"Kirby's first step outside of the platform genre is a success"

When I thought about getting this game, my first thought was "Franchises that stepped out of the genre that made them popular tended to produce bad games. I'd better not get this." Well, I did anyway, and it took me completely by surprise. You would think this is merely a Kirby redress of the classic arcade game Arkanoid, but no. It's more.

Gameplay: 10/10

Though the general style of gameplay is just a rehash of Arkanoid, the specifics are quite innovative. First of all, Kirby's Copy abilities make an appearance here, which is revolutionary because the Copy abilities give your ball special abilities, rather than the tradition of giving your paddle powers. A second revolution is having paddles on all four sides of the screen in some levels, so in such cases, the player has to avoid letting the ball go off the screen on any side. Third, this was the first Arkanoid-style game to feature boss battles. Overall, this game has revolutionized the Arkanoid franchise of games for quite some time.

Graphics: 10/10

I can't criticize too much, considering this game is for an 8-bit system. This is about the best they could do. You don't have to question the location of anything on the screen. Everything is very clear. Most of the sprites were copied out of previous Game Boy Kirby games, which is expected.

Replay: 7/10

Since this game saves the top four scores for each level, you have an incentive to play this game well after you complete it. There is always some new approach you can try to raise your score even higher.

Sound: 8/10

Most of the sound effects were copied from Kirby's Dream Land 2, which is to be expected. I was also expecting some copying of music, but we did not get that. Some of the level themes are a little bit repetitive, but most of them are very catchy.

Overall: 9.5/10 --- Rounded up to 10/10

This was one of the most overlooked games of 1996. It is an interesting remix of Arkanoid and well worth trying out.

Rent or Buy?
Buy this game. Unfortunately, you will have to look quite hard to find a copy these days, since production was discontinued quite a few years ago.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/02/04