. And they're pretty standard otherwise. I used archer for a bit, but I ended up beating both with Hammer. Good damage, wide range, invulnerability on the dash attack and hammer spin, what more could you need? Well other than the kind of guard that archer and leaf have. While im on archer row quick, I do wanna mention that it's weird the move where you hide and are damage invulnerable is done by just crouching. That feels wrong, like it should be on guard. The guard and quickstep in this game are kind of mid anyways, so I wouldn't mind if it was replaced with that tbh.
And I think the last thing I can care to mention is nitpicks? I already mentioned it, but I think Royal Road is kind of bloated. Now this being the final stage, it wants to reuse older themes, introduce some new ones, and put you through the more daring parts of the game like a boss rush or a prison break, but while those are kind of cool, the amount to do in those levels feels like it can drag on for a bit more than i'd like.
My favorite world however would probably be Old Odyssey. It had good music and setpieces, I love the level themeing starting at canyons with waddle dee trains to mountains high in the sky, and ending at the peaks of snowy wastelands with igloos and skiing waddle dee, and I like this game's take on Kracko.
The biggest nit to pick from this game however would probably be Keychains. They aren't that bad, but how the game handles them is a bit less than preferrable at times. There are 256 of them in total, 36 of them being rare keychains, and the other 220 being standard ones you get through RNG. Firstly, I'd like it if they actually tracked how many and which kinds you got during a level. There were more than a few times I couldn't remember if I got the rare keychain of that level and had to go back and get it. And I do think i'm mixed on it being required for 100% completion.
I would get it more if they weren't just models you look at. Like, there's no lore like in Forgotten Land, they aren't even cosmetics like what Robobot will get, they just are there fer fanservice, and that's kind of it. At least give the rare keychains something. It was kind of annoying getting to be done with the true arena only to see the profile at 98% because I still had a 100 more keychains to get. After an hour or two of grinding out 2-1, I eventually got what I needed, but that still feels a bit wasteful. Granted, that's only if you're 100%'ing, and it's not like you really have to pay attention otherwise. I did it because I like 100%'ing kirby games, but clearly based on the first profile from years ago sitting at 88%, back then I didn't care enough, and was fine as is.
Either way, Kirby Triple Deluxe I think is just a servicable game. Sure, I don't like how bloated Royal Road is, some of the side content is either easy to forget or just kind of dumb, and it was a bit of a shock to come off of this from RtDDX, because I was used to Kirby not losing his ability after get breathed on, and I was use to the control scheme I set for RtDDX, which was not here in this game, meaning I had to relearn this game again. Fucked up if I do say so. But for all of the nitpicks I have, it's still good. Level Design is solid, the ability collection is solid, the bosses are all at least solid (if not aces with the Dedede fight, Sectionia's first fight, Paintra and Coily Rattler), the music is really solid, Hypernova is at least charming and still solid, and uhh... it's good.
I think the problem I'm having is I don't think it's that memorable. Yeah the sectionia story is pretty sad, some abilities are really neat, Pyribbit can burn in hell for all I care, but uhh.. that's it. It's good, but I would still say it's not really stand-out for Kirby, especially since I do have the hindsight of what would come next. I think the best way to say is it plays things a bit too safe for me to care as much.
If there is one thing I really remember about this game, it's the commercial for it. It and Super Star Ultra's always stick in my mind, but specifically the lines "HYPERNOVAAAAAAA! SAYONARA SUCKKAAAAAAAA!" will never leave my brain.