Turtle Tale (3DSWare) Review

Turtles-- they've become popular once more in recent years-- what, with the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles CG cartoon out now and the upcoming movie. Now, one can get an alternate turtle experience with Saturnine Games's Turtle Tale, a 2D platformer that just released on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Does it kick shell or does it give us a chance to use a turtle-related pun at the game's expense?

Slow and steady doesn't win this race,

but it doesn't make for a really bad game either.

Do you have no experience with the platformer genre? Have you yet to experience the best of what the genre has to offer? If you answered "yes" to either of these questions, then Saturnine Games's Turtle Tale may be right for you. All others probably need not apply.

Turtle Tale is a very basic 2D platformer which features 15 rather dull levels full of ho-hum platforming and little variety. Oh, there's occasional levels with platforms that move and a screen that scrolls automatically, but these aren't very interesting in design either. The fact that all levels seem like they were designed haphazardly with random placement of holes, enemies, and obstacles, make Turtle Tale's levels disappointingly poor. Even the end of each level doesn't have much in the way of pomp and circumstance. They just end, showcasing the level design's inability to create a feeling of increased intensity of challenges, depth, variance, or dynamics from the beginning of each level to its conclusion.

Each level features a set amount of fruit to collect. In order to unlock the hard mode, which beefs up the amount of enemies you have to deal with as well as gives less health to work with, you must collect all of the fruit in the game. This is insultingly easy, as they're pretty much all a breeze to collect, being on the path your character must progress on.

The majority of enemies, most of which are simply sprite swaps, move in predictable patterns, with the occasional enemy that chucks objects at your character, a bipedal turtle with a water gun.

The water gun itself is pretty weak as your turtle's offense. It doesn't squirt out in a steady, strong stream, instead it simply spews out with a weak burst in a downward arc, only a few feet away from its our hero. The inability to aim your water gun makes aerial enemies a challenge, and not a fair or welcomed one.

Seeing as whenever the tenacious terrapin is hit by an enemy, he gets knocked back. This means that getting hit by an enemy and then falling into a hole due to the knock-back damage is a common and frustrating occurrence. Sure, you have unlimited lives and there are checkpoints, but as the game gets more challenging (i.e. unfair) in its platform and enemy placement, Turtle Tale grows increasingly more tedious to complete.

Turtle Tale isn't all bad, mind you. Shelldon, the main character, is brimming with personality and controls well. The premise of the game is cute enough, and the visuals, although simplistic, portray a world that is entertaining to look at. The music is serviceable, but it's ultimately something you won't remember as soon as you quit the game.

Turtle Tale isn't a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but it is also not a great game either. It doesn't do anything remarkable, and when it tries to do something special, the end result is flawed. Still, it's a solid effort that Saturnine Games made with Turtle Tale,. If you're in the mood for a low cost jump and run and aren't expecting the next Mega Man in the process, Turtle Tale is a suitable 3DS eShop title to try out. It doesn't kick absolute shell, but it won't leave you with a feeling of shell shock either.

[SPC Says: 4.75/10]

Super Monkey Ball 3D (3DS) Review

Our Thursday brings us to a launch Nintendo 3DS game. The games offered to those who jumped onto the Nintendo 3DS bandwagon at launch weren't great in quantity, and many weren't that great in quality either. One such game is Super Monkey Ball 3D. Having had such great memories of the GameCube entries, and even the Game Boy Advance Super Monkey Ball, seeing the sharp decrease in quality since the series' inception makes us sad pandas... well, sad monkeys, to fit with this review.

No Monkeyin' Around Here--This Game is a Disappointment

Oh, Super Monkey Ball series... I remember a time when this series was one of my favorites and was synonymous with awesome arcade action. Unfortunately, that time simply spanned two games, the first two titles in the series, and they both are over a decade old. With the release of Super Monkey Ball Adventure, a game I'm sure many Monkey Ball fans have subconsciously blocked from their collective memory (sorry for bringing it to the front of your minds now!), the slow, steady, and sad decline of the series began and never really stopped. Does Super Monkey Ball 3D, the Nintendo 3DS launch title, buck that trend? Well, let me save you the suspense-- no, it doesn't.

The main monkey mayhem to Super Monkey Ball 3D takes place in the traditional ball-rolling levels, which simply task you with racing to the goal without falling off the stage or running out of time. Bananas are sprinkled through each level, with the purpose of collecting 30 for an extra life. They also serve as a collectible, as acquiring every banana in a given world, of which there are eight that feature ten levels each, you get a special medal that is placed in the world selection menu.

All those bananas won't lead
you to a better game, Aiai.

The stage design is what makes or breaks a game like Super Monkey Ball, and unfortunately for this 3DS incarnation, it ultimately breaks this game. It's clear that Super Monkey Ball 3D was designed for the system's built-in motion sensor/gyroscope controls. This means the resulting levels created to complement this novelty are absurdly simple. With the game's Circle Pad controls (i.e. the way you'll actually want to play the game with), the flawed level design is only further magnified.

The majority of stages in Super Monkey Ball 3D are either insultingly easy or designed so poorly with haphazard and obnoxious obstacle placement that they simply aren't much fun. While there are moments of greatness in the stage design, these moments come way too few and far in-between. The difficulty, however, does pick up a little near the end, namely the last world, but it's overall a heavily lackluster experience.

The eight themed worlds have
their own senses of personality.

The Super Monkey Ball series is known for having an abundance of party mini-games for local multiplayer sessions that last all the way into the wee hours of the night into dawn. Unfortunately, gone are actual engaging mini-games such as Monkey Target, for instance, and instead they are replaced by a total of two mini-games.

The first is Monkey Race, which is a fantastic kart racer if you're a fan of bashing your head into a wall until blood starts oozing out of your forehead. Forgive my wordplay trickery there, but with incredibly bewildering control decisions that make absolutely no sense (unless, of course, you have bashed your head into a wall repeatedly like the designers must have done), Monkey Race is a failure of a kart racer that simply takes up room on the game card that an actually entertaining mode like Monkey Target could have been included, then.

Just put me out of my misery and breathe
scalding hot fire on my monkey, Mr. Dragon.

Monkey Fight is the other game included, and this is purely a Super Smash Bros. ripoff. The only thing here is that it's not even a good or pleasant one. The controls respond as well as a blind monkey following sign language (had to throw some monkey-related metaphor in there somewhere to fit with this review), and the combat as a whole is clunky at best.

The flaws of Super Monkey Ball 3D don't end with the gameplay and modes either. No, the visuals are severely lackluster, even for a launch Nintendo 3DS game. The 3D effect is hindered by a HUD that doesn't pop out like it should; it actually appears far in the distance while the environments and stages up-close, making a severely jarring visual experience. Usually featuring memorable music, Super Monkey Ball 3D bucks that trend, too, offering highly forgettable but passable all the same music.

This is child endangerment here.
He's just a baby for crying out loud!

Super Monkey Ball 3D is a game you should definitely not monkey around with. Its stage design most likely is insulting to all except the youngest of gamers. The added multiplayer modes do not actually add much of anything, except poor gameplay and even worse controls. Not only all of that, but like Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, there is no way to delete your data from the game card. That means if you buy this game used, you'll have as much content completed and stages available to you as the game's last owner(s).

...Well, at least the main game is quite playable, right?

[SPC Says: 3.0/10]

Top Ten Nintendo 3DS Soundtracks

How about a top ten list to keep your week going smoothly? Sure thing! For this fine Wednesday SuperPhillip Central has put together a list of our favorite Nintendo 3DS soundtracks. Dare we go so far to call these the best soundtracks that the system has to offer? There's an immense number of Nintendo 3DS soundtracks to choose from, and it was so very difficult to select which ones to include and which ones to leave out, so we're sure you'll have your own opinions on our picks. Each game listed has a trio of links to click on so you can listen to some soundtrack samples. Now that all of that is out of the way, let's get to the countdown!

10) Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure

Although it's an imperfect rhythm game (thank you, gyro controls), Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure gives us a warm, familiar feeling. It's as if the SEGA of old, pre-third-party company, was back in the saddle, albeit for a very limited amount of time. The various themes that play during the numerous rhythm-based mini-games of Rhythm Thief are accompanied by some very catchy tunes, whether they be of the jazz, rock, or even hip-hop genres of music.

Theme of Rhythm Thief

Moon Princess

Charlie Takes the Field

9) Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Paper Mario: Sticker Star was a great departure from the standard structure and formula fans of the long-running RPG series were expecting. This, deservedly so, brought about a lot of ire from fans towards the game. However, one facet of this flawed game that cannot really be argued by us as poor, is the fabulous soundtrack. Full of jazzy, jaunty, and peppy tunes, Paper Mario: Sticker Star's soundtrack had our toes tapping from the beginning of Mario's adventure to its conclusion.

Decalburg

Battle Theme

Snow Rise

8) Kirby: Triple Deluxe

Kirby series soundtracks seldom ever disappoint, and the recently released Kirby: Triple Deluxe continues that tradition of great music. Longtime series composers Jun Ishikawa and Hirokazu Ando deliver a multitude of catchy and appropriately cheerful music to this new installment of the Kirby series. While there are multiple tracks picked directly from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, the majority of music is wholly original and wholly wonderful.

Fine Field

Lollipop Land

Sunset Sky

7) Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

Surprisingly, Mario only makes two appearances on our countdown of best 3DS soundtracks. This is his second appearance, another RPG, but this time Luigi tags along. Yoko Shimomura, whose musical magnificence shines in every theme she has ever composed, brings a suitably cheery, sometimes foreboding soundtrack to players' ears with Mario & Luigi: Dream Team.

Try, Try Again

Breezy Mushrise Park

The Law of Pajamaja

6) Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy

While many gamers focused on the console iteration of Ace Combat when it hit the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the 3DS entry, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy, was sadly overlooked. Not only is the game a joy to play, making all those dogfights so beautiful in glorious 3D, but the soundtrack is especially excellent. That should be no surprise since Go Shiira composed the majority of the tracks.

Fighter's Honor (Flying Remix)

Westerly

Trickster's Delight

5) Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

She's baaaaaack~! Yoko Shimomura is most likely best known for her work on Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts franchise. The Nintendo 3DS entry, Dream Drop Distance, consists of many proficiently composed themes full of fantastic instrumentation and strong melodies. It's just the type of marvelous soundtrack that one would expect from a composer of the magnitude and skill level of Yoko Shimomura!

The Fun Fair

All for One

Dream Drop Distance - The Next Awakening

4) Fire Emblem: Awakening

When a soundtrack has a five disc set release in Japan, one might come to the conclusion that there's a lot to sift through to find the good stuff. However, with Fire Emblem: Awakening's soundtrack, composed by Hiroki Morishita, Rei Kondoh, and series veteran Yuka Tsujiyoko, this is a case of quantity and quality. With stirring symphonic tracks, heartfelt ballads, and plenty of tracks that span a range of emotions, Fire Emblem: Awakening's music is top-notch, to say the very, very least.

Prelude

"Don't speak her name!"

Id~Purpose

3) The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

A soundtrack that sensationally combines new with the familiar, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds' music delivers songs that fans of A Link to the Past will no doubt recognize, but they'll hear them in totally new arrangements. Ryo Nagamatsu, the composer and arranger of this fantastic soundtrack, nails both the fresh arrangements of the game as well as the brand-new, wholly original musical content. It's a soundtrack that stands along the best of The Legend of Zelda franchise's various scores.

Overworld

Lorule Overworld 2

Final Battle

2) Bravely Default

The leader of Sound Horizon, a Japanese progressive rock, neoclassical metal group, is Revo, and his expertise of creating music came into glorious use for the Bravely Default soundtrack. Before Bravely Default's release, none of us knew anything about Revo, and most of us had never heard of his name before. After hearing the pieces composed and performed by Revo and Sound Horizon, we couldn't help ourselves to research as much as possible about this musical genius and his band.

Conflict's Chime

Boat Soaring Through the Heavens

Serpent Eating the Ground

1) Kid Icarus: Uprising

Our choice for best Nintendo 3DS soundtrack was an easy pick. It's a soundtrack that features some of the best musical minds in Japan, such as Yasunori Mitsuda, Motoi Sakuraba, Yuzo Koshiro, Masafumi Takada, and more. The fully orchestrated soundtrack delivers tension, drama, cheerfulness, chills, liveliness, and a whole range of emotions. There's hardly a track that isn't captivating to the listener. Whether you're into traditional classical music or atypical sounds, Kid Icarus: Uprising possesses without a doubt the greatest soundtrack of any Nintendo 3DS game.

The Return of Palutena

Magnus's Theme

Viridi, Goddess of Nature

===

Which Nintendo 3DS soundtracks are your favorites? Start up a discussion below in our comments section!

Toughest Tasks in Gaming History - Volume Two

Do you consider yourself to be a hardcore gamer? Just how hard of a hardcore gamer do you think you are? Do you think you could perform some of the most difficult feats in gaming? Even if you don't think you could, Toughest Tasks in Gaming History is here to show you some of the most challenging feats in gaming. No, we don't mean things like becoming a credible gaming journalist. No, no! We're talking feats that will amaze friends within your gaming circle. This second volume contains tasks from games like Gears of War 3, Dead Rising, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl!

If you missed the inaugural edition of Toughest Tasks in Gaming History, have no fear! We have the first volume's link right here!

Seriously 3.0 - Gears of War 3 (360)

Some tasks in gaming are tough because of the challenge involved, while others are tough due to the time investment required. Gears of War 3's Seriously 3.0 achievement focuses on the latter. In the original Gears of War, there was the original Seriously achievement, earned through obtaining 10,000 kills. The sequel required the player to up their killcount exponentially with 100,000 enemies killed. This time one could earn these kills in and out of multiplayer (through grinding the last level over and over again in a sensationally stupid, tedious, and so-not-worth-it way).

Seriously 3.0 requires you to reach level 100 as well as acquire all 65 Onyx medals. What does that actually mean for the player? Well, one has you being forced to play over 15,000 multiplayer matches at the very minimum and score over 70,000 kills. Unless you absolutely can't live without Gears of War 3, this tough task is only reserved for the biggest fans of the game.

7 Day Survivor - Dead Rising (360)

Through completing the main campaign of Capcom's Dead Rising for the Xbox 360, Infinite mode unlocks. This mode requires Frank "covered wars, y'know" West to survive for seven in-game days. Each day in Dead Rising lasts two hours, so simple math has a 7 Day Survivor achievement-acquirer spending 14 hours total on this task.

You must constantly babysit Frank, as his health bar is always declining. He must eat over 40 meals at the very least to stay alive (a full health bar will empty in 20 minutes), he must survive against a zombie horde that wants him as a nighttime snack, and there are no checkpoints or save points to help the player with. That means you must have your Xbox 360 on for at least 14 hours. Huh. No wonder our damn Xbox 360 overheated on us when we got this achievement!

Collecting all of the trophies - Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

With the Super Smash Bros. series' fourth and fifth installments releasing later this year, it seems like as good a time as any to look back at the latest game in the franchise, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. One cool feature of Brawl, which was also in Melee, is that of trophies. These trophies are modeled after various characters, objects, items, and more from numerous Nintendo properties. It's a veritable virtual museum for Nintendo fans.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl introduced a challenge wall, much like what was seen in Kirby Air Ride, another Masahiro Sakurai directed title. As in-game tasks are completed, individual panes on the challenge wall shatter, revealing a prize.

In order to get every trophy in the game, a player needs to not only acquire all the trophies found in the challenge wall (this means beating the game's modes on the hardest difficulty), but he or she must turn every enemy and boss in the Subspace Emissary mode into a trophy with a trophy stand item, and beat the Classic and All-Star modes as every character. Not just immensely challenging as a task, but time-consuming, those who have collected every trophy Super Smash Bros. Brawl has to offer are without a doubt the best and brightest the franchise has to offer.

Super Monkey Master - Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz (Vita)

The PlayStation Vita's edition of the Super Monkey Ball series is a title that will grab you by the monkey balls and not let go. It's a very difficult game, featuring a steep leap in difficulty going from the intermediate to the advanced stages of the game. It's a feat all on its own to simply beat the fifty stages of the advanced mode, and that's because you don't have the luxury of unlimited continues until after you beat the mode.

What does Super Monkey Master entail, then? Well, it's the simple task of beating every stage in the game without ever using a continue. Be sure to grab as many bananas as you can to rack up those lives, master those challenging stages as many times as you can in Practice mode, and keep those palms steady! If you can somehow obtain this incredibly rare trophy, then pat yourself on the back, as you are indeed a Super Monkey Master!

Beating the game - Contra (NES)

...How about without the famous Konami code? Heck, even with the code activated, the original Contra on the Nintendo Entertainment System was no walk in the park... Well, maybe a walk in the park if your park has a hail of gunfire, explosions, and one-hit kills every step of the way.

Without the Konami code activated, which would give players thirty lives to work with, Contra only gave players three lives to work with. Yes. Three. Lives. Throw in the little caveat that every hit you took was a one-hit kill, and those lives just fly away like scraps of paper in the wind.

Players had eight levels to complete in order to beat Contra, and if you could beat the game with just those three lives, you were the coolest kid in elementary school. Nowadays, many gamers are soft-- using save states, tool-assisted runs, and other girly-men handicaps. We should know...

SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs - Radiance in the Form of VGM Edition

We hope you enjoyed your weekend, but if not, let's at least start your work week off on the right foot with SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs. If you're a fan of video game music like we are, then you will most likely find yourself right at home with our weekly segment which showcases the best and brightest themes in video game soundtracks. This week we feature music from Radiant Historia, Mega Man X7, and Mario Golf, to name just a few. Let's kick back and unwind as we take you to a journey of musical magnificence!

v626. Radiant Historia (DS) - Blue Radiance

We start this weekly edition of SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs with a work by the incomparable Yoko Shimomura. Radiant Historia is one of the best original Nintendo DS RPGs on the system. With multiple endings, an innovative battle system, and of course, the focus of this weekly series, an incredible soundtrack. Blue Radiance might be a theme you hear often in the game-- it is the battle theme after all-- somehow it doesn't get old.

v627. Mega Man X7 (PS2) - Awake Road Again - Highway Stage

While the soundtrack to Mega Man X7 is without a doubt fantastic, the actual game it accompanies isn't so hot. In an attempt to bring the series into something more modern, the developers took many levels and made them 3D affairs. The combination of poor camera work and poor platforming added nothing but headaches to players, and that's not even factoring in the headaches players will get listening to Flame Hyenard for less than a minute. Awake Road Again - Highway Stage plays in the second half of the opening stage. This part has you playing as series favorite Zero.

v628. Mario Golf (N64) - Ring Shot Menu

Mario Golf: World Tour released a few weeks ago on the Nintendo 3DS. It's one of our favorites entries in Mario's golfing series to date. However, we can't help but still love the Nintendo 64 version a lot either. A part of what makes the N64 Mario Golf so great is the superb soundtrack that was composed by the terrific Motoi Sakuraba. He and the developer Camelot have worked together for almost two decades now.

v629. Solatorobo: Red the Hunter (DS) - Battle of Fate

Solatorobo: Red the Hunter is a greatly overlooked Nintendo DS action game that introduced the world to Red the Hunter. Outside of the intriguing and original gameplay, the soundtrack is another item from the game to make a serious note about. It's sometimes soothing, sometimes tense, but always lovely.

v630. Wild Arms 3 (PS2) - A Person's Warmth (A Quiet Town)

Michiko Naruke is the primary composer for the Wild Arms series. While her best work continues to be the original Wild Arms on the original PlayStation, her work on Wild Arms 3, the first PlayStation 2 entry in the franchise, is nothing to scoff at. There's some truly captivating tunes in the soundtrack, such as this one we've selected, a town theme from the game, A Person's Warmth.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe (3DS) Review

It was a quiet week all in all for SuperPhillip Central last week, but we're back with a vengeance starting with Sunday of all days. Today we have a new review for you as part of our Nintendo 3DS-focused month of reviews. It's Kirby's time to shine once again with our review of Kirby: Triple Deluxe.

A 3D Pink Puffball Paradise

Other than Mario, Kirby is one of Nintendo's most versatile mascots. Whether he's using himself as a golf ball, entering pinball machines, or being a part of inventive games like Canvas Curse, Mass Attack, or Tilt 'N' Tumble, Kirby isn't shy to push himself to do extraordinary things. Kirby's newest title, and debut on the Nintendo 3DS, is Kirby: Triple Deluxe, and it's a much more traditional Kirby title a la Super Star. It's a game that very much feels like a return to the Wii's Return to Dream Land, save for the lack of multiplayer and Sphere Doomer areas. What it all adds up to is a platforming adventure that not only Kirby fans will love, but any supporter of 2D platformers.

Kirby's minding his own business when suddenly a beanstalk takes him for a ride into the sky. A shady figure quickly king-naps King Dedede, and Kirby quickly pursues to once again save the day. Little does he know that his quest will not only save Dedede but save a kingdom from a sinister evil as well. While Dream Land is not the setting for this 2D Kirby, a great many familiar level tropes and ideas permeate through Triple Deluxe, such as requiring the first boss of the game to be none other than a variant of Whispy Woods.

For Kirby's sake, I hope there's no
giant at the top of this beanstalk.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe plays out like an ordinary 2D Kirby. You move across numerous levels, sucking up foes with Kirby's vacuum-like mouth, using Kirby's copy ability to take the powers of certain enemies, all the while performing feats of platforming peril and prowess, as well as solving quick puzzles.

The ability to change platforming planes
leads to some cool level design.

As the subtitle would suggest (after all, it is Triple Deluxe, aka 3D), the game's levels make fantastic use of the Nintendo 3DS' stereoscopic 3D hardware. While it's by no means mandatory to have on, it greatly enhances the experience. Various levels will have Kirby transporting from the foreground to the background, somewhat similar to the Virtual Boy's Wario Land, for the select number that have played that game. There's also plenty of obstacles and hazards that make use of this 3D concept, such as enemies that come from the background to the foreground, whether they be flying foes or Waddle Dees that swing back and forth, showcasing the depth of levels. Then there are hazards like hands, trains, and giant wooden balls that shoot out from the background and enter Kirby's dimensional plane.

These Waddle Dee model trains are but
one hazard that can attack from the background.

One of the newest gameplay elements introduced in Triple Deluxe is Hypernova mode. When Kirby eats a specific fruit from a tree, his complexion brightens with a rainbow glow and his ability to suck things up, whether they be objects, items, or enemies, increases exponentially. This leads to some of the puzzle elements of the game, including using Kirby's now-godly inhaling abilities to move gigantic blocks around to reach new areas and collect hidden goodies.

I've heard of a blowhard, but an inhalehard!?
That's exactly what Hypernova Kirby is.

Aside from Hypernova, Kirby: Triple Deluxe also contains some gyroscope-intensive parts to it. These are generally located in the many side areas of the game's levels, but they generally control well. You can tilt the 3DS while Kirby wades in a jar of water in order to influence the direction the water inside spills, tilt the system to aim a missile, or tilt to move a hanging weight over to its desired position.

These areas of the game usually contain the game's most important hidden trinkets, Sun Stones. These appear in every non-boss level, and are required to progress through the game. While nowhere near having to find all of them is required to access the boss of each of Triple Deluxe's six islands, a fair amount is needed to move on. Unless you're just trying to breeze through every level as fast as you possibly can, it's really difficult to not have enough Sun Stones to progress through the game without being forced to return to levels.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Waddle Dee,
but ski season ended a few months ago.

Along with Sun Stones, there are numerous keychains to acquire. Unlike said Sun Stones, these keychains are purely optional, coming in two varieties, a small silver collectible that is very common and a larger rainbow collectible that only appears once in nearly every level. Collecting these unlock character sprites from a number of past Kirby titles. It's really a celebration of Kirby's remarkable and illustrious past.

"Feet don't fail me now!"

Outside of the story mode, which sadly doesn't last all that long, Kirby: Triple Deluxe features two distinct modes, a Super Smash Bros.-like fighting game in Kirby Fighters and a rhythm action game called Dedede's Drum Dash. The former features all of the abilities in the game, and you choose from one of them and fight through various stages against AI opponents. There's multiplayer included, but this is limited to local play, unfortunately. Another bummer is that every fighter is simply a differently colored Kirby. It would have been nice to see the actual enemies that each Kirby's abilities are based off of. For instance, Cutter Kirby could have easily been replaced with Sir Kibble, an enemy who Kirby uses his copy ability to gain Cutter in the first place.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe runs well on the Nintendo 3DS hardware. The visuals appropriately colorful as well as rather whimsical, too. The music is cheery and mostly original, although there are pieces taken directly from Kirby's Return to Dream Land. Can't really complain about that, as that Wii game's music was exceptional and darned catchy, much like the new musical content in Triple Deluxe.

No need to applaud for Kirby:
He's already got a hand.

If you're looking for an abundance of prevalent innovations in this Kirby game like you saw with Canvas Curse or Mass Attack, you are going to sorely disappointed. Kirby: Triple Deluxe stays close to the formula of games like Kirby's Adventure, Dream Land, and their subsequent sequels without straying too far outside the gameplay of those titles. What it's lacking in amazing originality, Kirby: Triple Deluxe makes up for this with its clever level design, 3D implementation, colorful and crisp graphics, engaging and novice-friendly gameplay, and varied amount of modes. Kirby: Triple Deluxe won't "blow" you away, but it certainly doesn't "suck" at all. It's a fun game, and that's really all you want in a Kirby title.

[SPC Says: 8.75/10]