So many Kirbys! Kirby Mass Attack preview

Kirby Kirby Kirby Kirby Kirby Kirby Kirby Kirby Kirby Kirby! Yes, I’m excited for a new Kirby game, but the reason I just repeated the pink little suckball’s name is because that’s exactly how many Kirbys you’ll be controlling in Kirby Mass Attack.

An evil villain has split Kirby up into ten pieces, and you need to find a way to put Kirby back together as one.

Kirby Mass Attack (DS)
Developer: HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo
To be released: September 19

This time around you need to use your little Kirby army to get through the game, as opposed to the traditional consuming of your enemy’s abilities. You start off with one Kirby and must collect fruit to fill up a meter to get more Kirbys. You can get up to ten, after which you’ll just continue to accumulate points for collecting fruits. Having multiple Kirbys will be key in order to progress, as there are numerous obstacles and paths that can only be accessed by a certain amount of the pink heroes. Certain obstacles, like giant plants for example, can only be pulled down if you have a few Kirbys latched on.

Levels themselves need a minimum amount of Kirbys before you can enter them too, such as the boss stage that requires all ten Kirbys. There will be plenty of replayability too as you go to levels multiple times in order to collect goodies you missed the first go-around like special coins due to lack of Kirbys. Other than that, you can proceed to any level on a map in any order you want, so long as you have the right number of Kirbys.

Even though you have a little army, the controls are simple enough so that all the Kirbys respond together. You just tap or hold on the touch screen to move your Kirbys forward. To attack, you tap on an enemy and watch your Kirbys swarm over their target. By doing a flicking motion with the stylus, you can fling your Kirbys at enemies or blocks. You’ll also be able to guide your Kirbys by drawing a path, like in Kirby: Canvas Curse. By holding down the stylus on the touch screen, all the Kirbys will clamor around the point you’re touching. They’ll then follow the path you trace until you’ve hit the line’s length limit.

When a Kirby gets hurt, it’ll turn blue. If it gets hurt again, it turns into an angel and drifts away. Angel Kirbys can be saved by flicking another Kirby to pull them back down. If the angel escapes though, you can just repeat the whole fruit-collecting thing to bring it one back — there’s plenty of fruit to spare. There’s also a healing loop located at the mid-point of each level to heal blue Kirbys.

That’s basically the gist of it. It’s an odd-sounding concept, but just watch the trailer above to get a basic sense of it all. Despite the weird premise, Kirby Mass Attack was plenty of fun. Controls were simple and intuitive, and you’re a horrible, inhuman filth monster if you don’t like Kirby!