Kirby: Planet Robobot Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/15/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Kirby: Planet Robobot

Developer: Hal Laboratory

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: 3DS

Release Date: April 28, 2016

Kirby has managed to grab my attention once again. This time, it's the 3DS title Kirby: Planet Robobot, which has been rumored to be the best Kirby title of the bunch. This news intrigues me because no Kirby title before has ever taken the stand as the championing king of the series despite its 25-year tenure at the point of Robobot’s release in 2016. The mainline Kirby games have always been consistently well received, but none of those games have an “Ocarina of Time” status: the unanimous darling in both critical and audience acclaim whose ground-breaking impact changes the course for every subsequent entry for the foreseeable future. Suddenly, one game has the moxie to step up to the plate and hoist itself into the ranks as the alpha Kirby title, making its predecessors bow down to its sheer awesomeness. You can tell that Kirby: Planet Robobot means business from the game’s cover. Normally, Nintendo feels inclined to alter Kirby’s visage on the cover to a more cheerful, elated face for the Western release if he looks menacing or determined on the original Japanese cover. Because Nintendo made no effort to make Kirby look more accessible, this means that Kirby: Planet Robobot takes no prisoners. Also, Kirby piloting an intergalactic Gurren Lagann mecha, which is what the title alludes to, already makes for a persuasive pitch. Alright, Robobot, I like the cut of your jib and I will accept your duel to challenge my preconceived notions based on all other Kirby titles before you. However, because of your high regard, you’re going to have to convince me that the mech isn’t a gimmick and that Kirby can be a substantial gaming experience.

To signify its preeminence, Planet Robobot immediately catapults the player into a high-stakes premise unseen in any previous Kirby title. Kirby’s home planet of Pop Star is enjoying its time of peace until it is abruptly interrupted by a colossal UFO that sinks its claws into the Pop Star’s crust like a cougar does to its prey. King Dedede and the rest of Pop Star’s military forces are naturally not going to take this hostile invasion lying down, so they man their battalions with the fiercest firepower possible. Unfortunately, the deadliest extent of Pop Star’s opposition is a few cannons and an army of Waddle Dee’s frantically scrambling around for something more formidable and failing, making Pop Star easier to invade than a small island nation in the Pacific. Meta Knight thinks the artillery of the winged aircraft Halberd modeled in his masked visage will be enough to conquer the alien forces, but is quickly dispatched as his ship careens downward in a blaze of smoke. Meanwhile, as all hope seems lost, the chaos of the invasion disturbs Kirby from his slumber, calling him to action as the obvious true defender of Pop Star’s sovereignty. One image in Planet Robobot that is particularly striking is seeing the size of the Halberd in the sliver of screen space with the alien mothership that almost eclipses the screen. Remember in Kirby Superstar when the Halberd was a formidable presence? The juxtaposition in this shot subtly suggests that the Kirby series has evolved and the game has raised the bar for the challenges that Kirby will face in this adventure.

But does Planet Robobot finally amplify the facile difficulty level associated with the Kirby series? That was the widespread sentiment echoed around the block for everyone who was floored by this game. Considering the breezy difficulty is my main vocal criticism for every previous Kirby, the notion of Planet Robobot providing a heftier challenge was a factor in instilling my sense of interest in it. After playing Planet Robobot with this pretense in mind, I have to ask this question to everyone who stated this: did we play the same game? Does Kirby not float extemporaneously with a boundless flight like a freed balloon, allowing him to elude most obstacles that stand before him? Is the game not littered with a more-than-charitable amount of extra lives and health items that make the Red Cross seem covetous by comparison? No, I didn’t expect the game to implement limited continues and a one-hit health system like what was initially expected of Kirby’s Adventure on the NES. Still, the fact that Planet Robobot seemingly makes no attempt to provide a steeper challenge leaves me utterly confused at what everyone was beaming over.


Because Planet Robobot is still a traditional Kirby experience, discussing Kirby’s gameplay mechanics feels redundant. He still soars from left to right on a 2D axis and treats his stomach like an inexhaustible, ironclad vacuum when he devours everything as a solution to overcoming every obstacle in his way. Planet Robobot flaunts the graphical capabilities of the 2.5D perspective like the last two mainline Kirby titles did by cinematically changing the camera angles for certain situations like ascending the staircase ramp up to one of the mothership’s industrial inner workings. The game even implements a number of visual gimmicks regarding the 3D peripheral of the 3DS system. The impact of getting run over by a Waddle Doo’s compact car or when a tube materializes on screen before it starts to roll makes Kirby literally break the fourth wall. If I were able to physically see the full extent of the 3D effects, I’m sure they’d be marvelous and not simply recycled defeated animations from Super Smash Bros.

Talking about Kirby’s innate controls isn’t what people want to hear regarding Planet Robobot, for they persist from every previous Kirby game with no deviation. Let’s be honest, the exciting aspect that reeled most people into purchasing Planet Robobot was the hulking mech seen on the front cover and alluded to in the title. Kirby did not figure that dusting off this deadly mechanical marvel from whatever garage he hypothetically owns would be especially advantageous for such a monumental threat like the alien invaders, for he does not possess the insight. The mech is actually a tool used by the alien foot soldiers that antagonizes Kirby sometime in the first world. Once defeated, Kirby discovers that the mech somehow has physical properties that allow Kirby to command it like one of the enemy's powers, shifting from an industrial gray to a bright pink to signify Kirby’s newfound ownership of it. After the initial undertaking, the mech can be ready to use once Kirby finds it again on the field. The mech literally packs a mean punch and while it is tethered to gravity unlike the pink, cosmic being that pilots it, its double jump feature along with a temporary glide proves to be enough for traversal. When trying to wallop an enemy with a sucker punch that Kirby could potentially use their powers when he sucks them up, something extraordinary occurs. The mech will instead scan the enemy in close proximity and copy their specific power, mechanizing the ability for the mech’s own usage. Essentially, the mech powers are high-octane versions of what Kirby can perform on his own. Scanning Sir Kibble and Blade Knight for their respective cutlery tools sprouts massive steel appendages that are able to cut through industrial-strength chain links. Copying fire allows the mech to belch molten lava like a military-grade flamethrower, and the ice ability can freeze Bonkers the gorilla into a solid block of ice and slide him across the level like a curling iron. The wheel completely transforms the mech into a bitchin’ vehicle that blazes through Pop Star’s inhabitants with ramming speed, and the jet completely shifts the gameplay mechanics into a scrolling shooter where the craft is armed with lasers and comically sized missiles. The thunderous mic move is actually practical in the mech as Kirby can weaponize tinnitus with a pair of concert speakers on wheels instead of one sonic boom blast. As you can probably guess, the mech is more than a worthy addition to augmenting the standard Kirby formula. Mowing down enemies with the mech gives the player a gratifying thrill that makes them make the same dastardly face as Kirby does on the game’s front cover. Surprisingly, the ostentatious presence of the mech does not render an already easy game totally effortless. Not since Kirby 64 have the developers found an engaging way to diversify Kirby’s copy abilities, and seeing how the mech would transform according to the power-up was always a sight to behold. The player has the option to pimp out their mech with symmetrical arm tattoos in the form of various sticker collectibles. I recommend dueling Hydra and Dragoon stickers from Kirby Air Ride, for they look totally badass.

Sadly, there are powers in Planet Robobot that Kirby leaves all for himself to use when he leaves the mech in an idle position on the field. Since Kirby has accumulated new powers to use over the two decades since Kirby’s Adventure introduced the ability, some of the copied classics have been subject to the cutting floor for the sake of brevity. Most of the powers in the expected roulette are present, but the player will not be seeing Kirby sprout needles from his body like a porcupine, nor will we see him flutter with the wing ability. The few new Kirby abilities found in Planet Robobot are cheekily referential, and I guess twenty years is the mark when Kirby is allowed to be meta, as well as a reminder that Sakurai is allowed to dip his hands into any other Nintendo franchise whenever he pleases as the creative director of Super Smash Bros. Doctor Kirby mirrors one of the plumber’s more famous occupational ventures, overdosing enemies with an irresponsible prescription to gigantic pills of all colors. Beating them with a clipboard is a new touch that Dr. Mario never did in Smash. Doctor Kirby’s most unorthodox move is materializing a lab desk to mix and mash potions and elixirs with a myriad of different elemental properties. I wouldn’t make the connection between another Nintendo character and Kirby’s new ESP move, but the backward baseball hat is a dead giveaway. The only new power that does not remind me of any Nintendo character is the poison move unless the developers are suggesting that one of the Smash Bros. characters IS poison from a metaphorical stance, which is quite mean (it’s Pichu). The only new move I would welcome into the canon is the ESP move as Poison was too similar to fire and Doctor Kirby featured way too much utility to be practical.

Besides the previous two Kirby games on the 3DS that share the same engine, the Kirby game that Planet Robobot reminds me the most of is Kirby 64. This comparison is due to the code cubes, the main collectible from Planet Robobot that have the same utility as the crystal shards from Kirby’s first outing with 3D graphics. Like the shards from Kirby 64, there are three code cubes in each level placed in the beginning, middle, and end sections of each level. Don’t worry; as the player, you will not need to grab a pencil and paper to write down the code from every cube acquired. However, the player will still have to keep their wits about them, for the code cubes are not seen in plain sight. The repeated process from Kirby 64 might make some veteran gamers groan, for gathering the crystal shards elongated the game to a tedious degree. It wasn’t difficult by standard definitions, rather, having to seek out two separate enemies for their powers and carry their combinations was an exercise in grueling endurance. Regarding the code cubes, their role in Planet Robobot gave me a moment of clarity. The newfound substance in Planet Robobot does not stem from the game’s physical difficulty: it’s the puzzle aspect of retrieving these cubes. All the resources needed to solve the subsidiary puzzles off the beaten path are available to Kirby in close proximity as opposed to putting him on a fetch quest outside of the level. When the player figures out what is required, unlocking a code cube should be a cinch, but the player will still have to exert a fair amount of logical intuition in order to lead themselves to victory. The codec cubes finally offer a consistent and reasonable challenge in a Kirby game.

In Kirby 64, at least collecting the crystal shards was an optional endeavor. Collecting the vast majority of the code cubes, however, is a necessary venture in unlocking the boss door that follows every world’s fifth level. Behind the electronic shield, the bosses of Planet Robobot are once again an eclectic mix of foes. One pattern I noticed from all of these bosses is that they are remixes of bosses found in previous Kirby games. Terminator Whispy, for example, still technically presides as the Kirby game’s first formal boss. Still, his new cybernetic enhancements give the poor, dopey tree a freshly intimidating presence as he attempts to bulldoze Kirby in his introduction sequence. Remember the Zeppelin Kabula from the very first Kirby game on the Gameboy? The weaponized hot gas ship returns with a sinister, sharp-toothed sneer. Galacta Knight is the gallant Meta Knight with nuts and bolts kinetically facilitating his swift sword swipes, and the sludgy King Dedede clones are fairly self-explanatory. The Holo Defense API does not explicitly state that it’s a rehashed version of the Pix battle from Kirby 64, but anyone who has played the game will recognize it instantly. The same goes for the final fight against Planet Robobot’s true final boss, the Star Dream source of the alien invader’s operation. To face the colossal intergalactic machine in the immeasurable battlefield of the cosmos that should remind everyone of O2, Kirby’s mech morphs with a certain battleship that has been fully restored, and the absolutely wild combination made me audibly gasp. As much as I appreciate the roster on display here, I wish Planet Robobot offered more bosses that involve the mech. Unscrewing the towering Gigavolt’s parts and the few scrolling shooter sections are fine, but I was eagerly anticipating some Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots action.

While Planet Robobot’s bosses didn’t quite meet my high-octane mech battle wish fulfillment, I’m still pleased that some of them tap into some unprecedented narrative substance. Like the atomic age horror films that popularized the concept of an alien invasion, there are veiled allegories beneath the conceptual surface here. Kirby has subtly conveyed themes of ecological preservation before, alluding to the Shiver Star area from Kirby 64 that depicted a once prosperous planet reduced to a desolate tundra due to hazardous anti-environmental practices. The invading alien forces that have discourteously made themselves at home on Pop Star’s surface are called the “Haltmann Works Company,” parasitically draining Pop Star’s resources before moving on to another poor planet to rinse and repeat the process. It’s no coincidence that this evil imperialistic terror sounds like the name of a business and that their leader is a debonair humanoid creature dressed in a suit. Planet Robobot conveys that intergalactic bureaucrats are as scary as races of grizzly warrior aliens wearing necklaces made of human skulls because these kinds of bureaucrats exist in real life and they’re destroying the planet for a profit as we speak. In Haltmann’s case, his company's operation runs under the ethos that mechanical life is superior to organic life. He tries to render all that comes from the Earth and the womb obsolete with robotic innovation. As we can see from Whispy and Meta Knight’s mechanical doppelganger, the cold, malformed depictions of these classic Kirby characters are hardly an improvement. In fact, their twisted uncanniness is actually rather disturbing, as Haltmann’s pink-haired assistant Susie’s gleeful is when she introduces them. Planet Robobot’s narrative tone is surprisingly dark, which one could argue is counterintuitive to the lightheartedness of a Kirby game. Still, I think the regularly blithe nature we’ve come to associate with the Kirby franchise makes us more invested in preserving it when someone comes along to ruin its sanctity. Planet Robobot features more domestic levels featuring Waddle Doos driving cars and swimming in lakes in the background to remind us of how blissful Pop Star is supposed to be, and the presence of the robotic overtaking is present in each of the worlds. Whether it be the grassy “Patched Plains,” the watery “Overload Ocean,” the arid desert “Gigabyte Grounds,” etc., an industrial level inside Haltmann’s operation will always be featured to convey the severity of the situation at hand. Suddenly, I care about the state of Kirby’s world, a concern I thought would never cross my mind.

I thought for sure that I’d be warning the public that Kirby: Planet Robobot was just another entry in a persisting formulaic line of Nintendo’s simplest formula for platformer design and that my vocal cries and fervor would be undermined by the fact that this time, Kirby is in a mech. For the first time in a series that had been around for two decades at this point, I am chugging the Kirby Kool-Aid and will not be mewling on about how easy Planet Robobot is like every other Kirby game. The mech is a blast to use on the field for whichever of Kirby’s powers it is emulating, but the mech represents more than an additional gameplay perk. The mech’s functionality has an unexpected depth beyond its thunderous physicality. The mech’s mechanical attributes allow for an engaging range of manipulating the level’s foreground, making me wish that there was a Kirby game that was a staunch puzzle platformer. In addition, the mech also represents not only an evolution to Kirby’s gameplay after so many years, but it’s a symbol of a harrowing future that Hal Laboratories express negatively on through their work. Sure, Kirby: Planet Robobot is still a tried and true Kirby experience with the same level of ease. However, the player will not be able to use its ease to breeze through it. Unlike the previous titles, Kirby: Planet Robobot’s secret ingredient is a heaping load of mechanical and narrative depth that lets the experience resonate with the player longer despite the simple gameplay. Let’s hope this persists for every Kirby game afterward.