You’ve probably read reviews already about Kirby Mass Attack. So you know that it’s a fantastic game and an original concept where you use the stylus and touch screen to guide a mob of Kirbys through 2-D levels. So I decided to do something a little different in my review and focus on the mini-games you can unlock while playing Kirby Mass Attack, because several of them are more fleshed out than past Kirby mini-games. Plus, I just like mini-games anyway. Slight spoiler warning here, too, I guess.

I’ve always said Kirby games are great for all ages because while tromping through the main parts is easy, finding all the secrets is a lot more challenging. Kirby Mass Attack is no exception, although I will say that this is definitely one of the tougher Kirby games to start out with! Anyway, the extra challenge in Mass Attack comes from finding all the hidden medals in each stage, usually three to five per level. As you collect medals, you’ll unlock various goodies.

Some of these unlockables include a music player and a movie viewer, as well as more lame items like pages of the checklist revealed. See, Kirby Mass Attack has something like the Xbox achievements called a “Checklist.” But it doesn’t show you what you need to do to complete each achievement, which is kind of pointless. But after you collect enough medals, they’ll start revealing pages of the checklist for you. I was hoping they’d have better unlockables than that, like an enemy guide or something. I heard that the last thing you unlock with medals is a Survivor Rush Mode, which I bet is like a Boss Rush Mode. But I doubt I’ll be unlocking that anytime soon!

Luckily, the mini-games you unlock in Mass Attack are pretty easy to get, so here are the mini-games you can play in Kirby Mass Attack!

Field Frenzy

This is really just whack-a-mole with the touch screen and stylus. You’ve probably played something like it before. One of the first mini-bosses in the main game is a group of moles, so they featured them in this mini-game. You hit moles, monkeys, and Wispy Woods for points, but don’t hit the spike balls or you’ll lose points. After a certain amount a time, a robot mole or giant mole pops out and you wail on him for a few seconds, then the game tallies up your score. You can select your difficulty level, which means more holes to keep track of, and sometimes they move, too. Not one of the best mini-games on this collection, but I do like how the top screen looks like an old school coin-op game.

Kirby Brawlball

One of my all-time favorite Kirby games is Kirby Pinball Land, so I was excited to find out that this was another pinball game! Unfortunately, it’s not QUITE as good as Pinball Land, as there is only one main table with more focus on boss battles. Plus the gap between the screens is a little distracting. But for a mini-game, it’s still pretty darn good.

HAL is actually no stranger when it comes to pinball, as they’ve made other tables like the first Pokemon Pinball game, Revenge of the Gator, and some NES ones, too. So the main table in Brawlball will look familiar if you’ve played any of those other ones. Your goal on the main table is to collect stars (kind of like how you caught Pokemon in that pinball game). Once you collect enough stars, King Dedede will open his mouth. Send the ball in his mouth and he’ll take Kirby to a boss table.

The first boss you fight is Wispy Woods, which is pretty typical. The second boss is Lololo and Lalala, or just Lolo and Lala for us old folks. They probably just changed it to three syllables to go along with the Dedede/Popopo thing. You see, before HAL made Kirby games, their main mascot character was Lolo, who starred in a bunch of NES block pushing puzzle games. I LOVED the Lolo games as a kid, but I don’t have much patience for them now. But if you’re a fan of the Lolo games, you’ll love this table because it looks like a room from the NES game, and even has the “Rocky” enemy and Heart Framers you collect in the game.

I haven’t made it to the last two bosses yet, because the pinball game is actually harder than it looks. Either that or I just suck at pinball, which is probably more likely. But I cheated and peeked at what the last two bosses are on YouTube. The next to last boss is Heavy Lobster, the robot you fight on MetaKnight’s Halberd ship on Super Star. The last boss is Marx, the final enemy from Super Star. One of the cool things about the Mass Attack mini-games is they pull a lot of characters from previous Kirby games, so if you’re a fan like me, you’ll eat this stuff up.

And those are all the bosses in Brawlball. If you miss a ball while fighting a boss, you’ll go back to the main table to try again. But if you miss the ball on the main table, it’s Game Over. You only get one ball!

Kirby Curtain Call

One of the lamer games on this collection. Tap the screen to raise a curtain on a stage, and you have mere seconds to count how many Kirbys there are. Then the curtain closes and you must tell how many Kirbys you counted. If you get it right, you move on to the next stage. If you’re wrong, even once, it’s Game Over. In later stages, it’s tough because Kirbys can be hiding behind things, and there are other round pink items like peaches to mess you up! You can tap a Kirby to make them all flash to count them easier, but it really doesn’t help much.

Dash Course

This one kind of reminds me of one of the mini-games from Kirby 64. Kirby hops down a path with shapes on it, and you must tap the right shape on the bottom screen to make him hop on it. But if you tap the wrong shape, it’ll slow Kirby down. Try to hop down the path as long as you can before time runs out, and you can select three different time lengths. I guess this one could almost be considered educational since it helps kids learn and recognize shapes. Not one of my favorite mini-games here, but at least it’s better than Curtain Call.

Strato Patrol EOS

This one is great; it’s a 2-D vertically side-scrolling shooter! I love how even the cheesy title makes it sound like one of those! The game kind of reminds me of Twinbee, visually. And the driving ‘shootery’ music is pretty catchy, too. Kirby automatically shoots, but you control him with the stylus. Most of the mini-games on this collection focus on there being a group of Kirbys, to go along with the main game. You can collect power-ups to increase your shots, but if you get another Kirby, you can add one to your trail. You can have up to ten Kirbys this way. It’s kind of a double-edged sword because while having ten Kirbys increases your firepower, making it handy for clearing out screens of enemies, it also makes it easier to get hit. You lose a Kirby in your trail if you get hit. But sometimes it’s actually EASIER, especially with bosses, to not have so many Kirbys.

In the first stage you fly over a green field and the boss is Wispy Woods (of course). The next stage has you flying over water and the boss is Kracko, the spikey one-eyed cloud. Stage 3 is more orangey, kind of like dusk, and the bosses there are Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright (sun and moon). Then you fly into space and shoot asteroids in Stage 4, but at the end you see the Halberd in the background and must fight MetaKnight’s henchmen as the boss. You fly into the Halberd in Stage 5 and MetaKnight is the boss. In the final stage, you fly through a purple alternate dimension, and the last boss is Nightmare from Kirby’s Adventure. You even defeat him in the same way, as you can only shoot him when his tornado-like torso is exposed from his cloak.

Strato Patrol EOS is actually pretty easy. I beat it on my first run-through, and I suck at shooters, so it must’ve been REALLY easy! But it’s still a lot of fun, and I wish other shooters would explore some of the ideas this one brought to the table.

Kirby Quest

Hey, it’s a Kirby RPG! Well, not really, but it sure looks like one at first glance! Sorry to get your hopes up! But the top screen does look like a turn-based RPG battle. Enemies sit on one side and your group of Kirbys on the other. The enemies have hit points, and each battle is a stage. There are four chapters and ten battles per chapter. As you defeat enemies, you get more experience points and when you gain a level, you’ll add a Kirby to your group.

But that’s where the RPG similarities end. To fight enemies, you must tap on the touch screen at the right time as a meter goes up and down. It’s really a more glorified version of Megaton Punch from Kirby Super Star. If you tap the screen at the right time when the meter touches or is near the line, you’ll attack the enemy. But if you miss, the enemy attacks you! Enemies can knock out one or more of your Kirbys, and they can’t fight. To heal them, you’ll need to hit the meter at the right time. But the line on the meter changes with each battle, so you’ll need to be on your toes. In later stages, the meter goes faster, too.

Kirby Quest is actually pretty easy, too, as I managed to clear all four chapters on my first try. But it’s still pretty fun. The boss of the first chapter is King Dedede, and the second chapter boss is Dedede in a giant robot. In the third chapter, you fight MetaKnight. And in the last chapter, the boss is Dark Matter. But it’s the version of Dark Matter that you fight in Kirby’s Dream Land 2, so first he’s a ninja with a big sword before turning into the freaky one-eyed black ball! Like I said, lots of Kirby fandom in these mini-games!

Conclusions

And that’s all the mini-games in Kirby Mass Attack! Playing these made me think of other kinds of games Kirby can be in next. I think it would be cool if they really did make a REAL Kirby RPG. It would be kind of like the Mario RPG games, and I think it would work pretty well. Kirby could use his copy ability in battle, maybe like how Gogo and the Mimic skill is used in Final Fantasy games. Or he could just equip the skills. And there are plenty of other supporting characters that would be great additions to your party. MetaKnight would be a natural for an RPG, and King Dedede would be a fun antihero, too. They could even bring in minor characters to be in your party, like Adeline the painter from Kirby 64. I also think that a sequel to Kirby Pinball Land would be great, too. What kind of game genres do you think Kirby should take a stab at next? Let me know in the comments section.

Tags: Game Reviews