Kirby & the Amazing Mirror | SuperPod Game Club

Over in the SuperPod Saga Discord server, we've decided to spice things up and challenge ourselves to beat one game a month. So we've started a game club! Each month we'll vote for a game that each member of the game club will play, beat, and review. We've limited ourselves to games that are 20 hours or less, to avoid fatigue and to not take up so much of everyone's time.

Each member of the game club will write their own reviews for the game in their own words. Once they've been written, I'll post each member's review as an individual blog article right here in the SuperPod Saga website.

If you'd like to join the server and take part in this club, CLICK HERE.

The first game that the SuperPod Game Club is playing for March is "Kirby & the Amazing Mirror" on Game Boy Advance!

I'll post my review below. Enjoy!

Aaron

Holy shit. I just couldn't with this game. The map and routes to different areas is confusing and I fucking HATED having to return to the hub and then go back into a world if I took a wrong turn or took the wrong door. Not only that, but some new areas require you to access part of the map using a certain ability. If you happen to lose that ability on your way to the part of the map to access a new area, YOU'D BETTER TURN THE HELL AROUND. You'll need to return to the hub world, get the ability again, return to the hub world again, and then go back to where you needed to go and avoid getting hit.

A Metroidvania Kirby game would be really cool, but this just isn't the way to do it. Any other Metroidvania would reward exploration with a cool collectible like a health upgrade, new weapon or power, armor upgrade, or something cool. Not in Kirby, bro. You get either a map of the area (which makes the game much less frustrating, but is still lame) or an item to restore health. If you don't want to waste your time, just stick to the beaten path.

One last gripe I have is that, while on your way to where you need to go to progress the game, you will be locked into fighting certain sub-bosses. And those sub-bosses do not stay dead once you beat them. If you come across that area again later on in the game, you HAVE to stay and fight the boss again in order to proceed. Total slog.

All that aside, visuals and music are really good. I like the ability to call in some homies to annihilate bosses and the copy abilities are really cool. I completely forgot to mention that you can call in more Kirbys to come help you, because it almost doesn't matter. You can use Kirby's cell phone to call in 3 other Kirbys who will fight and explore alongside you. But Kirby's phone has limited battery and you can only replenish it by finding battery pick-ups. I saved the phone for boss battles so that I could plow through the game.

Very steady 6/10. Would not play again.

Tony

Kirby and the Shattered Mirror starts off similar to other games in the series, there is an opening level that shows off the basic mechanics of the game, as well as setting up the story before dropping you into the main hubworld. The first thing you will notice are the multiple Kirbys that follow you around at the start, these are non-playable characters that you can call at any point for assistance during boss fights, to help hit switches, or for a quick health boost. Their actual usefulness can vary since you are unable to issue them any kind of commands, making it somewhat frustrating as you watch them aimlessly hop around, when all you want them to do is hit a switch to open a blocked path. I’m sure that this mechanic was great when playing multiplayer, but in single player mode it just comes off feeling a bit undercooked.

In most of the previous games you could revisit levels to find hidden areas and items, but they were mostly always the same standalone linear experience. In Kirby and the Shattered Mirror the levels criss-cross into each other as you open up new pathways, making them all connected to each other in some way and creating an almost maze-like world. Unfortunately, this level design is also the game’s biggest fault, since progressing through the game can be confusing thanks to the unintuitive in-game map, making navigating through each level more complicated than it should have been. With all of the different pathways you can take and shortcuts to unlock, it can be easy to find yourself running around in circles and having a map that is difficult to read destroys any sense of direction, leaving you feeling lost most of the time.

The Kirby franchise is no stranger to mixing things up and a Metroidvania styled adventure is a pretty obvious choice for the series and has great potential, but unfortunately Kirby and the Shattered Mirror misses the mark. While the game still retains the usual charm the series is known for and the basic mechanics are as good as they’ve ever been, some of the other gameplay elements are a bit lacking. The multiple Kirbys do not add much to the single player experience and the hard to read map makes the maze-like level structure harder to navigate than it needed to be, resulting in a game that could’ve been a classic feeling like a real missed opportunity.

Thrak

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (GBA): The only original mainline Kirby game on the Gameboy Advance stars Kirby as he repairs the mirror that sent him into Mirror World. All the while, Kirby gets split into four and he must rescue Meta Knight from Dark Meta Knight.

The game is structured differently from previous Kirby games, going for a Metroidvania style with a hub area that branches off into eight different worlds to explore. There are fast travel portals you can unlock as you go, and I would say are required to prevent a lot of unnecessary backtracking. It plays like your typical Kirby game, being able to run and jump and suck in your foes, some of which will give you an ability for Kirby to copy and use against his foes. The game looks fantastic! I love this style of 2D Kirby graphics and a few others in the series use this look and it’s timeless. The music is surprisingly good as well. The GBA is known for having rough sound, but there are examples of fantastic music on the system and this OST is one of the better ones I’d say.

The control is great, but I don’t think I’ve played a Kirby game that controlled poorly. My main issue comes from the Metroidvania design of this game. I love this from a conceptual perspective, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. For one, the map isn’t all that great. I like that they have one, but it can be quite confusing to navigate, opting for me to pull up maps online to understand where I am at and where I need to go. The backtracking is very tedious, because these areas are designed like standard linear Kirby games, which is fine, but having to backtrack through these creates more frustration than fun. Enemy placement can be quite rough, and I took so many hits just trying to get where I needed to be and approaching these levels from various perspectives only highlighted how the game is not designed to be non-linear. The bosses are not that special and aside from the final one, aren’t all that memorable either. You are stuck fighting the mini bosses every time you encounter them, which makes them much more tedious as well. With Kirby splitting into four, this allows for multiplayer options, which is a great idea, but the GBA is not known for having a convenient way of playing multiplayer games, so the other three Kirby’s become goons that you call in whenever you need a health boost or to plow through a boss fight. There are some new copy abilities which I really like. The one where Kirby has his Super Smash Bros. move set is fantastic, but it is so easy to lose abilities and you never have a nice easy spot to grab one of those (unlike some of the more normal abilities which is a feature I do like), so if it’s gone, you either backtrack to get it or just say fuck it and move on.

The game was also short, beating it in around 4-5 hours max. Overall, I found this game to be disappointing. I still love the idea of a non-linear Kirby game and with this willingness to go 3D and have success with it in Forgotten Land, I could see this idea being done in a 3D space. Maybe Kirby starts not having any way to copy abilities and then after some time, you unlock that and then can revisit these areas with copy abilities to find extra secrets or to progress the game’s main story, just an idea. It’s not the worst Kirby game, but you have better options. 6/10.