Kirby Planet Robobot is a game that vibed with a lot of people, from its bombastic mecha gameplay to its unique technological world to its surprisingly grim lore, it's become one of the most beloved Kirby games for a reason. But I'm a bit of an odd one out here. What Planet Robobot is for a lot of other Kirby fans, Triple Deluxe is to me. That is the 3DS Kirby game that I really vibed with, from its naturalistic landscapes to its melodramatic narrative to its creative 2.5D level design to its gorgeous color palette and score.
Kirby Triple Deluxe is the second of four Kirby games to follow the Return To Dream Land formula, so it keeps a lot of the huge gameplay improvements that game made in terms of Kirby's control and combat capabilities. Like with most Kirby games, its story starts off pretty simple. Kirby wakes up one day to find that all of Dream Land has been tangled up in a massive beanstalk, and that King Dedede was kidnapped was captured by a mysterious spider named Taranza, so he journeys up the Beanstalk to Floralia to rescue him. Of course, it's a Kirby game, so as usual, it's never that simple.
Kirby Triple Deluxe makes two big gameplay additions to the series. For starters, it re-introduces 2.5D elements for the first time since Kirby 64. Now each level has a background layer and you can use these special warp stars to launch yourself into the background. Triple Deluxe makes incredibly good use of this new mechanic throughout its levels, from enemies and bosses attacking you from the background, to hopping into the background to search for collectibles hidden by the foreground, to a particularly fun haunted mansion level forcing you to rely on the mirror behind you to evade traps. In general, Triple Deluxe has easily some of my favorite level design in the franchise, with each stage introduction and developing a single core mechanic before tossing it out for the next one. There are so many memorable gimmicks in Triple Deluxe, like a tank that chases you from the background, the aforementioned haunted house stages, rotating spiked pillars, giant cobra statues, springy hands that jump out at you from the background, walls with holes that you need to quickly hop into Takeshi's Castle style, the list goes on. Triple Deluxe also makes great use of the 3DS's gyroscope for some of its puzzles, like rotating a gate so you can shoot at a bunch of targets, tilting a bowl to water plants, and piloting a zipline down an obstacle course. Even more, each world now has an EX stage which mixes and mashes together the gimmicks of every level in a world for a big final challenge, it's all great stuff.
Triple Deluxe also introduces a new mechanic called the Hypernova which takes Kirby's iconic sucking ability to its absolute extreme by letting him suck up massive objects. To be fair, the Hypernova is not one of the best Kirby gimmicks out there, as many of its segments consist of several lengthy unskippable animations that can drag the game's pace down a bit. It's definitely not as speedrun friendly as games like Return To Dream Land or Planet Robobot, that's for sure. However, from a casual perspective, I think the hypernova is one of the better Modern Kirby gimmicks, especially coming off the heels of the fairly simplistic Super Abilities in Return. Each and every hypernova segment feels unique with a wide variety of fun gimmicks to interact with, puzzles to solve, and mini-bosses to fight, and the sheer amount of comedy HAL manages to wring out of this mechanic is great. From the adorable Three Little Pigs reference to being able to suck up a boss's health bar, the Hypernova animations in Triple Deluxe are ridiculously charming and rich with adorable details.
As for the combat, Triple Deluxe mostly carries over the great groundwork that Return To Dream Land laid out. At this point, Kirby's combat is an absolute blast. It's fast, ridiculously fluid, and offers a massive skill ceiling with how many possible combos each ability has. However, Triple Deluxe does make a few noteworthy improvements like the ability to dodge and one of the best new ability lineups in the series. Beetle, Archer, Bell, and Circus are all fantastic and robust copy abilities that are a blast to use, with Beetle and Archer in particular ranking among my favorites in the entire series. Triple Deluxe even brings back the Wheel ability and finally allows you to jump, meaning it's totally possible to speed through most levels with only Wheel. But where Triple Deluxe really shines is in its phenomenal boss lineup, which still ranks as my favorite in the franchise. Triple Deluxe's bosses are all fantastic, each boasting robust movesets, multiple phases, and the very cool ability to hop into the background, and on top of that, there's a great balance between inventive callbacks to old bosses (Flowery Woods, Paintra, Masked Dedede) and entirely original ones (Coily Rattler, Pyribbit, Sectonia), each equally fun. While I know Pyribbit specifically is disliked within the fandom, I've always liked fighting him. His attacks are fun to avoid and if you focus on maximizing your damage output while he's in the foreground, you'll find his fight doesn't really take that long.
I also want to highlight the side content in Triple Deluxe, which I find to be incredibly well-done. The major collectibles in this game are the Sun Stones, which are some of the most deviously hidden collectibles in Modern Kirby. Triple Deluxe uses the 2.5D elements to some really great effect when hiding these things, but they also never feel cheaply hidden. You have to go out of your way to get the Sun Stones, but it still feels fair, it's the perfect balance of difficulty. There's also a new collectible called the Keychains. There's 256 keychains to find each being based on something from Kirby's history, most of which can be collected just by playing the game, but there's also a rare keychain in each level that's hidden even more deviously than the Sun Stones. They all look super charming and cute, and even contain some entirely original spritework based on Kirby's 3D entries at the time. And as per the usual for Kirby, there's also a whole bunch of fun sidemodes. There's a solid extra campaign where you race through the game as Dedede with no hypernova segments, there's the Arenas which do a great job of really testing you on the combat mechanics, and there's two surprisingly fleshed-out subgames including a Kirby fighting game and a rhythm game starring Dedede which I feel desperately needs to be expanded into a big standalone.
For most of its runtime, Kirby Triple Deluxe is a really well-made and fun platformer with great level design, incredible boss fights, and strong combat, but where it really elevates itself is in its final act. The final world, Royal Road's first stage is one of my favorites in the series, it's a high octane action-heavy stage where you burst through the castle doors and dash your way through the antagonist's defenses, all while this incredibly epic music plays. After a few admittedly weak boss rematches, you get to the similarly incredible penultimate level where you journey through the castle's prison saving Floralia's citizens and sucking up minibosses with the Hypernova, all accompanied by one of the most haunting themes in the series. Finally, you make it to the throne room where you're confronted by Taranza and a possessed Dedede.
Just for context, Masked Dedede was a surprise final boss introduced in Kirby Super Star Ultra, one of the fastest and most chaotic fights in the series accompanied by one of the most frenetic themes. Triple Deluxe brings back Masked Dedede, gives him an axe, speeds up his attacks even more, and introduces the element of 2.5D to make for one of the greatest boss battles in the entire franchise, complete with this banger of a remix. The fight with Masked Dedede is incredible, in any other game it already would be a fantastic final boss, but this is Kirby we're talking about. We haven't even gotten started.
Once defeating Dedede, the true villain, Queen Sectonia, shows up. And it's at this point where we get clued in on Floralia's backstory. A long time ago, Taranza and Sectonia were best friends, but when Taranza stole the Dimensional Mirror (an important item in a previous game), Sectonia became corrupted by her own vainity and selfishness. Sectonia transformed into an elegant wasp and began to rule Floralia with an iron fist, trapping its citizens in her castle as she began her search for ultimate beauty, with Taranza below her. Triple Deluxe's story is fascinating because it's the one game where the main antagonist isn't trying to destroy Dream Land, Sectonia's plan is only to become beautiful, no matter how many people suffer as a result. It makes Triple Deluxe's narrative feel more uniquely personal, especially when you take into account what Taranza has been dealing with through all of this. Taranza lost his closest friend and has been repeatedly tossed aside despite his incessant attempts to bring her back, so when he turns against Sectonia and helps Dedede and Kirby out mid-way through the final boss, it feels big.
The final battle against Sectonia is incredible, starting off with a fast-paced fight against Sectonia's wasp form, before Sectonia fuses herself with the beanstalk in a slower-paced and far more beautiful second phase, culminating in Dedede jumping in to hand Kirby a hypernova fruit to finish the fight. It's a perfect, emotionally cathartic finale, heightened by three of the best final boss themes ever made.
So yeah, I guess now's a good time to bring up the presentation. Despite being on the 3DS, I still think Kirby Triple Deluxe is one of the prettiest Kirby games ever made. Triple Deluxe's entire aesthetic is based around nature, with the fairytale and beanstalk theming being integrated into every single location. One of my favorite things about Kirby has always been the dreamy feeling of its environments, but Triple Deluxe doubles down on that to create some truly stunning locals like the colorful sweet-themed areas in Lollipop Land, the atmospheric snow fields of Old Odyssey, and the several beautiful sunsets scattered throughout the game. Aiding this beautiful atmosphere is the soundtrack, which isn't just my favorite Kirby score, but it's one of my Top 3 video game soundtracks period. While there is still a fair share of typical Kirby synth, Triple Deluxe noticeably goes for a more orchestral sound with more naturalistic instruments like brass, woodwinds, and piano, which helps to further accentuate the game's naturalistic aesthetic. I already brought how incredible the music is in the final world, but even before then, you have a ton of musical high-points in tracks like Floral Fields, The Cave In The Sky, Bouncing Boss Battle, Toy Rhythm, Reflected Laughter, Cold Odyssey, Golden Legend, Mountains In An Angry Sky, and Mysterious Trap.
Kirby Triple Deluxe is a game that is far greater than the sum of its parts to me. It's such a cohesive product, everything clicks together perfectly. The 2.5D level design is so consistently incredible, and it serves to inform and improve upon the way the game treats its combat, boss fights, Hypernova segments, puzzles, and collectibles. The melancholic story, the colorful and naturalistic fairy tale aesthetic, and the beautiful orchestral soundtrack work so well together, and culminate in one of the most show-stopping final acts of any game I've ever played. Kirby Triple Deluxe is a perfect encapsulation of everything I love about Kirby as a series, a showcase of how effectively it manages to resonate with what I personally want out of a game. I don't think Triple Deluxe is a perfect game, but I vibe with it so hard that I'm always willing to overlook whatever flaws it may have.
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