Kirby: Triple Deluxe

Plot

One night while Kirby is sleeping, a giant beanstalk called the Dreamstalk begins growing under Dream Land and carries various landmarks, including Kirby's house and King Dedede's castle, into the sky. When Kirby wakes up the next morning, he finds himself in a new land called Floralia, located high in the skies above Dream Land. Kirby makes his way to Dedede's Castle and finds that the culprit behind the Dreamstalk is a six-armed, spider/tarantula-like being named Taranza, who has captured Dedede and trapped him in a prism made of light. Kirby ascends the Dreamstalk and gives chase after Taranza to rescue Dedede and set things right in Dream Land once more.

When Kirby finally reaches Taranza, the arachnid-like being attacks Kirby using a brainwashed King Dedede. After an intense fight, Kirby is able to knock out King Dedede and frees him of his brainwashing. Then Taranza reveals that he has been working for Floralia's Queen, the bee/wasp-being Queen Sectonia, and that the Floralians planted the Dreamstalk in the hopes of summoning Dream Land's hero to their aid. Mistakenly believing King Dedede to be that hero, Taranza kidnapped him on the orders of Queen Sectonia, who wants to use the Dreamstalk to take over Dream Land piece by piece. Queen Sectonia betrays Taranza for his failure, tossing him from the tower before turning her sights on Kirby.

Kirby faces Queen Sectonia and wins against her. Kirby and Dedede celebrate, but Sectonia combines herself with the Dreamstalk and turns into a giant flower-like monster. She begins to spread vines all over planet Popstar, ripping out pieces of land for her kingdom and acting as a shield to prevent anyone from getting close enough to attack her. Kirby manages to get through the vines and confront Queen Sectonia once more.

Kirby eventually defeats Queen Sectonia and her flower-like minions, but Sectonia grabs Kirby with her vines and tries to crush him. Just then, King Dedede manages to break through the now weakened vines, and Taranza, who has now sided with Kirby, throws a Miracle Fruit to Kirby, turning him into Hypernova Kirby. Kirby confronts Queen Sectonia one final time, blasting her beams right back at Sectonia, vaporizing her. After Kirby's victory, the vines disappear and Popstar is restored to normal with all of the stolen pieces of land returned to their rightful spots. Kirby, Taranza, King Dedede and the People of the Sky whom Kirby had rescued prior to confronting Taranza and Sectonia, admire the beautiful flower that has appeared while flower petals fall from the sky.

Optional scene

At the end of The True Arena (a boss rush that is unlocked by beating the game), a cinematic plays that shows Queen Sectonia using the Miracle Fruits to revive herself. Kirby then fights Soul of Sectonia, a harder version of Queen Sectonia with brand new attacks. Defeating her first form makes her rip herself out of the Dreamstalk for the final (bonus) boss of the game. She gains power and is able to do many new attacks, some of which are references to previous Kirby final bosses such as Marx and Drawcia. Upon her final defeat, Queen Sectonia explodes in a flurry of blue petals, as a single large, sparkling blue petal is seen drifting down the screen.

Gameplay

Kirby: Triple Deluxe is a platformer displayed in a 2.5D perspective. Some enemy attacks also emanate from the background. Kirby can eat a rainbow colored-seed called a Miracle Fruit to become Hypernova Kirby; this new power-up strengthens his inhale ability allowing him to inhale extremely large objects such as trains and trees and is used for a number of puzzles in the game.

New copy abilities include Beetle, which allows Kirby to use a Japanese rhinoceros beetle's horn to impale enemies and slam them on the ground or pick them up and carry them around; Bell, which lets Kirby wield twin bells like clubs, use them as a shield, and attack with sound waves; Archer, which lets Kirby fire arrows in any direction and pull out fake trees and boulders to become stealthy and avoid enemy attacks; and Circus, which allows Kirby to ride on a giant rolling ball to bowl over enemies, juggle flaming bowling pins to attack enemies above him and use exploding balloon animals as a weapon. At least 20 copy abilities from previous games return, including Wheel, which was absent from Kirby's Return to Dream Land.

Two new subgames are Kirby Fighters, a Super Smash Bros. style fighting game where the player can customize their own Kirby and give him one of ten copy abilities to battle other Kirbies in stages based on levels from previous Kirby games; and Dedede's Drum Dash, a rhythm game starring King Dedede, who jumps on drums while avoiding enemies and collecting coins to the tune of classic Kirby songs. The main game is single player only.

Players can also find and collect keychains which depict characters from previous Kirby games in the same fashion as trophies from the Super Smash Bros. series.

After the main story mode is completed, players unlock an extra mode called Dededetour, featuring King Dedede as the playable character. In this mode, all of the bosses are replaced by their "DX" counterparts, who sport different color schemes, are more powerful and have new attacks. At the end of this mode, Dedede fights two new bosses not found in Kirby's story; Shadow Dedede and Dark Meta Knight, who are King Dedede's and Meta Knight's respective evil clones from the Mirror World.

Development

The game was announced on October 1, 2013 during a Nintendo Direct presentation. Despite this the title of the game wasn't actually revealed until over a month later, when the title was mentioned in a recap email sent by Nintendo after that November's direct.

Enhanced versions of the two minigames featured in the main game, titled Kirby Fighters Z and Dedede's Drum Rush Z, were released as standalone titles downloadable from the Nintendo eShop on July 23, 2014 in Japan and August 29, 2014 in North America as Kirby Fighters Deluxe and Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe and it was also available in Europe on February 13, 2015. These versions feature new stages and gameplay features, with additional content unlocked if save data from Kirby: Triple Deluxe is detected.

Reception

Kirby: Triple Deluxe has received positive reviews from critics. The game has an average of 80 on Metacritic based on 68 reviews and an 80.62% on GameRankings. GameSpot awarded the game an 8 out 10, praising the level design, graphics, soundtrack, use of 3D, controls, and lasting appeal. Polygon gave it a 7.5 out of 10, praising its innovative level design but criticizing the overall aesthetics as "simple" and "drab" in comparison to earlier games. GameXplain gave the game their "Loved It" score. Much of their praise was directed toward the soft, expressive art design, soundtrack, collectables, use of the Hypernova power, and level design. Hardcore Gamer gave the game a 4 out of 5 calling it a "one of the best handheld iterations in the beloved Nintendo franchise."

However, IGN's Jose Otero gave it a 6 out of 10, praising its boss battles and use of the 3D, but strongly criticizing its low difficulty. He stated, "Kirby Triple Deluxe may look great and has some clever ideas for how to use 3D, but falls into a rut of simple platforming and puzzles that rarely require any thought or skill. I admire that it tries to give us more powers and abilities to play with than ever before, but that empowerment shouldn’t come at the expense of any real difficulty."

As of March 2015, the game has sold 1.78 million units worldwide.