This game was made by Good-Feel, who helps out on first party Nintendo Titles like Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It's unclear what role they serve but after playing this my guess is they probably contribute contract labor, especially visuals/animation.
This game has the same camera as Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but has a really sprawling type of level design. Occasionally level design feels a bit 'denser' and reminiscent of something like a Super Mario 3D Land / Super Mario 3D World, but a lot of times it's just a visually stunning setting (a cruise ship roof, a beach, etc) with a lot of little visual candy - sandcastles with nooks, watermelon enemies, small caves.
Enemies are strewn throughout the levels, although they're usually dancing or walking around in circles... you're quite powerful, and gain extremely powerful upgrades to mow down the enemies. Getting hurt is usually from something coming off screen or being unable to see things properly. There is a dodge roll and parry.
The effect is it feels like we're slaughtering a bunch of monsters having festivals. In fact the goal of each level is to shatter 3 festival lanterns in order to 'repel the evil celebration!' But the power divide between you and these joyful enemies (imagine mowing down people dancing on stage or in a parade) creates a strange effect.
The levels have collectibles which tell you fun facts. These range from bad jokes to legitimately interesting facts - did you know Japan has underwater mailboxes?
I also like how the levels are organized so that there's one for each prefecture in Japan. Have Americans made a 3D platformer for every state yet? Let me in on that...
So is it good? It depends on what you're looking for. This doesn't feel challenging in the way older 2.5D platformers like Goemon did. At the same time there's a shocking amount of polish and visual stuff put into this game, and it feels a bit at odds with how simplistic and repetitive the design elements are. I feel like there's a weird story behind this game's development under the surface, but we may never know..
This game has the same camera as Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but has a really sprawling type of level design. Occasionally level design feels a bit 'denser' and reminiscent of something like a Super Mario 3D Land / Super Mario 3D World, but a lot of times it's just a visually stunning setting (a cruise ship roof, a beach, etc) with a lot of little visual candy - sandcastles with nooks, watermelon enemies, small caves.
Enemies are strewn throughout the levels, although they're usually dancing or walking around in circles... you're quite powerful, and gain extremely powerful upgrades to mow down the enemies. Getting hurt is usually from something coming off screen or being unable to see things properly. There is a dodge roll and parry.
The effect is it feels like we're slaughtering a bunch of monsters having festivals. In fact the goal of each level is to shatter 3 festival lanterns in order to 'repel the evil celebration!' But the power divide between you and these joyful enemies (imagine mowing down people dancing on stage or in a parade) creates a strange effect.
The levels have collectibles which tell you fun facts. These range from bad jokes to legitimately interesting facts - did you know Japan has underwater mailboxes?
I also like how the levels are organized so that there's one for each prefecture in Japan. Have Americans made a 3D platformer for every state yet? Let me in on that...
So is it good? It depends on what you're looking for. This doesn't feel challenging in the way older 2.5D platformers like Goemon did. At the same time there's a shocking amount of polish and visual stuff put into this game, and it feels a bit at odds with how simplistic and repetitive the design elements are. I feel like there's a weird story behind this game's development under the surface, but we may never know..
2 Comments
@JCLKaytwo : Yeah, they got special thanks: https://www.mobygames.com/company/12083/good-feel-co-ltd/ . Looking at the credits, I think their connection to Kirby is a lot less than I made it out to be in this review, though.
JCLKaytwo
2 months ago