It has more charm and originality than most recent Kirby games, the side characters actually help you during the adventure, the copying mechanic is incredibly deep for the limitations of an N64 game and the music is memorable to this day.

However, once you reach the bad ending and realize you have to backtrack to all the previous levels in order to get the remaining crystal shards is where the game becomes a chore where you just have to guess which abilities you need in order to get every missing item and if you lose it you'll just have to back track to even another stage to get the ability again. It's a very disappointing form of padding that completely ruins an otherwise amazing game and turns it into a garbage waste of time. Probably one of the worst N64 games out there just because of this poorly planned mechanic.