Very, very cozy li'l game. Between the narrator, the music, and the graphics, I almost always find myself relaxed after playing this. It's not entirely mindless - if you want to play all the levels, you have to be good enough to match a certain bead threshold on each level - but a casual playthrough is certainly very casual. But that's also clearly what the game is going for, so I don't really hold that against it. This is more of a comfy spectacle game than a strict technical challenge, and the game does quite a bit with that - levels like 'Splash Beach', 'Melody Town', 'Evergreen Lift', and 'Outer Rings' make for standout set pieces in a game chock full of 'em.

You can sort of tell this is a non-Kirby game concept retrofitted with the li'l guy. He doesn't feel too out of place - helps that he's a shapeshifter anyway, and the vehicular transformations aren't too out of the norm for him. But I do feel a little bad for Prince Fluff and Yin-Yarn, who are shockingly irrelevant for a series that places so much reverence on its own history. Kirby's Avalanche gets the same treatment, but I at least get why THAT doesn't show up. Give Fluff his due!