As a Kirby: Canvas Curse enjoyer, this was another hit for me! Like, if you can count on anything it’s the Kirby series utilizing a motherfuckin’ peripheral. I’m a sucker for cool cartridges, and I’ve always eyed this game on eBay in hopes my copy of WarioWare Twisted would have a buddy. Lucky for me this got added to the NSO Game Boy player pretty quickly, and it’s a great addition because it utilizes, 20+ years on, an under-utilized Nintendo peripheral: the freakin’ joy-cons!
Although the game definitely is clunkier on the Switch than I’d imagine it’d be on a Game Boy Color, shaking around the entire machine in handheld mode is a bit much, but with modern motion controls, the game was really smooth to play. It’s Kirby’s Super Monkey Ball, but instead of you moving around a board within a 3D space, the Game Boy is the board and real life is the 3D space. It’s a really interesting approach to handheld gaming; the way a console can be free floating, and the screen is not tied down by wires or weight.
The game is also very fair. It’s so easy to have a physics game like this be so frustrating, and this game can be, but it’s also fair. Levels are short because the playtime is lengthened by you replaying the same tough sections over and over. I often found that once I got over certain humps, my player instincts told me that there was going to be so much left, only for the goal to be within reach. One would also think ‘game over’s would be frequent, but this game gives out a lot of lives. It’s easy to get 1ups, but not too easy. At least for me, it felt like I was getting a very balance and proportional amount of extra lives based on how many times I needed to try a level. I only did get a ‘game over’ on a very, very tricky boss that I was not being patient enough to figure out.
To some, these games may seem like gimmicks, but also, when you look at the entire Kirby series, these games are kind of a big part of our favorite little pink sphere! This, Canvas Curse, Epic Yarn, Kirby games have a real knack for having fun with a console’s whole thing. This game has a lot of charm and works amazing for an early motion-control-cartridge game. Has a lot of really great Kirby sprite work, too!
Although the game definitely is clunkier on the Switch than I’d imagine it’d be on a Game Boy Color, shaking around the entire machine in handheld mode is a bit much, but with modern motion controls, the game was really smooth to play. It’s Kirby’s Super Monkey Ball, but instead of you moving around a board within a 3D space, the Game Boy is the board and real life is the 3D space. It’s a really interesting approach to handheld gaming; the way a console can be free floating, and the screen is not tied down by wires or weight.
The game is also very fair. It’s so easy to have a physics game like this be so frustrating, and this game can be, but it’s also fair. Levels are short because the playtime is lengthened by you replaying the same tough sections over and over. I often found that once I got over certain humps, my player instincts told me that there was going to be so much left, only for the goal to be within reach. One would also think ‘game over’s would be frequent, but this game gives out a lot of lives. It’s easy to get 1ups, but not too easy. At least for me, it felt like I was getting a very balance and proportional amount of extra lives based on how many times I needed to try a level. I only did get a ‘game over’ on a very, very tricky boss that I was not being patient enough to figure out.
To some, these games may seem like gimmicks, but also, when you look at the entire Kirby series, these games are kind of a big part of our favorite little pink sphere! This, Canvas Curse, Epic Yarn, Kirby games have a real knack for having fun with a console’s whole thing. This game has a lot of charm and works amazing for an early motion-control-cartridge game. Has a lot of really great Kirby sprite work, too!