"Expect something more"

Kirby Squeak Squad is the second game of the Kirby franchise released on the Nintendo DS. It is made to take advantage of the touch screen.

Story:

This game start with a calm day which Kirby is about to enjoy his strawberry cake. Just when he is about to dig in, the cake suddenly disappear. Kirby thinks it is the work of King Dedede, so he heads for the castle in search for his precious strawberry shortcake.

Game-play:

As a typical Kirby game, Kirby journeys through many worlds, and, by using unique abilities to collect collectibles. Utilizing the bottom screen, you can store up to five chests and bubbles, containing a food item, an ability,or a mini-Kirby. When you need the item inside of the bubble, you can simply pop them by tapping to use it (except for mini-Kirby).

Another new mechanism introduced in this game is mixing. To mix, just drag a bubble to another one and voila, you obtain a new item. Note that only bubbles that are of the same attribute can mix. When mixing food item, they will end up a bubbled food item of better quality, and you can eventually obtain the most powerful healing item, as all Kirby fan knows, Maximum Tomato. Mixing abilities is completely random, as there are no formula for mixing with the exception of the star that is used for spitting (mixing the star makes it grow stronger). You can get almost any ability by mixing, with the exception of Ghost and Triple Stars, two of the new abilities in the game. As for mini-Kirby, mixing two of them makes a bubble with two mini-Kirbys, and if you mix another mini-Kirby with the double mini-Kirby, you can get an extra life.

The treasure chests contain collectible items the first time you get them. If you re-visit the same map and get the chest again, you will see the chest being completely black, indicating there is no more collectible in that chest.

Length:

This game is rather short. It is possible to finish off the game with 100% and try everything within one to two days. If you want a durable game, most definitely DO NOT buy this game.

Difficulty:

Aside from short game-play, it is way too easy. The first boss, King Dedede, for example, can be beaten by simple holding B with the fire ability. If you want a challenge, most definitely DO NOT buy this game.

Multi-player and Wi-Fi:

Nothing much to say about it. The only things that are multi-player are mini-games.

Replay-ability:

Like most other action games, a major flaw is that once you have finished the game, it would be very boring the second time you play it because you would already know the location of all treasures, and there are no surprise what each ability can do.

Overall:

Despite the new features, Amazing Mirrors on GBA and Kirby 64 on N64 are much, much better than this game. Even if you are a huge Kirby fan, you are not going to like this game very much.

For those who do not want to read the whole review, here is the summary:

This game is only good for rental. In fact, I am going to sell my copy. I give this game a 3/10.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/07