Kirby Battle Royale is a brawler spin-off of the Kirby series… starring Kirby. It is more accurate to describe it as a mini-game collection though. The game also follows the trend of late 3DS games that do not support the 3D feature, being playable only in 2D. This game is like a test bed for translating the 2D Kirby gameplay into 3D since the game is played in a top-down fashion. In terms of controls, Kirby cannot suck up enemies to absorb their power. Rather, you pick one of fifteen abilities to use before the start of each mini-game. The most common abilities are here including the all-rounder sword, long range spear, bomb, ice and beetle Kirby. The base game only has thirteen abilities and these are the ones available in story mode, the remaining two abilities are provided by a free update that you need to download. The move-sets for the abilities takes inspiration from the series and are neatly translated into a simple yet effective control scheme. Kirby has two attacks, a charge attack, jump/float and grab/throw. This is all that is required to play all the mini-games. Eventually you’ll get the option to equip temporary boosts in abilities or powers activated by the touchscreen.
While the game is multiplayer-focused, there is a single-player story mode. In it, King Dedede is holding a tournament where the prize is the best and most delicious cake that there ever was. Kirby and a Waddle Dee friend attend the tournament where they learn that they must go through five leagues from Beginning to Platinum and passing the qualifying rounds each time in order to win. It’s a simple story mode that’s a shallow excuse to chain together the mini-games one after another. The general gameplay structure is that after a brief tutorial teaching you’re the controls, you select from a list of available rounds. Once you beat it, you gain points in order to accumulate enough to play the qualifying round, win that to get to the next round and then keep going. While it is not too bad at first, it gets repetitive and old really quickly. The game is designed for short bursts as each round takes around 2-5 minutes to complete. There are ten mini-games in total, and while this may sound like a decent amount, it really isn’t. There are some inventive ones but too many of them have similar objectives that don’t differentiate them enough, making the repetition worse. The story mode usually has you pit against three other AI opponents but sometimes you will partner up with another AI to battle as teams
The classic beat everyone up to win is still the most fun. There is a small twist that you need everyone down at the same time to secure the win. This will drag out the time a bit longer because even if you are KO’d, you can mash a button to revive with a smaller chunk of health and keep going. The time it takes before you revive takes longer each time you are KO’d. In another mini-game, the objective will be to collect as many apples as you can that fell from a tree. You can grab multiple apples at a time and what makes this fun is that you can also hit opponents to make them drop their apples. You can even go so far as to steal their apples. Unfortunately, this type of collection mini-game is repeated a few more times but just with different themes like the rocket launching mini-game (collect as much fuel as you can) and the ore express mini-game (collect as many ore pieces as you can to throw into the train).
There’s a coin collecting mini-game where you steal coins by hitting other opponents. This takes place in a haunted mansion and a ghost will pop up to possess your character. If you are possessed, you will periodically lose coins but can pass it onto others so it becomes a cat and mouse game. This is also similar to yet another mini-game where you collect as many coins as possible but on a circuit and instead of a ghost, you gain access to a vehicle with an attack to deal even more damage. A unique mini-game would be the one broken up into even smaller rounds. Usually you’re tasked with a small challenge like not get hit, or stand on the platform with the correct answer on it. The difficulty comes from your opponents trying to make you fail that requirement. There’s a sports oriented mini-game where you pick up and carry a ball to try and hit the flag. An ice-hockey game where you hit a puck in order to ram it against your opponents. And finally, and this is pretty epic the first time you play it, all four players team up to fight a boss. The one who does the most damage will win.
In all the mini-games, you can attack other players to impede their progress. When it is done to you, it is actually quite annoying even though it’s a legit tactic. There are one or two variations of the stage design but not enough to keep things fresh. The later stages try to spice things up by giving you handicaps or playing multiple rounds but it ends up becoming quite the boring and tedious grind in the later parts of the Story Mode. There just isn’t enough variety to keep the player interested. While most of the game is easy, the final league is a massive difficulty spike. You’re given either significant handicaps or there are tough additional clear requirements. This makes it quite frustrating and annoying to play. The qualifying round is also infuriating. Not only is the AI suddenly even harder than before, but you have to win all four rounds in a row otherwise you start from the beginning. Your own teammate’s AI lets you down. It really feels like the opponent AI is cheating and this terribly sours the already bland and disappointing experience.
Unfortunately the woes do not end there. The final boss is even worse where you’re once again given a huge amount of handicaps. If you lose, you will have to repeat the first stages again. Despite the difficulty at the end of the game, it still only takes around five hours to complete the Story Mode. However, it only takes around one to two hours before you have tried everything the game has to offer. This makes it hard to justify the high asking price, it’s probably worthwhile only at around a quarter or a fifth of that price, and even then, only if you’re a fan of Kirby. The colorful graphics are nice but you can tell that the game did not have a big budget compared to Kirby’s previous 3DS outings. The background locations are the same few places. Apart from Story Mode, you have both local and online multiplayer but it depends how much fun you glean from the same few mini-games. Overall, while Kirby Battle Royale started off okay, the severe lack of content quickly leads to repetition. The difficulty spike at the end is bad and is a horrible design choice that forces you to retry and retry. Thus, it is hard to recommend the game, even just to see what it is like because it is a bland and tedious experience that’s a waste of money.
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