Kirby Star Allies: The Best Worst Kirby Game 

Kirby Star Allies, the opinions about this game is in an endless cycle of "bad game" -> "underrated game" -> "very good game" -> "bad game" -> the cycle continues ...it's a cool game! Funnily enough, this is the only mainline game that I can't play any time I want since I do not own the game myself, so I have to rely on a friend's copy of game to play it. (It's also the reason I haven't conquered SMEX solo yet... I'll get a copy of the game for myself eventually...)

Star Allies is a great example of a game that started as a kinda bad game due to how little there was but became good as things got added

its the only kirby game that allows you to play as adeleine after a many year long hiatus of being missing. of course its the best kirby game.

To me, Kirby Star Allies set an important precedent. Provide fanservice straight-up for free, and people will unconditionally enjoy it. Unlike Star Wars Battlefront 2, Sonic Forces, or Blazblue Cross Tag Battle.

I didn't get this game until way after all the updates came out, so I was genuinely _baffled_ to hear that people hated it. Like, I got that the main story was kinda short, but this game feels like a love letter to every game that came before it. It pays tribute to every mainline game, and lets us play as a ton of fan favorite characters.

I love how we got copy abilities that we havent seen in awhile like Cleaning and Yo-Yo, which haven't appeared since DL3 and Ultra. Cleaning even got a massive update letting you use the DL3 Animal Friends while Yo-Yo got the element effects

Kirby star allies was an absolute legend of a game. it was the first game i got along with my switch

I think the main reason people don't talk about Star Allies is because everyone's more focused on the newer games of Forgotten land and Return to dreamland Deluxe. For example; I haven't heard anything about Mario Odyssey since Mario Wonder came out.

Ngl, I think Star Allies is great because of music, lore, and the extra modes

Star allies is one of my favorite kirby games. About halfway done with guest star currently (all characters) then I'll do ultimate choice (all characters) this game is awesome:D

I like Star Allies. Yeah, the main adventure is kinda bare bones but thankfully there's the arena and playable past villains.

Star Allies is a Kirby game of all time, that's for sure. The biggest takeaway from Star Allies is that fanservice alone can't save a game, and while it still had HAL's typical high-quality attention to detail, the main mode was weak and the game felt like it launched unfinished. I loved Guest Star and Soul Melter, and while the references in past games making up a good portion of Story Mode's level designs were nice, there was never enough room to explore the Combine Mechanic, and the game was... a bit hand-holdy, even for a Kirby game. I have a good amount of nostalgia for the game, and for all of its flaws, I can't bring myself to hate it entirely. I think, however, the story encapsulates Kirby's core message of Friendship Ex Machina the best. Not saying it was delivered well, but it does say a lot about the franchise's Core Themes.

Shoutout to that hour-long analysis defending this game. Don’t remember the name, but I think it was a woman. Might can find it if I look for it real quick. Edit: Her channel name is kcdoos. You can quickly find the vid by searching “Kirby Star Allies Retrospective”. I was so happy to find someone else that didn’t hate the game because of comparing it to masterpieces. It’s a solid 8/10 at launch and 9/10 after all of the updates.

from a narritive standpoint the ending of this game is amazing and it's great to have to the old band back together...buuuuut it is really smoothed down for the most part.

I also thought the game was bad like everyone on the Internet said because I heard it was short and easy, but after seeing the other modes man it looks fun to try, especially Heroes in Another Dimension. Went from 3 minute videos to almost 20 the growth is insane, proud to be a part of the Ninblasto nation 🗣

Ironic, considering how much lore it drops.

This is really high quality great vid blasto.

Your friend did not lose the game, he pocketed that shit and didn’t tell you.

This game is the finale of the Kirby birthday celebration.

i personally loved the completion marks for every ability/helper. but i found the pacing unbelievably slow compared to Super Star Ultra. I also love the ability combinations, even though it's not nearly as extensive as Kirby 64, although i don't blame them. i didn't like the sections where allies were required.

Kirby Star Allies is a top-tier game

I played this game way back my 2019-2020 switch phase, when i hadn't played a kirby game in years other than super star ultra. That's probably the best setting to play star allies tbh, when you aren't burnt out by existing kirby content and can enjoy the game for being ok/good rather than perfect. I enjoyed it a lot back then, but would probably be extremely bored after forgotten land and RTDLDX. I actually had that experience first playing planet robobot for several reasons, among playing star allies just before, so maybe that's just how the 2.5D games are. One issue i had with Star allies back then and still do, it was hard to find the "right" difficulty when it came to the DLC bosses. Most of them have way too much health and require either a bunch of allies or overpowered dream friends to be reasonably dealt with. I like the idea of choosing your own difficulty, but this felt way too volatile imo. "Do the hardest most soul crushing challenge in all kirby history" or "spam sister cannon and win". I also had this issue with forgotten land, but evolutions are much easier to handle and i eventually found the right difficulty for me.

The main mode was pretty weak up until the final stretch. And The Two other Story Modes (Guest mode and HiAD) went hard.

I have a decent amount of time in Star Allies, mostly cause I wasn't sure how I felt about the game. When I first played it, I was heavily underwhelmed with the Story Mode which I still am to this day. Especially after the the other 2010's Kirby games, this was so bare bones and by the numbers. On repeat playthroughs, I did come to appreciate Guest Star, Ultimate Choice and Heroes in another dimension once it came in through DLC but that was one of my biggest problems with Star Allies. The updates sorta felt like they should've been in the base game. Yes it was all free but the game I bought at launch didn't feel like what I payed for until 6 months after I bought it. Along with not getting any of the side modes until after you beat story mode, Star Allies has a really bad 5 hour long first impression. It's not really that Star Allies is a bad game, it's just that the series was on a pretty hot streak especially after Robobot so it was somewhat of a downgrade. Star Allies to me is a celebration game that puts a lot of effort into celebration and not enough into game in my opinion.

I think it was disappointing because it came after planet robobot and expectations were high…..void will forever haunt my nightmares

I played star allies this year. Only the main game is underwhelming, but every thing else is amazing. Lore, Guess star mode, ultimate choice, playable characters, heroes from another dimension are great things. Luckily i bought the game this year. Because I understand how underwhelming the game was at launch

1.51 why are these fellas on low resolution?

As a person who's favorite game in the series is star allies, I don't see why people are always judging the game for something it's not. It's not supposed to be a rtdl 4 or a robobot 2, I don't even consider it in the same group as those games because it's just so incredibly different in terms of what it's setting out to do. People always criticize the Story Mode for being to short and easy (Which is an especially weird one considering Forgotten Land is easier), but that was by design. The devs quite literally said that the story mode was only the beginning of the game and you haven't even truly started it until you beat it. It's handholdy and short so it can show you how the game works so you can be better at where the intentional meat of the game is, Guest Star, Ultimate Choice, and Heroes. These modes are easily Kirby at its best, 2nd best extra modes where you play as other characters (Magolor Epilogue clears everything), and the most difficult content in any Kirby game. And with so many different characters with paths that change with each one in guest star, there's just so much to do and with the best selection of copy abilities and characters, it's just mindless fun for hours on end. It's a celebration of the series that is filled with so much soul and heart at every corner. When it comes to the dlc, honestly it's better that they did it that way, from interviews, a lot of the content in the game now would be no where near as good as it was otherwise, heroes wouldn't exist, the custom maps in guest star probably wouldn't, and certain characters would be no where near as polished, this is due to the devs ideas changing and them listening to feedback on the game's weak points, which wouldn't be able to be done if it released with everything all at once. For people that dislike it despite all this, that's absolutely fine! It's a completely different Kirby experience with no other game being anything like it, so of course it's not gonna be everybody's cup of tea, but that does not mean it's a bad game by any metric. It's a fantastic one that achieved what it set out to do perfectly.

6:13 I think I remember the name of the friend star differently, I thought it was called the friendship at fi- wait is that for magolor?

Let's be real for a moment, kirby star allies is one of, if not the only game where you get boss characters with basically the same stats as their boss counter part. Actually I'd say they're more powerful due to the nuclear amounts of damage. Btw what's your favorite dream friend, mine's susie since she's absolutely busyed and can resist one shot movies when inside her mech.

Personally I feel like the game definitely had the *potential* to be the best in the series by far

This game is not great, or bad. It is just good. And honestly, it is a little overhated. But you have to admit, the final boss is no less than amazing.

I sort of agree that star allies is a 7.5/10; it does a lot of things well, but isn’t an amazing game. Personally I like it a bit more than that, and love it as a couch co-op game, but completely understand why the reviews are how they are

Star allies may arguably fall into the "finish it later" category of games, but in its defense, it is probably one of the only games in such category to actually feel sufficiently "complete" after the updates. It is still the weakest of the "rtdl formula" games (Arguably. I know some people still put this above rtdl for having the improvements to the formula the later games perfected but rtdl was my personal favorite kirby game so im a bit biased) in my opinion but that doesnt mean star allies is a bad game at all and i still had lots of fun with the game

I don't get why everyone thinks Kirby and the forgotten land introduced Kirby to 3D, that was Kirby 3D blowout blast.

kirby star allies isn’t a bad game imo, it was just too easy and felt underwhelming on release day. i still enjoy it, but compared to planet robobot it was really mediocre

oh noooo, a game for kids is easy and runs at 30 fps, how hooorible. honestly, it shouldn't matter how difficult a game is, or how high a framerate it hits. it just needs to be fun.

multplay getting in the way of the solo experience

Star allies may not be the best game in the franchise (planet robobot will forever be my goat) I'm quite fond of it, as it allowed me to get my younger sibling really into kirby with me, so I'll thank it for that much

This game was made for true Kirby fans!

It's overhated I only thought it was bad because I didn't have the game but the game is super underrated. It's the worst mainline modern Kirby game sure but like worst is still good.

I recently tried replaying the game, but I stopped. Not because the game is bad, it's great, I just REALLY wanted to play Rhythm Heaven Fever. Also I'm kinda going through a thing, and trying to replay a game only makes that thing worse. I'll probably go back and finish my replay in the future, once I'm out of my rut.

For me, this game is a mix of some high highs and low lows. I find this game to have very forgettable levels, the main gimmick feels very gimmicky and not very fun as you stated earlier, and a very forgettable soundtrack aside from a few songs like hyness unhooded. This game has some of my least favourite subgames as well. Though I always did have fun experimenting with elemental abilities and playing as the dream friends in general. Some of the bosses are also a pretty fun challenge to take on.

Also I’m trying to solo soul melter EX with only the secret friend from the final update

I love these Kirby games!

I personnally wouldn't say its great but its defenitely overhated.

I forgor to mention this in my original comment but isn’t this the game where it mentioned Kirby being a god. Game is a 8/10 not bad but it could be better

What do you mean people don't talk about this enough? I've heard people talk about it plenty when talking about Kirby games.

I mean … I found it cool that the other followers from Kirby superstar returned … but … it just felt … not satisfying to go through everything in the game cause you always needed a bunch of allies by your back to make progression, even then the game itself isn’t that hard. Sure it was cool to see everything first hand but after a while it’s just … dissatisfying

they say its bad because of 4 players i say its bad because its expensive we are not the same AND you better 100% it not YOU really, i meant the people who bought this game for 60$

I am just going to say it, Star Allies is mid and every time I replay it, I get so sleepy not to mention, the only thing that makes the game GOOD is the playable characters in the game like fricking Dark Meta Knight is in this game, and that's like one of the top 10 reasons why people wanted to play Star Allies, because "DaRk MeTa KnIgHt Is CoOl!" yea it's honestly sad how this is why Star Allies is even playable... it's the characters...

This game made me swear to not play another Kirby game I hated it so much. The absolute worst of the "modern kirby formula". Thankfully HAL proved they still have some good left in them with Forgotten Land, but I'm not expecting much.

Best game in the franchise wdym dude