Kirby's Return to Dream Land

Merry Christmas! Yesterday I'm finished watching this game video on YouTube, and currently I'm back in my homeplace where I can use Wifi! Let's move into the another Kirby game:

Kirby's Return to Dream Land, known in Japan as Hoshi no Kirby Wii (星のカービィWii Hoshi no Kābyi Wii) and in Europe and Australia as Kirby's Adventure Wii, is a Kirby video game and the twelfth platform installment of the series, developed by HAL Laboratory, and published by Nintendo. The title was first released in North America on October 24, 2011, and later in Europe on November 25, 2011. Japan follows up after North America release in October 27, 2011.

Story (Source: kirby.wikia.com, with some changes)

King Dedede and Bandana Waddle Dee running after Kirby (I'll call him Pink Kirby in this review. Why? You'll know later), who is holding a large slice of cake. They run past Meta Knight, who is sitting by a large rock on a grassy knoll, reading a book and relaxing under the sun. Suddenly, the portal opens revealing Lor Starcutter to pops out, trailing smoke and spilling pieces of Energy Spheres everywhere. Moments after, the Lor falls apart - first two banks of oars, then wings at its aft, then its engines and a piece of its bow, and finally its top mast. What's left of the hull crashes nearby, and the four heroes run off to investigate.

They reach the crash site and find the ship's hull mostly intact. Then its door opens. Pink Kirby peers intently inside. The heroes wander into the ship's shiny interior and find themselves right inside the ship's cockpit, but it's in shambles after the crash. A lone alien, Magolor wakes up and immediately runs to the control panel, and a look of despair comes over him. The screen shows all 120 Energy Spheres missing, and all five parts of the ship had been scattered to the five corners of Pop Star. Pink Kirby is the first to offer his help, and the rest join in, and so the four heroes run off to gather up the parts while Magolor stays behind to tend to his ship. 

The question remains: What caused the ship to crash in the first place? You must beat this game in order to know more. Who knows there's a suprise at reaching the end of the game?

Gameplay

New Attack for Stone CA, Stone Uppercut. Defeat this boss to get Grand Hammer SA.

There's the pros that Kirby Mass Attack doesn't have: Copy Abilities. You can use your signature inhale to suck up your enemies to suck it and if you're lucky, you'll get one of your copy ability (I'll spell it CA for now). For CA Transformation, which is brief, if you play alone, Pink Kirby will zoom-up, but if you play together with player (I'll explain this later), it's alike other Kirby games (it's usually without any zoom-ups). Due for playing Kirby Squeak Squad in NDS, I was suprised in my heart that there's a new attack in each CA. However, there's one-limited ability (LA) before it wears off (like Crash, Sleep, for Mike can only be used thrice). And another suprise is there's a Super Abilities (SA) can used super attacks in infinite times as long the timer is still decreasing (time-limit).

In order, there are 20 CA, 3 LA and 5 SA (Total 28 in all). CA is fonted in normal, LA is underlined, while SA is bolded for more understanding.

1. Beam
2. Bomb
3. Crash
4. Cutter
5. Fighter
6. Fire
7. Flare Beam
8. Grand Hammer
9. Hammer
10. Hi-Jump
11. Ice
12. Leaf
13. Mike
14. Monster Flame
15. Needle
16. Ninja
17. Parasol
18. Sleep
19. Snow Bowl
20. Spark
21. Spear
22. Stone
23. Sword
24. Tornado
25. Ultra Sword
26. Water
27. Whip
28. Wing

Everything has its pros and cons. So does copy ability. There's some place where you need certain ability to complete puzzles to get power-up and Energy Spheres.

Goal Game. In Multi Co-Op, only the player that has the highest standing will get the star.

But that's not all. The actual story consist of four playable characters but you can play as Pink Kirby alone. That's why there's Multiplayer Co-Op or Quick Join in the game. You can choose which character you want to play, as King Dedede, Bandana Waddle Dee, Meta Knight or Kirby in another color (Yellow, Green and Blue Kirby). Pink Kirby is a mandatory character that you'll play as first player in Main Story Mode (In The Arena and True Arena, player 1 can choose which character you want to play aside of Pink Kirby). When playing, keep an eye of Pink Kirby's health bar (or another character if it's the player 1) because if he died for falling to the pitfall, get crushed by moving platforms or ran out of HP, all players must restart the level. But if this also happens to another 3 player, you can reselect your favorite character and the level isn't restarting (except that you died with Pink Kirby ^o^). Oh, and one note: Selecting the character by Quick Join will cost pne 1UP, be sure to store your 1UPs high.

The brief explaination about Energy Sphere.

What is Energy Spheres, by the way? It's a collectible item that scattered in any level except boss stage. The result after you unlock all ES (Energy Sphere for short)? Sub-Games, CA Room, and Challenges. There are 2 Sub-Games (Ninja Dojo and Scope Shot), 4 CA Rooms and 7 Challenges (only one player can enter one of the challenges). Some of them are avaiable via Sphere Doomer in Another Dimension, which needs SA to release it. The real challenges is how to get the ES, that's why the power-up items comes in handy (except for Key and Candle, it has a time limit before it expires). Be careful though, the higher the  level, the harder the challenges would become.

If the bar reaches red, the character will be flashing red and exhausted with the sad face icon and sweating. I quite like this Kirby's expression, though.

Overall, it's very good game even it's actually released for GameCube 12 years ago before being released for Wii. Kirby's 'poi' and 'Haayah!' (or 'Poyo!' because it's not heard clearly when SA transformation at the beginning of the game) and King Dedede's 'wan' voice is pretty good (Bandana Waddle Dee has no voice, Meta Knight is 'hun' even though I previously don't know if he has one). Also, I love how Kirby quickly performs Super Inhale. The music was remixed from previous Kirby games until you'll be hard to recongnize which one that was remixed or not. CA Rooms is the one where we can try your CA without any enemies. Challenges is the one who makes me want to play, but only the easier challenges because of the harder one makes me frustasted and my feeling gets bad. The CA Star has a detailed color and icon and it makes this more interesting. If you're Kirby fan or loves challenge, this is the must get for you. Okay, as always see you in my next review!