When Kirby: Planet Robobot launched in 2016, one of the sub-games included was a neat little RPG-lite take on a boss rush mode called Team Kirby Clash. A year later, HAL opted to expand on the concept further in a free-to-play release on the 3DS eShop called Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, which added in several more bosses, weapon sets, and underlying mechanics to the experience. Unfortunately, this latter release largely flew under the radar, as the Switch had launched only a month earlier and the entirety of Nintendo fandom was far too busy fawning over The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to care about yet another random Kirby spin-off on yesterday’s hardware.
Not ones to let a good game go to waste, HAL opted to bring Team Kirby Clash Deluxe into its Kirby Star Allies engine, replaced all the assets with HD equivalents, and added in a hefty dose of new bosses and equipment sets on top of it, releasing it to the world again on the Switch as (drum roll, please) Super Kirby Clash. By the director’s own admission, this is the ‘complete’ version of the game he envisioned, so the question remains: how does it measure up to the Kirby series’ lofty standards?
Super Kirby Clash takes place in a parallel universe to the mainline Kirby series in a place called the Dream Kingdom, where a travelling Kirby forms a team of… well, other Kirbies to fight off the raging tide of savage beasts that threaten the peace of the kingdom’s virtuous citizens. Though it technically does fit into the Kirby series’ surprisingly dark and detailed lore, the story for a multiplayer beat ‘em up such as this obviously is being used as little more than a framing device for the countless battles to come.
At its heart, Super Kirby Clash is essentially a Kirbyfied take on the tried-and-tested formula of the Monster Hunter series. You’ve got a small hub village where you can purchase new equipment pieces and, when you’re all geared up, you can head over to the job board and choose to take on various boss monsters one at a time in gradually more difficult battles. After every fight – win or lose – you’ll be granted XP which raises your character level and bolsters your stats, while occasionally unlocking access to higher rank gear once you pass certain milestones.
One would think that applying such mechanics to the relatively simple setup of the mainline Kirby series combat would seem contrived or awkward, but it’s surprising how well it works in practice. There are four different character classes you can play as, and while there aren’t any advanced mechanics like skill trees to speak of, each one nonetheless has a unique role that fills a different niche.
The Beam Mage class, for instance, is the de facto ranged unit and his main contribution to a fight is the ability to completely disable the boss for a brief period of time using a charged beam attack. The Hammer Lord, on the other hand, is a far slower, melee-focused character, but what he lacks in mobility he makes up for in the incredible damage output of his Hammer Flip swing.
Every fight will always have four Kirbies – AI takes over if you haven’t got anyone else to play with – and your success will be largely dependent upon how well you plan out your teams and equipment setups. If you’re going up against a highly mobile boss, for example, it might be a good idea to replace your Sword Hero with another Time Mage so you can have more of those time-stop windows to work with. Decisions like that matter, yet at the same time, HAL has smartly kept the RPG mechanics nice and simple. We never find ourselves bogged down with tons of choices at the outset of another fight – this is a Kirby game, after all – but we were pleasantly surprised by the flexibility offered by these RPG-lite systems. There’s just enough free choice and player progression offered up to give you the feel of an RPG, without going too far into those depths that Super Kirby Clash stops feeling like a Kirby game first and foremost.
In typical series fashion, the early to mid-game is mostly easy and painless, but the difficulty ramps up considerably as you push ever deeper into the substantial endgame on offer. By the time you’ve started getting into more of the new content for this HD re-release, learning the various move-sets and hit-boxes for the bosses becomes an absolute must, as only a few hits will knock your character out and cost your team some precious seconds to revive you.
Super Kirby Clash pulls from all across the long history of the Kirby series, with plenty of old nemeses returning to take a crack at the super tuff pink puff. It goes without saying that longtime fans will get a lot more out of this boss variety in the long run, but even newcomers will no doubt appreciate the diversity of the rogue's gallery here. Aside from the palette swap variations, no two bosses play the same, which keeps the experience feeling fresh and interesting as you grind ever deeper. There’s a certain rush to each new boss you unlock, to the struggle of learning their move-sets and finding the gaps in them, that keeps Super Kirby Clash engaging throughout and keeps you coming back.
A big part of this loop, too, is the overarching achievement system, called “Heroic Missions”, which pushes you to play in challenging and sometimes unconventional ways. There are 900 of these missions to complete, and they can range from being as simple as buying a single piece of gear at the shop to as difficult as beating a boss encounter in under twenty seconds. There’s more to these than just bragging rights, however, as the rank of gear you have access to is directly tied to how many missions you’ve completed; you have no hope of touching those higher-level bosses if you haven’t put in the work and filled out a lot of the missions on the lower level foes so you can get those better weapons.
What’s nice about this system is how it keeps you rotating through all the roles and trying different playstyles, squeezing extra replayability out of the already lengthy boss roster as you’re encouraged time and again to go above and beyond the minimum. It’s an extra incentive to do better and push your limits, but most importantly, these missions also serve as your main income for Gem Apples.
See, Super Kirby Clash is completely free to play, but just about everything in-game is dictated by a currency called Gem Apples. Gem Apples unlock new bosses. Gem Apples buy you new equipment sets. Gem Apples can revive you if your team wipes. Virtually every facet of Super Kirby Clash is tied to this currency, and this is where the main squeeze of the free to play mechanics is felt.
A small tree in the town will give you a measly payout of Gem Apples every twelve hours, so you’re otherwise left with the options of either grinding out Heroic Missions or opening your wallet and shelling out some cash for them on the eShop. In typical mobile game fashion, you’re all but drowned in Gem Apples at the start as you knock out Heroic Missions left and right, but that torrent quickly slims down to a drizzle as the requirements for Heroic Missions are raised ever higher. Bear in mind, too, that every attempt at a quest – win or lose – will cost you some “Vigor”, which recharges over real-world time.
It would be easy to decry all these mechanics as greedy cash-grab moves from Nintendo, but Super Kirby Clash proves to be remarkably generous, all things considered. For one thing, the microtransactions have a hard cap of forty bucks. If you pay up to this cap, the free to play elements are essentially removed. Even if you don’t hit the cap, the Gem Apple tree ‘upgrades’ after you buy certain amounts from the eShop, giving you bigger payouts when it refreshes every twelve hours.
In the baseline game, there certainly are areas where the Gem Apple bottleneck is felt, but patient gamers will have no problem navigating these, and those of you that want it all right now can rest assured that the pricing feels far from unreasonable or predatory. And the issue with the time-gating stamina system is largely negated by the fact that there are actually two separate bars depending on which kind of mission you’re playing. Your stamina is refilled and the cap is upgraded every time you level up, which conveniently can usually be achieved before you’ve completely emptied both your stamina bars. All of this is to say, the free to play elements certainly are a noticeable and ever-present fixture of Super Kirby Clash, but there’s nothing here that feels like Nintendo is overstepping its bounds.
New to Super Kirby Clash is the ability to play in online multiplayer, and while it’s a welcome and enjoyable feature if you happen to be playing with friends, performance ranges from shabby to downright unplayable when you go with random players. A large part of this poor performance is down to Nintendo’s peer-to-peer setup for the underlying online services for Switch, but the issue nonetheless rears its ugly head here.
In our experience, the best connection we had in a random match had about half a second of input lag, while the worst was easily over a second. There were several times, too, where the connection dropped partway through a battle, kicking us back to the job board while still costing the full amount of Vigor we spent to attempt the quest. In a game as timing intensive as Super Kirby Clash, this laggy online performance is simply unacceptable and stands as a harsh negative on this otherwise excellent release. Playing locally – whether on the same Switch or with others in the room – is fortunately as snappy as it needs to be, which softens the blow and somewhat salvages the multiplayer options for this release.
In terms of presentation, Super Kirby Clash adopts the same art style and design of Kirby Star Allies, meaning it runs in 30 FPS, but it looks quite pretty as it does so. The chunky models are simple, but coloured with an impressively versatile palette that’s quite the visual treat, while the fantasy-themed backgrounds are slightly blurred to give a depth of field effect.
It’s far from the most visually interesting release on the Switch, but it holds its ground well, especially compared to past entries in the series, and this is all supported well by the catchy soundtrack. A few new tracks and several remixes of old favourites make an appearance here, and the frantic, slightly goofy vibe of the music does a great job of matching up with the pace of the cartoonish action. Like the visuals, the music is nothing to write home about, but you’ll hardly be disappointed by what’s on offer.
Conclusion
As a standalone game, Super Kirby Clash holds up well to the Kirby series standard with its impressively diverse boss roster, straightforward RPG-lite mechanics, and deep potential for replayability. Though the online multiplayer is an unstable and unreliable mess, this hardly stands as a reason for you to not at least download the game and give it a shot. As a free to play release, Super Kirby Clash also manages to smartly handle its monetization and doesn’t hold back too much, offering you a fair amount of time-gated content relative to how much you feel like paying. We’d give Super Kirby Clash a high recommendation even if it was a low-price budget release at retail, but considering that it literally costs you nothing but your time, do yourself a favour and go download this as soon as you can.
Comments 61
The game is really fun and great so far. It took the base 3ds game and added loads of assets taken from the newest switch game and than some. The MXT aren’t in your face and the game can be played without it.
Online is indeed an issue which is a shame as playing online gives a 1.2x multiplier to exp and loot.
EDIT: speaking about online. If any nintendolife staff reads my comment, maybe it’s time to write a soapbox about nintendo needing to improve their online now that it’s paid, while some games fixed their online problem almost any first party game launches with loads of problems with their online. Sony had simular issues for a few years when online was added to ps+ on ps4.
If you're looking to get more gem apples, there's ways to get a bunch for free.
Nintendo Switch Online subscribers can go to the relevant section on the eShop, and get 100 gem apples completely free.
There are multiple passwords in-game that can be claimed for gem apples too.
You can also get some bonus apples for simply looking at the News article on the System menu, and using the included link to launch the game.
They're surprisingly generous with apple distribution, even outside of the heroic tasks, including some as simple as merely launching the eShop from within the game.
Been playing this in bite sized increments and it definitely feels like kirby lol Glad to see though that the free to play elements are limited.
I know it's free-to-start, but in comparison to almost every other F2P Nintendo title released so far this is by far the most generous game yet. There's even the option to effectively buy a near bottomless supply of in-game currency for $40. I wish Nintendo would take this approach in Dragalia Lost and ACPC, or even a more seasonal Battlepass approach like Fortnite and Paladins.
Removed - unconstructive
@Wilforce Unfortunately, those games need to compete in the real Mobile Space and games that don't have endless content purchases die fast in mobile. They need to keep those games alive long enough to keep those teams running to create more mobile titles.
This is more than likely a one off Kirby Game in the Style of Pokemon Quest. It will probably never see any significant content updates.
@RupeeClock wow thanks for this info i will see if i can find these free gems
Slow news day? How much are you getting paid by Nintendo do give a positive review? J/k nice review!
Hey, this has local multilayer? Sweet buns, that sweetens the appeal. Downloading!
This really is a great game. It's a game that you can just pickup for a few minutes and play whenever you're bored. Would highly recommend as the paid aspects don't limit you that much as long as you don't mind the grind.
As a huge Kirby fan I’ve played this and I like it, of course. I’d like to see more Kirby soon. I’d particularly like to see a Kirby world sports title. If Kirby replaced all the characters in all the games I have on my Switch I’d be fine with it. Heard the voice actor recently had an accident, hopefully they are doing better.
@KcebEnyaw Fortnite and Paladins have demonstrated that season passes work just fine in profits, which a hybrid method would work for both completionists and casual players. Currently mobile gaming is an absolutely crapshoot in its offerings.
I like this game a lot so far. Gives me some downtime between bigger games.
I had an excellent and hilarious online match yesterday that was awesome. Sadly the connection does vary. Considering that Nintendo is making a bigger deal of their online as a paid service they really should improve however they can. Otherwise I find the game is super fun and addictive and when you can play with others it is very fun too.
@Franklin nope. Also Kirby games are created by by HAL and released by Nintendo. The myth that all these Kirby games are keeping Nintendo from an F-Zero game or new Star Fox is ridiculous and untrue. Kirby games just have a dedicated 2nd party company that specializes in mostly making Kirby games. That's what HAL does and what they are gonna keep doing.
Has Nintendo released a single game yet that has had "good" online? Their approach to online has been hilariously bad and we still have yet to get anything resembling Xbox Live from 2005 which is just sad. Honestly the big appeal to me is the online aspect of this game and the fact it's a buggy mess is just sad. Plus there's probably no voice chat which in a game like this would be nice to have.
@JpGamerGuy90 I'd watch a friend play Splatoon and constantly the teams were uneven as a player would be booted off. Which could really effect who won. It really is a problem even with their bigger titles.
@darkswabber Nintendo needs to fix their online ASAP, it's unacceptable.
I wonder if they had added this as a free update to star allies if people would've been more forgiving to the game for being bare bones at launch
I'm really happy with the time I've put into the game so far. It satisfies my Monster Hunter itch for now (at least until Dauntless comes out).
@Wilforce Fornite and Paladins proven that a Console Game ported to Mobile can still monetize a console marketing scheme for a competitive multiplayer game. Most likely because its Mobile player base is the same as its Console Player base.
At this point I only wish the game had some unlockable classes. Kirby has dozens of powers to pull from, surely they could have added a few more? Ninja? Fighter? Rock? UFO?
@KcebEnyaw Which proves that people will pay for games on a seasonal basis. Right now mobile gaming is a gambling crapshoot with poor odds and an addictive nature, and there is no reason that a seasonal structure couldn't be applied to mobile. Even if it were on a monthly basis instead of a 3-month basis anything is better than the current payment structure in mobile gaming.
Most of my online matches are alright, I think. But when it lags, it's borderline unplayable. And just a small correction: Heroic Missions progress is tied to level cap progress, not gear. Better gear is unlocked with story progression. I spend about 7 dollars at the game and didn't feel the need to buy more. Last night I beat the final boss, it was great, and I'll keep playing for a while more, unlocking those SDX gears will take some time, but I'm down.
@RupeeClock thanks will check that out.
My kids have been playing this non stop and love it. More so than Kirby star allies.
It's good but some flaws like sometimes the onilne play lags..
This game is... not bad. My ratio of good:bad online matches is pretty high though.
I can’t complain too much. Other than Splatoon 2, D3, and Warframe, I’m not big on online play, and my games seem to run fine for the most part.
While we can sit here and point at Nintendo to fix their Online feature (regarding lags), make sure you kiddos also have a decent Internet connection as well.
@geo-shifter Finally someone knows my pain of that lag its really bad.. offline is fine but the online it's so easy to crash..
This game and its microtransactions can jog away on.
I never wanted a Kirby RPG until I played this.
Now I must have one. I crave one.
@ShinyUmbreon
Oh yeah! The first time a lag happened, I was paranoid my Internet was going down, but my partner was still streaming Hulu fine, and my phone was giving great wireless speed tests. Then I read somewhere if one person has bad bandwidth, everyone’s game slows down.
@geo-shifter everytime i go to lava or the sky land i crash like ten seconds.
This game is terrible.
@Mgene15 Why?
@gamer89 I don't get complaining about games being repeatitive. O.o Are there any games that aren't some core mechanic that you progress by completing over and over again but with a some additions? Especially for online titles. Is Splatoon not just covering everything with ink and shooting each other over and over again? Is Monster Hunter not the same idea of hunting monsters again and again but they get stronger or new Movesets? Isn't fortnite just building and shooting in a loop? I don't know a single game that is an all new experience every single level x.x. I just don't really understand. People are welcome to dislike the game no problem but this complaint has always been strange to me. Like gaming IS repeatitive by nature unless suddenly one level a platformer and second level is a shooter out of no where and game and graphics totally flip around like crazy. Which no good game designer would just do.
It's great to pick up and play. Gameplay is good and plenty of gametime without actually spending any money...
@Kirby_Girl
Evoland?
@Chunkboi79 contender for most repetitive game of all time.
@gamer89 I definitely disagree with you on the bosses and only smashing buttons. Especially on later bosses cause no way. Lol. Also if you want to really play effectively it helps to play effectively especially if you want to earn better times and medals. This is explained in the review that knowing the boss moves helps. Anyway. Whatever. Its not a problem. Ill also agree to disagree with you on the rating. I think 8/10 is perfect for this game. To each their own.
Also as someone who played the crap out of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, I am also interested in depth and not oppose to challenge. Just don't feel the same on this one.
I think I read all of the review, where the controls mentioned anywhere that I missed?
Can you play 4 player w/ 4 Joycon or does each person need a pair?
Both my sons have NO, I don't, can we play couch co-op together?
The reason I ask is we just finsihed Diablo 3 which I didn't think would let us play together, game wouldn't let me in, but it would if we changed the settings to offline.
Also from Diablo 3, do our characters carry over across game? If my sons and I each play single player on our own accounts does everything we bought carry over to a couch co-op game?
Again, I did read the article but didn't see any of this, just online lag, but I don't imagine my kids playing this online, too busy playing SSBU, but couch co-op would be fun.
Online worked great for me so far
You can also buy permanent upgrades that reduce the time it takes for vigor to refill. Basically can get down to one minute per one vigor.
Sooooo this game was interesting for 10 minutes. Which was enough, because after that you could tell the "you have to pay now" point was nearing. Did not care for this one bit. One bit.
@Barbara001
10 minutes? I played the first time for 3 hours with no problem as I kept leveling up to refil the vigor meter and got plenty of apples from heroic missions.
Having played this off and on. I’ve had a few good connections. Online is satisfying enough. Plus extra experience.
@SetupDisk Yeah, I played Kirby Clash for about 90 minutes and both of my "vigors" had just refilled from reaching level 5 when I had to stop to pick up my kids from school. If someone doesn't enjoy the fighting loop of a 2D sort of platformer sort of fighter sort of JRPG then they aren't going to like it, but anyone saying they don't like it b/c of the feed-the-beast nature of the game probably hasn't played it.
I have about 59 apple gems now, haven't felt the need to spend them yet, and a bunch of crystals or whatever they are from scanning 5 amiibo - the daily limit. (Where amiibo in the review?) And I haven't played with my kids yet, which I think is where this game will actually be the most fun.
Anyway, I see me playing it a lot longer than Pokemon Cubes (Quest?). And not spending any money on it either. May help that I never played any of the 3DS Kirby games so it's somewhat new to me, I did play the Switch game 3 player w/ my 2 sons so I appreciate the look, music and sound effects.
you can beat every mission in a couple of days for free, if you haven't started yet i'd recommend ignoring anything that isn't a damage upgrade except for armor if it's really needed and focusing on 1 class, you can have all your teammates be the class you focused on to save on gear. i enjoyed playing as the doctor, lots of invincibility and setting your teammates as them with good gear makes fights pretty relaxed.
Since the online multiplayer is rubbish, I see no reason to play this after already beating nearly everything in the 3DS version of the game (without spending a dime).
However, if it's new to you, I recommend it as a fun daily time-waster.
Nintendo. You need to rename your “Online” service and market it differently. My money is not going to online services because I experience crippling lag with every game that I’ve tried online. I have a fibre optic internet connection with consistent download and upload speeds of 300 mbps. I should never experience lag. I am frustrated by my Online experience.
Seriously, if you would just rebrand what you’re actually selling, people might not be as angry. My money is paying for retro games. I am ok with this. But please don’t tell me I’m paying for a functioning online service because that is NOT what I am receiving. I am angry.
I found playing online through the friend match was a lot better then random match up. Least this way, you can play with people you know have a good online connection.
Still a great multiplayer and online game. The 8 star review is well deserved.
Since it's free to play there's not a whole lot of criticisms I have for it but it's definitely shallow to the extreme since it's just boss fight after boss fight with classes that are very limited in movesets. But I definitely see it as a game that you play 1 or 2 fights then never touch it again till like half a year or something.
@Dijita Even with a high fiber connection. Expecting to have a zero lag experience in anything is unrealistic. Each ISP is different, every game has different net protocol even with dedicated servers, and the setup of each router/modem is never the same.
We don't live in a world where technology is going to be perfect. Not in this lifetime.
I hear a lot of people complain about the online multiplayer being unplayable. Sure, I've had a few laggy affairs and some disconnections, but I've also had plenty of battles that ran fine. Also, I just find it extremely satisfying to get 6 or 7 achievements from one battle. I think it's a lot of fun.
It looks like it should have been a free DLC for Kirby Star Allies. Wait.
Joking aside, as long as it has something for the single player, I'm interested.
@Shade_Koopa I get that it won't be perfect. But it shouldn't be crippling. I never experience a crippling multiplayer when I play on my PS4. I'm not using the word crippling lightly either. Most of the time I'm experiencing seconds of lag continuously through out the whole game experience. It is well known that Nintendo's online service connection is bad. I'm just trying to highlight the fact that even with a fibre optic connection it is still horrible.
The microtransactions kind of smother any interest I may have had in this. A payment cap IS a good idea though.
@Dijita Sounds like bad luck. Yes, Nintendo's online is not the greatest by any means but it still works. And $20 bucks a year is literally nothing.
@ShadJV Those take away from fantasy rpg feel. The real question is where the heck is Archer Kirby???
@Ardisan what? Lots of fantasy RPGs have ninja and fighter classes! Heck, more than ones with hammer classes!
"Unfortunately, this latter release largely flew under the radar"
You guys are partly to blame: You guys never reviewed it!!
Anyway, its a guilty pleasure. As was Team Kirby clash on the 3ds. Lovely graphics and music too. Never buy any gem-apples and you are fine!
I can't support the "buy 4000 gems for a lot more money than the game is worth" kind of games.
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