A 2-part series blog for 2 games I bought for my DS recently, which have both of my most favorite characters of all time, Kirby and Stafy! Their newest games in their respective series were released only 2 months apart, Stafy in July, and Kirby in September. I got both at the same time, and boy, am I overjoyed :D

Part one will be on Stafy, as I played through that first and thus have got enough done to write about.

Densetsu no Stafy: Taiketsu! Dairu Kaizokudan (will henceforth be shortened to Stafy 5 for convenience) was released in July 10 in Japan, 2 years after the radically different Stafy 4 was published. This 5th game in the series is nothing like its predecessor for the DS, but more back-to-basics simple platforming of Stafy 1,2 and 3. No flashy magic spells, no area map to talk to random people and run their fetch-quests, no HP bar(Stafy originally had 5 hearts which can be replenished with collected pearls). This is Stafy au traditionale

The first thing you'll notice is Stafy 5's completely revamped graphics. Most of the sprites and backgrounds use the same engine as Stafy 4, but the highlight are the cutscenes and dialogues that play out on the bottom screen. Stafy and all his friends are now given a cutesy, plush doll look. Cutscenes are done comic-book like, and Stafy even has voice-overs. Hearing Stafy say 'Fee!' every time he tumbles and toddles his way through the story is enough to make your heart melt. The Stafy series' main selling point has always been its cute factor, even more so than Kirby, and this takes it to the next level.

The gameplay is, like I said, back to basics. This is exactly the same game as Stafy for the GBA, and still retains the quality of the DS one. All the flaws of the DS Stafy has been addressed in this game(or, flaws in my opinion). The jarring, primitive sound effects have been refined a whole lot and are much more bearable, there are 5 touch-screen minigames, some with multiplayer support(compared to none in Stafy 4, and no, that pearl-grabbing bonus game doesn't count), and the fetch quests are much less. However, the bonuses have been scaled down, seeing that the number of costumes you can get are limited, and the full-fledged shop replaced with a cumbersome 'random item purchase' feature.

Speaking of multiplayer, you don't actually get to control both Stafy and Stapy together(which sux, because that adds a lot of depth to the gameplay). Still, for less experienced players and to get optional treasures, another player can link up and play as Stapy in certain stages. Stapy's moveset is different, and she is smaller and more agile(wall jumps and crawling are out of Stafy's league), so she can get to places that bumbling yellow star can't.

I haven't finished the whole game yet, but from what I hear, it's not as short and simple as it looks. As it stands, I'm playing a fine addition to the Stafy series, and it makes me very happy indeed.