Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush - Maxi-Geek Review

Every few years we are treated to a new Kirby game, but it’s not like Mario where you know what to expect, Kirby is the IP Nintendo experiment with the most and while some of these have been welcome, others not so much and now with the release of Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush for Wii U, their experiments have not been as fruitful as they could have been.

As with most Kirby titles, the story is pretty small, Kirby and Waddle-Dee are outside, enjoying the nice day that Dreamland is known, when a hole in the sky appears and from it a beam of light shines through. This is no ordinary beam of light though, it is removing all the colour from the world, causing all of its inhabitants to become lifeless, but just as the hole closes, something bursts through. That something is actually a someone and she just so happens to look like a paintbrush. Her name is Elline and she has escaped from an evil and needs Kirby’s help to fight back, in order to do this she creates paths for Kirby to move along and with that it’s off to save the day.

The story is pretty thin, with a small enough twist at the end to help things feel a little different, but sadly it is almost the same basic story as in every other Kirby title. But those do fit with the relaxed nature of the gameplay, so I can’t complain too much. The first few levels are simple enough and will help you get your bearings on the controls that are present, which if you played Kirby and the Canvas Curse on the DS, you will understand right away. To make Kirby move, simply touch on him and he will do a small dash forward in the direction he is facing, to make him climb or turn around, you simply draw a line on the gamepad screen to make him do that.

Once you have that down pat, you have learnt almost all the controls that the game will give you, the exception to this is when you will get new morphing abilities, into a tank, a submarine and more. You don’t need any of the buttons on the controller, as the game is controlled exclusively by the touch controls, which works well for a handheld, but after sometime, the gamepad can be quite a heavy item. As you move around the world, you will see lots of stars and I mean a lot. Collecting these will allow you to unleash Kirby’s special attack, where he will increase his size and smash around the stage, you can do this each time you get 100 stars. Though that is not all they do, collecting them will grant you a medal at the end of each stage, to determine how many you actually got, which if you get gold, silver or bronze, it’s enough to tempt you back into the level again to get the gold. The other thing you will see throughout the stages are treasure chests, they are adorned with gold colouring, so they are easy to spot, but not so easy to get.

Some of the chests will be up high, some will be below you and then there are those that will be encased in hard to break rocks, which means you can’t get them unless you have Kirby’s special attack, which will mean either saving those or coming back again. In collecting these chests, you will unlock various statues of the characters from within the game and music, which is taken from Kirby’s 20+ years of gaming history. Of course collecting all this is made easier when you play the game with friends and if you do, you will still be Kirby, rolling around everywhere but your friends will play as Waddle-Dee’s, with the freedom to run around and jump and such. You can create paths for them to walk on and they can even pick up Kirby to give him extra help. The paths that you create are done so by using rainbow ink, measured in the top corner of the screen, when you run out, you will not be able to create anymore, until it refills. If you are in mid-air or trying to avoid attacks and run out of ink, it will usually cause a fair amount of problems, so managing that while you move forward is critical.

For those looking for a little help, the game supports amiibo and depending on which of the three Kirby series ones you have, you will get different boosts. The Kirby figure allows Kirby to activate the "Star Dash" ability at any time, the King Dedede figure gives Kirby extra hitpoints, and the Meta Knight figure gives him greater attack power during his touch-activated spinning attack. The trick here though is knowing when to use them, as you can only use each amiibo once per day, per stage, so while you can make things easier, you need to think about when you want to use them.

The other part of the Kirby experiments is in the visual style of the game, each one seems to have a special touch to it, the last console Kirby title kept a more traditional platformer style, the one before that though was knitted a little differently. This time around, Nintendo have gone with a Claymation aesthetic and this is not a half-hearted attempt, the entire game oozes with the style. When you see Kirby for the first time, you will see finger prints on his body, the trees will have tool marks as if someone made them be hand, even the loading screens and menus contain the look and its because of this that the game feels special. The other half of the presentation equation is in the sound, specifically the music found within the game. Some of the tunes are updated from previous titles, but there are a large number of new ones and they all sound amazing. Once you beat a stage or a boss, you can actually listen to the music again out in the main menu, which I have playing while writing this, which is a testament to how good it is.

Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush is a fine game, it plays well and looks incredible, but there is something missing from it, it ticks the boxes with a great couch multiplayer experience, collectables and even challenge missions to boot, but even with all that, the fact that you are made to use the Gamepad screen when playing as Kirby hurts. I would have loved another control system for Kirby when you are playing solo, even while thinking about it, I think I came up with a great one. The problem is not with the controls, they work and they worked with the original game on the DS, it’s more of a problem with this control scheme on this platform.

Anyone who liked Canvas Curse, as I did, will find themselves at home here, everyone else may struggle. The game being played on the gamepad only is an issue that is hard to overlook, but if you can move past that, you will find a great platforming experience, with loads of content to keep you coming back.