While still rather short and easy, this is another great Kirby title.
The story of the game is that a planet of peaceful fairies is being overtaken by an evil force known as Dark Matter, who comes to steal the great crystal that makes the planet peaceful. The queen of the planet sends a little fairy named Ribbon to take the crystal somewhere safe. However, Dark Matter catches up and attacks Ribbon and shatters the crystal into pieces. The crystal shards and Ribbon fall down to a planet where our hero Kirby is relaxing. Kirby is told about the crystal and agrees to help Ribbon. During their quest Dark Matter tries to stop them by taking over Waddle Dee, King Dedede, and Adeline. Eventually they come along on your quest.
The game is a 2.5-D platformer where you will be doing all of Kirby's usual abilities like hovering and sucking up enemies and using them as either projectiles, or to consume them and gain their powers. This is where the gameplay truly shines. The kind of powers you get depend on the type of enemy; for example if you suck up a fire-based enemy you'll most likely either light on fire or shoot it. The same can be said for ice enemies, stone enemies, and razor enemies. It's even better that you can combine either to of the same enemy and create a more powerful weapon or you can use two different kinds and come up with something different.
This unique play style makes up for the fact that the game is easy, especially if you have the right powers, and rather short. The level design is well structured and the controls remain precise. However the game does move at a much slower pace than most other platformers. There are a few items to collect as well. There are little star bits and food that you can use or eat. Most importantly there are the crystal shards. There are a total of 74 shards to be found in the game and you'll need to find them all to get the true ending.
The game has a beautifully clean and simple style to it much like Super Mario 64 and it suits the game perfectly. The game has a very bright and colorful atmosphere much like the other Kirby games. It is certainly one of the best looking games I've seen on the Nintendo 64. The character models also look great and the cutscenes are rather well made. The game also sports some really good and upbeat music and the sound effects are well done as well.
To sum things up:
PROS:
-Lush, colorful, and smooth graphics
-Sound design is pretty good and sound effects are top notch
-Control is precise
-All sorts of creative power combinations>
-While not all that difficult, the enemies and bosses are creative
-Good level design
CONS:
-Pretty short
-Can also be pretty easy, especially when you have the right power ups
-The pacing is pretty slow
As I have said before, a lot of the Kirby games were pretty easy, and this game is no exception. However, these games still retain that sort of special charm to them that want to make you go back and play them. Kind of like Yoshi's Story. It still remains as one of the best games you could have for the N64.