Developer: HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo
Reviewed on: 3DS
Available on: 3DS
Released: April 13th 2017
During the April 12th 2017
Nintendo Direct, it was brought to my attention that it's the Kirby
series' 25th anniversary this year. From it's humble
beginnings as a Game Boy title, Kirby has come quite a long way since
then; he's had a whole eleven games in the main series and a huge number
of spin offs on top of that. The series shows no signs of slowing
down anytime soon, with three brand new titles being announced in the
aforementioned Nintendo Direct, two of which are coming out later
this year and the third of which (that I'm reviewing now) was made
available straight after the Nintendo Direct ended. I say 'three
brand new titles' and what I actually mean is one brand new title and
two 'Deluxe' versions of the two mini games from Kirby: Planet
Robobot (Team Kirby Clash and Kirby 3D Rumble).
Team Kirby Clash Deluxe is a slightly strange title in the series due to it being a free to play game, meaning you can download it and experience the full game completely free of charge. However, as with most free to play games there is an incentive to give a payment for in game currency. This currency is called Gem Apples and these are required for pretty much every function in the game, but before I get ahead of myself, let's talk about the game itself.
The story of Team Kirby Clash Deluxe is almost entirely non-existent, but seeing as it's basically just a free to play minigame, that's absolutely fine with me. What little story exists in the game is given to us in the form of text boxes which explain that the Dream Kingdom is under attack by various monsters and it's up to a team of four multicoloured Kirbys to save the day. More effort could have been put into the story development, but the plot in most main series Kirby games is just as barebones so my expectations weren't sky high to begin with.
The actual gameplay is where this Kirby
title begins to become something a bit more special. You start the
game in a very small hub area where you can access a shop, the quest
board, an Amiibo statue, a Gem Apple tree and a password shrine. The
quest board will be your main port of call as this is where you can
access the different levels of the game.
To start with, there will only be one
quest which you can embark upon, this will teach you the basics of
combat and introduce you to the game's structure. Instead of being a platformer like the main series Kirby games, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe consists entirely of four vs one fights, the four being you and a team of
other Kirbys and the one being a singular powerful enemy. You can
choose to play as a Sword Hero, Beam Mage, Dr. Healmore or Hammer
Lord, all of which wield unique weapons and have different
specialisms and moves in combat. The Beam Mage is my favourite class
because I like to use ranged attacks and you can be tactical in how
you fight by using a charge attack which has the
ability to stop time, temporarily leaving your opponent unable to
move or defend itself. Each of the four classes are well balanced and
using each of them properly can result in some incredibly satisfying
and diverse fights.
After defeating more enemies you'll
unlock new opponents to fight, gradually find different areas to play in
and discover tougher versions of enemies you've previously defeated
which use different tactics to throw you off. The game features a
leveling up system which works like a traditional RPG, where defeating
enemies awards you with experience points and after reaching a
certain amount your level will go up, resulting in your stats
improving and your Kirby getting stronger as a result. You'll also be
rewarded with new items in the form of Fragments and Gem Apples which
can be used at the shop to improve your class specific armor and
weapons.
Gem Apples are the primary currency in
the game and this is what you can choose to pay real money for if you
feel inclined to do so. Luckily, there are other ways of earning this
currency in the game itself, such as completing Heroic Missions
(which are basically side objectives you can complete in the various
fights which get harder as the game progresses), waiting for the Gem
Apple tree to bloom (which happens every twelve real world hours) or
by leveling up and becoming stronger.
If you play the game without the
intention of spending any money (like me) you'll pretty much always
be strapped for Gem Apples and have to work extra hard at the Heroic
Missions to be able to progress. The reason for this is because
almost every action in the game requires Gem Apples in some form.
Unlocking new quests requires a lot of Gem Apples, buying equipment
requires Gem Apples and even starting missions requires Gem Apples.
However, you'll rarely have to spend Gem Apples on starting missions
because of the Vigour system that's in place.
When starting the game you have a set
amount of Vigour which will be depleted every time you start a quest.
This Vigour recharges on it's own but you'll need to wait an obscene
amount of time for it to do so. Luckily, leveling up will completely
refill the Vigour meter without using any Gem Apples, so this
shouldn't get in the way too much. However, if you use up all your
Vigour without leveling up, you'll need to spend a small amount of
Gem Apples to refill the Vigour meter. This isn't particularly a
problem because the amount of Gem Apples you need to do this is so
low that it's extremely likely you'll have that amount to spare
anyway, but the problems with this system will arise when you reach
level fifty (which is the level cap) and you can't improve your stats
anymore, because at this point there will be no way of re-filling Vigour
for free. I've played the game for quite a long time (around fifteen
hours) and this hasn't been a problem because of how long it takes to
reach that level, but it is a concern that you'll be losing a lot of
Gem Apples to recharge your Vigour upon reaching that point.
If all of your team members die on a
level you have the option of spending some Gem Apples to revive
everyone but this is a bit of a waste of precious resources and
should be avoided because you can simply restart the mission and try
again (which admittedly does use up Vigour, but hopefully you'll have
enough to spare). There's also a time limit on the fights and if this
runs out (you guessed it) it costs Gem Apples to add some time onto
the clock so you can continue fighting. Again, you should avoid doing
this because it's just a bit of a waste, but if you think you're
close to beating a difficult enemy, this will be very tempting.
I've seen people complain about the
amount of grinding you need to do to play this game without spending
money and I actually completely disagree with these complains. Yes, you will have to replay missions a few times but if you see it as
trying to complete all of the optional Heroic Missions rather than
grinding for resources it's actually quite fun to go back to these
earlier levels with your upgraded stats and equipment and see how
much you've progressed and gotten better at the game. It's
essentially backtracking more than it is grinding.
Despite needing Gem Apples for a ton of
things, I always had a reasonable amount to spare because I was going back to
older quests to finish the Heroic Missions quite often. I never
found that the game forced me to spend money at any point and I felt
like the option was there if I wanted to spend some money but it was
perfectly playable without doing so. The game is stopped from being a
pay to win experience by the way in which you need to unlock high
level equipment by beating certain bosses first and even after doing
so you'll need a number of Fragment items to buy the weapons and
armor as well as the purchasable Gem Apples. These Fragments are earned by
completing missions and can't be bought with money meaning that you
still have to play the game to progress even if you buy a ton of Gem
Apples.
Anyway, enough about the Gem Apple
situation and more about the game itself. There's actually a
multiplayer mode which works fantastically, the one issue with it
being that it's local multiplayer only and the online functions are
just to import other people's characters into your game and an AI
will use these to help you (which is actually pretty cool). Team
Kirby Clash Deluxe is much better when it's played with a friend and
it has the added benefit of giving you bonus experience points for doing so too. So
if you and someone else both have a 3DS, you should definitely give
the game a go (especially considering it's free), it's a fun co-op
experience that becomes very addicting.
During a battle you might find Power
Tablets which fly out of the enemies after dealing a certain amount
of damage to them, this changes the pace of the game slightly because
you now need to focus on where these items land and how you're going
to get to them without getting hit rather than only looking at what
your enemy is doing. If each of your team members collect these Power
Tablets you will perform a highly damaging Team Meteor attack which
will leave your enemy stunned for a while afterwards too. The amount
of damage the Team Meteor attack does is dependent on how well you
(and your team) do at a timing minigame where you have to get a
circle directly in the middle of the screen while it moves quickly
back and forth. Again, this changes the game slightly and adds that
little bit of variety to give you a break from the constant action
while not stopping the game completely.
While the game is quite simplistic and
repetitive, there's something I find incredibly addicting about it
and I keep coming back for more. Maybe it's just that I'm a
completionist and I get a sense of accomplishment from filling in the
checklist of Heroic Missions and getting the platinum medals on each
quest by completing them with a fast time; or maybe it's just because
it's a game that's well suited to a handheld console because of being
able to pick it up and play it for short bursts throughout the day. Either way it's grabbed me and I'll be going back to it and
attempting to fully complete it even after I've finished this review.
The feeling I got while playing Team
Kirby Clash Deluxe reminded me of Monster Hunter in the way that I
can't stop playing because I want to earn the materials I need for
the next upgrade or to unlock the next quest but then after doing
that, there's another thing I instantly want to work towards and
before I know it, hours have gone by and I've spent the whole day in
front of my 3DS.
As far as issues with the game go, my
absolute biggest complaint is that the AI controlled teammates are
prone to being complete idiots sometimes. I noticed this most when
you lose all your health and get knocked out while an enemy is on top
of you, then your teammates will attempt to run over and revive you
but end up just repeatedly walking into the enemy and being knocked
out themselves. Besides this one gripe (which admittedly doesn't happen that often) there really isn't any problem with the game
itself. Some people might not like that it's only local multiplayer
and I see their point, but personally I have no problem with this, and
the other issue is the free to play payment model which is
something I normally hate but I think HAL Laboratory and Nintendo
have done a fantastic job with not forcing you to pay money by giving
you plenty of ways to earn Gem Apples by doing optional missions.
If you've played Kirby: Triple Deluxe
or Kirby: Planet Robobot then you know what to expect from this game
visually. It isn't HD due to being on the 3DS, but it still looks
crisp and colourful with it being on a fairly small screen. The
animations are all fantastic and give enemies a sense of character, even if you haven't played a main series Kirby game you'll still
enjoy fighting the various creatures you come across because of how
full of charm they all are.
While you would expect it to become a
bit boring looking at small stages with a single enemy on them for
the whole game, luckily the themes of the stages change and you'll
revisit older themes quite a lot so the visual variety is kept quite
high thanks to the constant change of scenery.
There's a sense of satisfaction from
hitting your opponents and seeing a number pop up which represents
the amount of damage you're doing to it, the more damage you do the
bigger the number is and it's always rewarding seeing an extremely
large number pop up after a Team Meteor attack.
If you're familiar with previous Kirby
games you'll already know exactly how this one controls. If you
haven't played a Kirby game before though it's basically a slightly
more simple version of the controls for Super Smash Bros., for
example you can block and dodge using the L and R buttons which is
speedy and intuitive, you can perform multiple attacks using the B
button which change depending on if your character is dashing, in the
air, if you hold it, press it repeatedly, or depending on where
you're pointing the analogue stick. This makes the moves you perform
flow very well because everything does what you would expect it to
do, pressing B and up will perform an air attack, holding the button
will charge an attack and moving to the side and attacking will
perform a dash attack, everything feels natural in terms of the
movement.
I personally found controlling Kirby
with the d-pad to be a little bit awkward, but that's just matter of
preference and you can do the entire game using the analogue stick or
the d-pad or switch between them if you like both control methods. I
tend to use the d-pad for menu navigation and switch to the analogue
stick for the actual game.
The music in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe is
mostly reused or remixed versions of songs that are previously heard
in the series, but each song perfectly matches the enemy you're
fighting and later battles actually have quite an epic sound to them
which makes the confrontation even more intense and climactic. The
quality of music is extremely high and you'll be humming along to all
the different tunes because of how catchy they are.
The general sound design is great,
enemies roar and have different sound effects depending on the
attacks they're using and what kind of enemy they are; different
jingles play after you collect items and level up and each of your attacks make satisfying clang and swipe noises which make your hits feel like they're properly connecting with the enemies. It's all top quality stuff
which is to be expected from a HAL Laboratory title.
Team Kirby Clash Deluxe has been a huge
surprise for me, not only because of the way it was announced and
released within such a short period but because it's a free to play
game that I actually really enjoyed and didn't feel pressured to spend
money on. Besides that though what we have here is a simple game with
just the right amount of depth to keep you hooked which is first and
foremost extremely fun to play. There's not an area of the game where
it particularly fails to do what it set out to do and for that reason
I have to extremely highly recommend you check this out if you have a
3DS.
My biggest problem with the whole game
is the business model it uses. I would much rather pay a one time fee
and have the game fully and not have to pay anything else for in game
currency. Having said that, I doubt I would have played this game so
soon had it not been free to play, so I suppose that's an indication
that the free to play business model works. The way in which the paid
currency is handled is actually very good and I've progressed very
far into the game without spending any money at all and if you're
smart with how you spend Gem Apples I'm confident in saying you could
fully complete the game without spending anything. Having said
this, I still can't say that I prefer it being free to play as
opposed to just buying it normally and I'm not sure I want Nintendo
to start using the free to play model regularly, there's just
something that very slightly cheapens the game for me knowing
that the whole experience is designed to make you want to spend
money.
I don't feel like this is a game that has any real replay value, sure you can help your friends with quests even after you've finished it but that doesn't give the same sense of satisfaction when you're already level fifty and you have the best gear and have nothing else to unlock. Because of the free to play model it also means that you can't start the game again either because otherwise you would lose the Gem Apples you've spent money on. But it's enjoyable for the first play through and this doesn't affect how much I would recommend playing it.
I don't feel like this is a game that has any real replay value, sure you can help your friends with quests even after you've finished it but that doesn't give the same sense of satisfaction when you're already level fifty and you have the best gear and have nothing else to unlock. Because of the free to play model it also means that you can't start the game again either because otherwise you would lose the Gem Apples you've spent money on. But it's enjoyable for the first play through and this doesn't affect how much I would recommend playing it.
Here's to hoping that the next two
Kirby games which were announced are just as good as this one, I'll
be keeping my eye on any new information about them and I'm
particularly excited to see if they give us any new information about
the Kirby 'multiplayer action game' at this years E3 event. For now
though, it's back to Team Kirby Clash Deluxe to get all those
platinum medals.
Pros:
- This is the first free to
play game I've ever played and not felt like I'm being locked out of
content by not playing money. You have to be a bit more stingy with
your Gem Apples by not paying, but it's perfectly possible to not
pay a penny and complete the game fully.
- Despite being a bit basic, the
gameplay is well suited to a handheld console experience and offers
just enough variety to keep you hooked.
- Graphics, sound design and
controls are all what you've come to expect from a Kirby game, it's
colourful and appealing, the music and sound is varied and fits with
the tone of the game perfectly and the controls are simple to use
but hide some slightly more complex moves if you want to dig deeper
and master the game.
- You don't have to be a fan of
Kirby to play this game, the characters in it are interesting and
appealing even without any prior knowledge of the series.
- It's even more fun with a friend
and considering it's free you should definitely give this a download
right now.
Cons:
- The AI controlled teammates can be
a little bit stupid, often getting themselves killed when a human
controlled character would have easily dodged an attack.
- Despite handling the free to play
model very well, I would still rather pay a set amount and have the
full game with no extra payments being necessary.
- There's no replay value and starting the game again would waste money you've spent on Gem Apples.
- There's no replay value and starting the game again would waste money you've spent on Gem Apples.
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