Kirby: Star Allies - Switch

Kirby, the pink hero who can't stop ingesting his enemies, is back and making his first appearance in HD on the Nintendo Switch. This isn't your standard Kirby experience, however, with collaboration being the order of the day.

You can choose to either play solo and secure the help of the game's artificial intelligence to help you along your way, or bring in up to three pals using either single Joy-Con, dual Joy-Con or Pro Controller in either handheld or docked mode. As ever, Kirby can inhale his enemies (or allies) to take on their abilities, but it's when you bring in teammates that the real magic happens. If you send an enemy a heart they become an ally, being picked up either by another player or by the AI. For starters, turning an enemy into a friend by sending them love is, frankly, a brilliant mechanic that some of the rougher games out there could stand to learn from. It also means that you can make use of a range of different abilities, combining them to solve puzzles. You might, for example, find some hanging bombs. The cutting ability will drop them to the floor but not detonate them. The fire ability will detonate them but not release them. Combining the two, however, will allow you to both release and detonate a bomb and clear yourself a path as you go.

It's the massive variety that these ability combos offer that gives Kirby: Star Allies its surprising depth. What looks like a simple platformer quickly reveals itself to be a game with smarts and variety a-plenty! more