Kirby: Planet Robobot Review

Kirby’s second foray onto the 3DS had about as much hype and advertisement as Triple Deluxe did. One minute it’s announced in a Nintendo Direct and oh it’s out in Japan next month. With such a rushed release you would expect this game to be nothing spectacular, and while it may just be based on the exact same engine as Triple Deluxe, Kirby Planet Robobot improves in so many ways.

The biggest change with Robobot is well, the Robobot Armour. Designed as Killer Robots to invade Popstar by the evil Haltman Corporation (seriously, HAL are too meta-mato sometimes) they just so happen to accept Kirby as a host. These are the new “gimmick” to this Kirby game, replacing the Hypernova Bean & Ultra Abilities from Triple Deluxe and Return to Dreamland respectively.


While it was always fun in Return to Dreamland to have a massive sword and cut through chunks of land and enemies, It was just “press a to do cool thing” time. Hypernova ability slightly improved on this giving you mobility while using the Hypernova, but still it wasn’t quite ideal. Being a Robot? That’s freaking fun. They finally got the balance of “baddass overpoweredness” mixed with “actually fun gameplay that isn’t a cutscene” down pat. You can smash through giant obstacles when you’re in your robo armour, copy ANY ability you see fit which (somehow) completely redesign the aesthetics of the suit, and even its functionality such as the wheel ability turning Kirby into a car or Jet plane that actually change up the gameplay to become a shoot-em-up.

As for the rest of the gameplay, if you played Triple Deluxe, you will know what to expect. You can jump between the foreground & background on Warp Stars, Some enemies will attack you from the other layer, obstacles will try and push you out of the screen. Yes, it’s hard to be super different when you’re running on the exact same engine with majority of the enemies being the same. Sun Stones are replaced with Code Cubes, and Keychains are replaced with Stickers. The whole format of the game and mini games even carry through. The main difference is the setting. I never knew I wanted a steampunk kirby game. On paper it sounds stupid, but the visuals and locations in this game is what made me smile from ear to ear.

As with most Kirby games post Superstar, there’s a tonne of Extras. Kirby 3D Rumble is for the first time a fully 3D kirby game! However, don’t get too excited, as while you have the ability to move in 3D space and inhale enemies, you can’t gather their powers, and it plays out as a puzzle game where you must chain together enemy kills. It’s a shame this is only 3 levels long and takes about 20 minutes to complete.

Team Kirby Clash is also a little lacking, with it being a glorified Boss Rush with 4 player multiplayer and slight RPG elements. The lacking part comes in again with only 5 bosses to kill, and once you level up, you can clear them out in under a minute, and it’s a requirement to get the platinum rank on these stages.

Both these mini games are fun, but they aren’t as depth as Kirby Fighters from Triple Deluxe. We can only assume these will be extended eShop titles later this year (Their icons are even 3DS Carts!) as so much work has been implemented into these modes to just throw them away with a handful of levels.

The Arena & True Arena make a return as always, and Dedede Tour is replaced with Meta Knightmare Returns, where you play a shortened version of all the levels in the game back to back. Unlike Dedede Tour which was somewhat challenging, Meta Knightmare has the ability to gain points by collecting orbs and killing enemies that powerup some special moves which includes healing & a screen kill feature that will chew through bosses.

Finally, the biggest change is amiibo. At any point in the game, you can tap on an amiibo (any of them! Yes even cards!) and get either a specific ability, or random one. We will have a video up shortly demonstrating these in full, but for the most part you can assume Link will give you Sword, and Charizard will give you fire. Some amiibo like Shovel Knight and Megaman won’t work, but most Smash, Splatoon, Animal Crossing & of course the newly released Kirby Series amiibo will work. This can be very helpful to make the game stupidly easy, as you can use up to 10 per any level, and they will even heal you. Most amiibo give you a small health up of  about 25%, Kirby smash amiibo will give you around 50%, and Kirby Series amiibo will give you a medal and a metamato fully healing you.

Review is based on the Japanese version of the game.