Kirby's Rainbow Resort

and it stops here

This topic's been ARGUE WITH BANDANNA DEE FOR BEING COMPLETELY INACCURATE ABOUT THINGS THREAD since page 2 (possibly 1). I myself am guilty for contributing to it, but this has gone far enough, and it's kind of a rotten horse.


I will lock it if anyone posts over this further in this topic (if you'd like to move the discussion to a new topic, go right ahead)

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Kirby: Cosmic Chaos

Actually if you look at KRTD on Wikipedia on of the gaming websites gave it a perfect score. only ign gave it a low score.

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I've got the magic in me.

I don't agree with IGN on their views normally, but 7.5 was pretty warranted for Return to Dreamland, for different reasons than were mentioned. In fact, I'd give it a 7.0 or lower, because clearly this game needed some refining based on its difficulty level and other flaws in its overall design. This is something that's been on my mind for a little while so I think I'll get it off of my chest. Feel free to refute against me on any of these points.



First off, to call KRtDL easy would be offensive to games that are easy. It's as if Kirby's Epic Yarn was given a health and life system and the developers said "Oh, it's harder now." This game is a cakewalk even at a casual level. And there's several things that contribute to this lack of difficulty, so wasn't some sort of error on HAL's part. This was a deliberate flaw that tarnishes what could have otherwise been a great game.

A couple things that fuel this difficulty is that Kirby can take a ton of hits and has a ridiculously overpowered guard function which blocks nearly everything completely in normal levels. The former is forgivable, but the latter is not. If HAL retooled it to account for the fact that Kirby isn't actually a fighting game it could have worked, but apparently they thought it was balanced in Super Star, so whatever.

Even if that were fixed though, the enemies are watered down immensely, not only doing little damage but having craptastic range and the reaction time of a sloth. Blade Knight would !@#$% you up with his lunge and gigantic range in Kirby's Adventure, but here he's just stupid as hell. I tried bumping into Freezie while he was doing his shield thing, and its radius is nonexistent. Knuckle Joe and the Ninjas aren't even a threat either. They are there to be swallowed or blown past, and nothing more.

The only enemies that are actually treated like real obstacles are the minibosses themselves. Even so, I don't think they scale that well in difficulty in the later levels, even with the dynamic health I hear they have depending on the players and levels; I'll give them credit for appearing two at a time sometimes, but this doesn't happen that often. The bosses likewise are pretty standard, but when it starts getting more difficult it becomes all the more apparent how easy the rest of the game is. A couple bosses like Landia are a complete joke, but I won't get into that now.

Some of the sphere puzzles are creative, but they're really not hard to find at all; they are almost always on the path you're treading and can be easily grabbed because HAL hands you abilities on a silver platter with the trophies that are so conveniently placed wherever you might need it. The alternate dimension sections were a great idea, but yet again HAL insists on faking the difficulty by slowing down and speeding up the wall that closes in on you based on how fast or slow you're moving. If it's supposed to be challenging, HAL, don't add elements to the level that are supposed to make it LESS CHALLENGING.



The super abilities are just stupid and have no reason to be in the game. They could have been interesting if they were done right, but once again the game just hands you them on a whim and forces you to do some arbitrary basic maneuvers to destroy things that are obstructing you from reaching your goal. They're not off to the side or part of a larger puzzle. Oftentimes what you're supposed to destroy isn't even hard to get past as regular Kirby, just tedious. The only super abilities that remotely require some sort of neat interactivity would be Snow Bowl and the Super Beam. The other three are just infinite variations of Crash, and hell -- Snow Bowl is just Wheel with a new coat of paint.

Actually, you know what the difference between Snow Bowl and Wheel is? Wheel complies with Kirby's basic game design. Abilities are supposed to be options, not requirements. Rarely do other Kirby games ever force you to choose a certain ability for some level segments, and when they do it's only for a moment. What's so good about abilities is that you don't have to use something that's recommended for the segment, but when you use something like wheel and start steamrolling enemies because it was the right choice for that stage, it feels fun and rewarding, because it was your choice to use an ability that let you do something which normal Kirby just wouldn't have been able to accomplish easily. This is also the greatest strength of the combo ability games, because ability mixing allows for far more strategic depth in how you can use your abilities.

Super Abilities throw that out the window. They're out in the open, their usage is uncreative (except for the very last level and possibly the two bosses they appear in), they take absolutely no skill or real strategy to use, and they're mandatory. These are without a doubt the worst sections in the game and have absolutely no reason to exist except to extend playtime.



Given how easy the game was, I was looking forward to the Extra Mode and cleared the game as soon as possible just so I can try it out.

Almost nothing was changed. Sure, the mode has -40% health going for it, and that helps some, but for one, the health items don't give half health like they do in other games' extra modes, and second, by the time you've got to this part of the game you're pretty hardened to the few things the game will throw at you. The other additions? Some enemies are resized, and the bosses are revamped. The latter? Cool, I already knew about that part from previews. The former? POINTLESSSSSSSSSS

If your enemies are stupid, slow, and weak before you give them a little more hp, they're going to be stupid, slow, weak, and take half a second longer to beat once you give them more health. Some enemies are smaller and weaker in extra mode, the main reason for which I have yet to figure out.

The boss and miniboss hardening was pretty cool on the other hand and gave for a more satisfying boss rush experience. The difficulty spike is huge compared to the normal levels though and it just comes to show how poorly fleshed out this game's difficult levels are. It even begs the question: if the bosses could clearly be made legitimately harder to satisfy experienced gamers, why wouldn't the same be done for the regular enemies? Did the staff just think that resizing the enemies would make them harder? Did they run out of time? Well, obviously not the latter, because HAL's been spending the last decade MAKING AND CANNING SEVEN BILLION KIRBY PROJECTS.

It's an absolute shame. The one thing you'd think they'd get right in terms of difficulty and now it's just one more boring playthrough. The worst part is that you NEED to get all of the gears in extra mode to unlock True Arena. AGAIN?! THEY'RE THE SAME DAMN THING STOP WASTING MY TIME



And then True Arena was pretty cool. Doesn't help that they added Tornado; it's been overpowered and brainless in every boss rush it's appeared in, and now it's even worse due to the charge mechanic. At least that's a minor issue though, since I can just use cutter the whole way through, which is a much more gratifying experience.

The other thing that bothered me is that I couldn't play as the other characters as P1. Why advertise them on the boxart and back if I can't play them when I'm on my own? They could have at least been unlockable in the main quest, so HAL's decision on outright preventing the player from being them doesn't make sense. Oh wait -- if the player was Metaknight, Waddledee, or Dedede, then he/she would have had a tedious time getting through the arbitrary super ability sections. My bad.

At the very least the ability challenges were a great idea. I was too turned off by the rest of the game to devote time into getting platinums though.



So, I don't see why people are constantly saying that Return is the best Kirby game ever. IGN really is kind of right this time around, even if they didn't elaborate on these points very well. It really is disappointing, because KRtDL had the potential to be a really great game. All the elements were there: the abilities, the characters, the atmosphere and graphics (and might I add the very delightful and expansive soundtrack). But what HAL doesn't seem to understand here isn't that Kirby is "easy, period". It's easy to get into and doesn't take too much commitment to see the game's ending, yet it has a lot of depth and offers additional challenge for those who want to get the most out of their game. Everything's astray in this game; the game is extremely long, average players don't know about the moves in this game that make it ridiculously easy, and the players that do know how to beat everything easily would rather not go through the process twice.

Whatever happened here could easily be fixed with the right mindset. In fact, this is what I would have done:

- Character selection. Every character is available to any player from the start; in fact, let's make it so multiple people can be the same character.
- Multiplayer. No one player is predominant - adjust the screen dynamically so that everyone stays visible. Also, the game doesn't reset if player 1 dies, and players 2-4 can't abuse the lives system to get health back, or pop in when the player has no lives. Maybe. It's not a big problem, but it could help balance out the gameplay for everybody. Also adds some element of risk to the harder segments.
- Guard. Only blocks against 1/4 damage, but activates the player's temporary invincibility state. Solves some gameplay balance problems while keeping the guard strategically valuable.
- Super Abilities. Revamp the super ability sections entirely to be more creative and challenging/puzzling. Set the stupid invincible obstacles to an alternate path so non-Kirbies aren't obstructed by. Reward the player with a super ability for completing an objective that's off to the side of the map or something.
- Extra Mode. Remove it entirely.
- Health. Reduce max hp slightly to make punishment for getting hit a little more reasonable.
- Enemies. Enemies can actually defend themselves with a move that isn't worthless or hideously slow. Scale the size and difficulty based on the enemy or level.
- Alternate Dimension. The wall move speed is static; the set speed varies depending on the level. Allow non-Kirby characters' charge moves to bust stone blocks.
- Bosses/Minibosses. Scale the minibosses in difficulty for later levels by introducing the "ex" versions in certain rooms. Balance out the bosses by mixing attack sets from both normal and extra mode; introduce the "alternate costumes" as part of each boss's pinch phase. For some bosses like Landia, just rip the move set right out of Ex so that he gets the difficulty he needs.

That'd fix most of the problems. HAL could really easily do this themselves if they really cared, it wouldn't be that hard. The problem is the lack of a proper mindset for how Kirby games are supposed to satisfy a player. HAL is obviously trying to bring in both the new and the old playerbases, but their regard for difficulty and balance is completely the wrong way to do it.

I agree with you for the most part, but I tend to cut HAL slack for the game's errors. This is the fourth Kirby home console game they've worked on in eleven years; it's not that hard to imagine they were feeling tense and exhausted and just wanted to finish something.



I don't know how you can say that about HAL with a straight face considering they're the ones who made the series that way. Not only that, but RtDL's director was also responsible for Kirby Super Star Ultra, which I, at least, consider to be the hardest Kirby game of all. As I said above, it's likely there was some exhaustion/impatience factoring in to game's production.



These enemies tend to show up in levels that require precision platforming, so there's some logic behind making the enemies, which double as "platforms", smaller.



1) Everything the player needs to know about an ability is accessible on the pause screen, so it's not that hard for them to find out.

2) It's presumptuous of you to say that experienced players "would rather not go through the process twice". Read the RtDL thread: there's plenty of experienced players saying they've beaten the game repeatedly, meaning they've played it more than once.

I agree that the game's difficulty is a disappointment, and you raise good points about the super ability, but I think you're tipping too far towards the other extreme end of this debate--"There's no possible way RtDL can be bad" vs "RtDL is bad and they should feel bad for making it!" It's extremely flawed, but lots of Kirby fans, including myself, have enjoyed it immensely despite of those flaws.

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hallabsound @ tumblr

I think they DID run out of time with RtDL particularly because they spent so much time canning other projects. Kumazaki noted he wanted the staff to actually get something finished when he took the reigns.

The multiplayer wasn't added until they were pretty far into the game's development. It was originally designed to be a 1-player game. Game's still definitely a lot more fun with someone else though.

I agree with the difficulty and Super Abilities being incredibly whatever, and I won't ever call it the best game in the franchise. I've gone back to wanting the GCN game from 7 years ago lately.

Kirby's kind of been on a roll when it comes to having neat ideas with mediocre execution. Squeak Squad's still the king of that though.

On another note I'm impressed with the amount of you've wrote, but you probably could rant without sounding so angry. It makes it less pleasant to read and more intimidating to reply.

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Kirby: Cosmic Chaos

>I still want it
>Yeah unfortunately. And AHAHAHAHA, so true.


>"They had so much time to do it and it turned out bad."

Ahem. Duke nukem. That is all.

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It seems like everyone wants one of the canceled games to become a Thing. I know I'm pining for the third one. It'd be awesome on the 3DS come oooooooonnnnn

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hallabsound @ tumblr

If they could manage to make the colored-pencil look from KDL3 (which is entirely possible with some shaders), I'd be all for the second one, especially if it's on 3DS. May as well make the gameplay Shimomura styled too.

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Kirby: Cosmic Chaos

Man, has it been that long? Yeah, I guess Squeak Squad doesn't count either....



Well, I should rephrase that: the success of Kirby comes from its difficulty curve. It starts out accessible to everyone and leaves the challenging stuff for the more determined players. That's what kept me on their boat, at least. To me it feels like they kinda lost their stride on this motive. Which is understandable, but still disappointing.



KSSU isn't hard. Outside of Metaknight's battle and the boss rushes, I've done the whole thing just by using Kirby's vanilla moveset, wasn't that tough.

Sure, the game isn't easy, but you've got blocks, hammer, jet, and spark; that's gotta count for something. :p

I want to say DL2 is the hardest. Shorter in comparison, but those puzzles, man. I was busting my nuts on the 5th and 6th rainbow pieces for hours trying to figure out how to reach them. (7th was stupid, so I just gamefaqs'd it lol)



Well, yeah, I understand it for those sections. But then there's other sections, where it's just like.... why?



1) Guard isn't, IIRC... I could be wrong, but it should honestly have its own sign post. Casual players are never going to think to use it, but it's a very powerful mechanic; it kind of feels like it was just ported in without much thought for how it affected the overall game.

What I mean by that statement really is that nobody is going to think that down+attack with parasol/hammer rips everything it touches to ribbons, or even that tornado is the easiest strategy for boss fights. Those players that do know about a move's dominance are going to have such an easy time. That's also why I think game balance is especially important, even for a single player game.

2) I generalized near the end, sorry about that. But yeah, I was pretty bored in the Extra run up until I discovered mecha world's special boss.... and even afterwards I had to collect all the pieces again to unlock True Arena, which made me pretty nauseous. They really should have just made "Ex" a difficulty option from the start.


To clarify, I don't think KRtDL is a bad game. I feel that it's misguided and has a lot of missed potential to be a great game. I also made the effort to enjoy this as much as I could (as much as trying out cheat codes as "play as other characters" or "two hits and I die"); I just find it unfortunate that with all the great depth provided in KRtDL's abilities and varied gameplay, it simply isn't pushed anywhere near its limits to create the immersive gameplay experience other Kirby games were able to accomplish.

the hardest game by far is dream land's extra mode, which i still haven't beaten. dream land 2 is a close second and some parts took me forever. i should play dream land 2 again, it was a fun game with a good soundtrack.

you bring up an excellent point about ability trophies. i groan every time i see one in any game. kirby's thing is inhaling enemies for powers, i don't want to have abilities handed to me like that! at least give me trapped enemies or something. adventure's museums were alright because they were in the map, you had to unlock them, you couldn't get all of them, etc. the arenas were better because you at least had to fight a boss. and abilities were much easier to lose in adventure, too. but the only time i have genuinely enjoyed ability trophies was that one chest in great cave offensive that forced you to navigate through sleep trophies to get. that was just such a brilliant trolling.

snow bowl was fun, and flare beam and grand hammer's puzzles were alright even if they could have been taken further, but monster flame and ultra sword were just really lackluster.

ability rooms were a great idea, even if i do suck at them :S

i really wanted to play as meta knight (and dedede before i learned how much i disliked this version of hammer) in the main game, that was a disappointment :C

if they had made ex mode more like dream land's, with REALLY HARD ENEMIES, it would have been awesome. but they were probably getting tired at that point, yes.

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KD1's extra mode was sooo hard. Hardest Wispy Woods to date. Never got so frustrated in my entire life.

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Check these out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtnYGvhN ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w_jQK1y ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgdrVNEu ... ure=relmfu

I've got the magic in me.

Yeah I haven't played that yet:

1) Because I didn't remember how to access Hard Mode after I beat KDL on my 3DS
2) Because KDL2 is available on the 3DS Virtual Console..........in Japan.

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hallabsound @ tumblr

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever played KDL's extra mode. I've played KDL itself, but I stopped after the final boss due to the lack of time and never thought to go back to it. I'll have to revisit that game. And yeah, I only played KDL2 just recently. It's a fun game with only a few minor blemishes I can think of offhand. I'd definitely replay it.

Oh hey let's actually try to respond to Blue Warrior's lengthy response to my comment!


Eh, well, that's just home consoles. Obviously they've been doing OK on the handheld front with Mass Attack being released last year as well, with no sign of having as turbulent a production history as RtDL.


Definitely agree, here. They talked about that difficulty curve in the Iwata Asks interview, so it's not like they forgot; it's just that they probably didn't have the time or the energy to think of how to make the levels themselves harder. Or they didn't suggest it at all, seeing as how the producers waited until later to suggest multiplayer mode, so they didn't overwhelm the production team.





wweh I'm bitter about Galacta Knight. And the fact that DL2 is only available on the Japanese 3DS console...


lol yeah, I didn't get that, either. Or just, the resizes in general.



I think it might have been in the pause menu thing for regular Kirby? Or at least in the booklet. idk I'm not in my ~game room~ so I can't check (read: too lazy to check).

As for the second paragraph: I don't see that as being a problem where it concerns new players. Exploration and discovery of copy abilities and what they can do is part of the fun of playing Kirby, right? And it's not like they'll *need* that information, especially if they manage to master one of the movesets that doesn't have a horribly broken attack.

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hallabsound @ tumblr

I think the problems with the level design were less the fault of laziness or a seven year game being somehow rushed and more the fault of inexperience. Believe it or not, it's damn hard to make a good level design that's creative, balanced and curves well. The only levels Kumazaki's team had to design for KSSU were for after you've beaten the rest of the game, so they didn't have to worry too much about balance; just aim for the higher end of difficult and you're good to go. RtDL, on the other hand, is a full game, where figuring out a curve and sticking to it is a lot tougher, especially since different types of gamers might have more difficulty with different aspects of games. For example, I feel like the boss difficulties were all pretty much on the nose (some of them possibly too hard in two player), which makes sense since that would be a lot easier to curve than seven worlds' worth of levels.

As for the need for Kirby to be balanced, I find that mindset occurs a lot more often in people who use the cheaper abilities because it's easier to win. If I'm playing a fighting game then sure, balance is great. It keeps the guys I'm playing against from having too much of an advantage over me if we're at the same skill level. If I'm playing a game that is only co-op or single player, with no vs. involved, I really could not care less about balance. I don't run around Superstar with plasma just because it's easier to win with; I use cutter because I have a lot of fun with that ability! In RtDL, I most often use Stone, Ninja, Cutter and Dedede. Because those are the abilities I have the most fun with. None of them are really amazing, and some of them are better than others, but I really don't care because I'm having fun. I'm not about to run into a room and get stuck fighting someone with spark or hammer, so I don't really care if those abilities are better than mine.

With abilities, I care more about a balance in uniqueness. I want abilities to play radically different from each other, and that's where I think RtDL fell short. A lot of the abilities feel really similar to each other, and some of them, like Leaf, are just patched together moves from preexisting abilities - like they weren't even trying.

Also guard should not have been mapped to A what a terrible idea.

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But weren't they also responsible for Canvas Curse? That game had its share of rage-inducing levels.


Same. Advising players to only use certain abilities/skills is pretty bad advice for a Kirby game, too. Hammer Flip might be incredibly powerful, but what if the player's timing is awful? Plasma/Spark might be the definition of broken, but what if the player can't play and charge at the same time, because doing so breaks their focus? And you can't tell them to suck it up, bear it, and practice, because why should they? It's a game. It's a Kirby game. They provide so many abilities with so many different move sets so all players can find an ability they enjoy playing, master, and beat the game with. You don't need the strongest moves to beat the game or clear either Arena. Yo just need the abilities that help you win.


Hmm, dunno about this one. There certainly were a lot of abilities that had many attributes in common, like the ability to cut ropes, but I feel there were a good number of abilities that were varied enough to make them fun on their own merit. For example, Water's dash might be similar to Fire's dash, its down + up attack might be similar to Ninja's (...reverseways), and it isn't the only ability that keeps you afloat during an areal attack--but you're doing so while riding a giant tidal wave of invincibility, killing things with rainbows, and keeping yourself afloat while essentially water gunning everything below you. It might not be unique, but it is cool as heck!

I did have a similar thought, though, just not concerning the move sets: there was not a lot of color variety in the copy ability pedestals/stars. Too many of them hanging out with Roy and not enough keeping G. Biv company.

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hallabsound @ tumblr

This might be a little off topic but for them to release the cancelled kirby game, they need to atleast have a NAME FOR IT.

Basically, I think the reason it was canceled/never finished is because they didn't know what the game was going to be and they just threw it out there without even a concept.

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Credit to marx hat.

Plot wise, meh, but it's a Kirby game! And we saw all that footage of helpers... It was kind of like Super Star, but in 3D and all new levels and 4 possible helpers with the "riding" feature.

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I was expecting the plot would get more interesting once you beat Dedede or something, though I guess we'll never find out. Kirby beats up Dedede on a regular basis, so it'd make a good starting point for something more interesting to happen. Although Squeak Squad didn't exactly do the best job with that...

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Kirby: Cosmic Chaos

Here's how the board meeting went:

"Well, we've got this game we've been working on for two years now. It has a plot*, at least seven worlds**, at least sixteen abilities***, a fully realized and implemented gimmick****, and has already been shown off at E3. But gee willikers, we just can't think of a name for it! What do we do?"

"Sir? What if we completely trash that game and make a brand new one, with a new plot, seven worlds, twenty-three abiliites and a completely different gimmick. And let's name it Hoshi no Kaabii Wii*****."

"Brilliant!"

*King Dedede steals the warpstar from Kirby and Kirby works to get it back. Was officially announced as the plot of the game at E3 2005.
**Grassy world, Beach/Ocean world, Ice world, City world, Haunted House world, Red Canyon/Desert world, Machine and Gadget world
***Sword, Fire, Water, Ice, Cutter, Beam, Clean, Bomb, Hammer, Wheel, Wing, Stone, Spark/Plasma, Tornado, Parasol, Fighter
****Helper stacking, where different abilities/helpers allow for different movement and playstyle.
*****This is the Japanese name for KRtDL. It translates to basically Kirby of the Stars Wii, or just Kirby Wii. In every region except for North America, the game is called Kirby's Adventure Wii. This title is not exactly creative enough that they would have lost sleep coming up with it.

Yeah, no, they obviously had a plot and a full concept and the name was not even sort of an issue.

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