So what's the plot? Dedede's causing trouble? Nope. Capitalism is trying to turn the planet into a factory? Nope. Someone stole Kirby's slice of cheesecake so he must go on a genocidal rampage to get it back? Nope. This time the story is... a cult got a dark ritual wrong, causing heart fragments to scatter all over Dreamland, gives Kirby the ability to CAPture... I mean brainwash... I mean "throw hearts at enemies to make friends with them", and with this new power, Kirby sets out to stop the new villain Hyness and save the world, causing an incalculable death rate along the way. "FOR KIDS!". In all seriousness though, the plot itself is traditional Kirby, in that it is extremely basic, and that's fine. Kirby's the kind of franchise that doesn't need an in-depth story. It's not wanting you to think hard about current moral and political dilemmas, this is the series whose first boss is almost always some form of a giant tree. I respect a game that knows it doesn't want an in-depth story and just rolls with it. The character interactions are at least interesting, and the writing for Hyness and his three generals, Francisca, Zan and Flamberge. There is writing here, just not anything that's going to push the boundaries of a Kirby game.
Unlike Breath of the Wild or Super Mario Odyssey, Kirby Star Allies isn't trying to reinvent itself for a new audience. If you've played Return to Dreamland (I hate the name it was given here so I will only refer to it as Return to Dreamland), Triple Deluxe or Planet Robobot, then you know what you're getting yourself into. You've got your simple platformer levels that have secrets hidden behind basic puzzles that require specific powers, aKirbyrby can inhale and copy the abilities of his enemies, with many powers returning along with a handful of new powers including Spider, Pole and Cleaning. On top of this though are two new mechanics, the Friendship mechanic, where you can either have three friends or three AI partners become almost any enemy you find in a level and use their powers like they would if they were playing as Kirby. The Friend system is fine overall, and works better with human players (sadly this game has no online support so I couldn't confirm that first hand), while you might think that's because the AI is quite dumb, it's actually the opposite. The AI is quite intelligent most of the time. While it made solving puzzles almost pathetically easy because there were times the AI figured out the problem before I could think about it, there were some problems I had in boss battles where I lost my elemental attribute, and instead of the AI letting me get a new one, at times all they would do is either keep fighting the boss, or just stop and look at me.
On top of this, the game has a mechanic that allows you to combine the traits of powers similar to that of Kirby 64, although I will admit that, with a few exceptions, it's not as interesting here. How it works in Star Allies is that you can give an elemental attribute to any physical weapon or power. For example, putting Fire onto the Sword power gives you a fire sword. The problem I have with this mechanic is that, compared to Kirby 64 (I'll get to it someday), the power combinations feel generic. In Kirby 64, you could combine any two powers for better or for worse and each one had a unique trait to it. Combine Spark and Cutter? You get a lightsaber inspired weapon that looks like Kirby took Darth Maul's weapon. Ice and Spark? You turned into a fridge that spat out food for you to heal yourself. Two of the same power gave you a stronger version of that power. While there are some combinations like that in Star Allies, the Curling stone power comes to mind when you combine Ice and Stone together, most of the power combinations come off as generic by comparison. I would have loved to have seen things like Artist get power-ups, like combining with Fire to form fire paint, or bringing back the Poison ability from Planet Robobot to give Artist an Acid Ink attack. Doubling up on powers would also have been interesting to see, double Fighter could have made Kirby as swollen as the second phase of the King Dedede fight.
In terms of presentation, while the game looks pretty for a Kirby game, there isn't much more than I can say other then it looks pretty for a Kirby game. It's the same art style that Return to Dreamland, Triple Deluxe and Robobot have been going for, only this time in HD. After games like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, I can't help but wish Kirby Star Allies went down a similar approach, maybe borrowing camera elements from Kirby 64, or at least tried a few more risks. What also doesn't help is that I have played a lot of Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot, yet this somehow still feels safer than those two, both of which were already playing it safe as is. Is this just the curse of the 2D platformer? At least the soundtrack picks up the slack, thanks to a new selection of songs and yet more reworkings of old Game Boy songs if not just direct reuses of older versions (seriously, how many times have we heard King Dedede's theme with new instruments?).
While the game is easy, even almost stupidly easy at times. It's somehow even easier than other Kirby games. I had around 160 lives by the time I finished the main story, and I think I only died 3 times, all three were just me being careless rather than any genuine challenge. However, there was never I time when I hated my experience with it. This was a lot of fun to play while travelling on the train to and from work, and the standard array of bonus modes Kirby games come with adding a lot of replayability to the game. If you're looking for a relaxing time, the game's worth the purchase. But for general audiences, I wouldn't be surprised if you wait for a sale or price drop. There was a time when Kirby did take a few risks though, when they tried new things, even if the new things came from turning a new IP into a Kirby game. Come next week for the 500th post to this site (what the hell?!), as we travel to a world... where everything feels like pants. In the meantime, the Toybox is getting a taste of some turf war ink on Sunday... and I just realized how bad this tease of a joke can be taken when putting together so I'll shut up now.
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