‘Kirby Battle Royale’ had good ideas, but failed in execution

Photo from, Nintendo, used with permission under fair use

Photo from, Nintendo, used with permission under fair use

The latest  Kirby spinoff inspires in an attempt to bring fresh ideas to the series. “Kirby Battle Royale” is a brawler developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the 3DS. It was released Jan. 19 in North America.

The main feature of “Kirby Battle Royale” is the Battle Mode, which has a single player and a wireless multiplayer option. In it, you can choose to do 1-10 random battles in a row. Battles are split into 10 different types; “Battle Arena,” “Apple Scramble,” “Coin Clash,” “Attack Riders,” “Crazy Theater,” “Rocket Rumble,” “Robo Bonkers,” “Slam Hockey,” “Ore Express,” and “Flagball.” Kirby cannot inhale enemies in this game, as seen in the previous games, instead, you select the Copy Ability you want to play with before the battles begin. This is the first time any of Kirby’s Copy Abilities have been playable in a true 3D environment. In addition, you can select up to three boost orbs that can give you temporary or permanent buffs.

Every battle is unique and fun to play, however, there is a lack of continuity tying the various battles together.  The battles do not flow one to another and the game feels a little choppy.

The story mode of this game is not challenging and lacks creativity, in my opinion. The developers of the game focused on the multiplayer aspect of the game rather than the story. The basic plot of the story mode involves King Dedede trying to get rid of Kirby. He makes a tournament filled with Kirbys made from a Kirby printer. In order to win the grand prize, Kirby must beat all the contenders. The grand prize is a deluxe sized strawberry shortcake (Kirby’s favorite food). In the story you are given certain challenges like don’t get hit by Robo Bonkers or collect 15 apples in a minute in “Apple Scramble”. The story mode is fairly easy and can be beaten in one to two hours.

The game has online multiplayer too, but for some reason, there is no option to play with friends, only random people with your same online rank. I feel an option to play with friends would be more fun.

Battling earns you coins which you can spend on unlocking game modes, abilities, cosmetics, boost orbs, music, and other characters. Really, the best thing about this game is that most of the cosmetics are references to past Kirby games. So if you are a fan of Kirby then you will enjoy these cosmetics.

This game also has amiibo functionality, but it’s only to unlock certain costumes. There is also free DLC for the game for two abilities: Mirror and Sleep. The latter is definitely the best ability in this game, in my opinion.

Compared to other Kirby games I think this one is the worst. That’s not to say “Kirby Battle Royale” is bad, it’s just that every other Kirby game is better. This game feels like it’s just here to tide us over before the anticipated “Kirby Star Allies” arrives on March 16th of this year.

“Kirby Battle Royale” is a difficult game to recommend considering there are many other Kirby games which are much better, however, it still offers multiplayer battles and Copy Abilities in a 3D space.  Even if you are a hardcore Kirby fan I would hold off on purchasing this game and wait until “Kirby Star Allies” comes out.