Kirby Star Allies review roundup: Everything is better with friends

It's been a big year for Kirby so far. Back in January, 3DS owners received Kirby Battle Royale, which put an interesting spin on the long running franchise. The game that's arriving later this week, Kirby Star Allies, is more of a traditional Kirby adventure and the first in the series crafted for Nintendo Switch. Is Kirby's new game as successful as the (mostly) amazing first-party titles Nintendo has been churning out for the Switch?

Though Kirby Star Allies won't arrive for a couple more days – it releases on March 16 – reviews have started going live today. Unfortunately, the reviews that have been published thus far seem to suggest that Kirby Star Allies doesn't quite knock it out of the park in the same way that games like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey did.

That doesn't necessarily mean that Kirby Star Allies is a bad game, however. At the time of this writing, it's currently holding down a rating of 74 out of 100 over on Metacritic, which is based on 40 different reviews and signifies "mixed or average" reception. The main grievance seems to be that Kirby Star Allies doesn't do a whole lot to shake up the Kirby formula, and what it does may not be enough be enough when we've been waiting so long for a new Kirby title on consoles.

Of course, that's only a problem if you don't already enjoy Kirby's core gameplay loop. Indeed, even though Destructoid's Chris Carter says that Kirby Star Allies is "par for the course," he rates the game 9/10, noting that it's "cute, gorgeous in its own special way, and fun to play." It's hard to ask for more than that out of a Kirby game.

Some of the more middling reviews mention difficulty as a sticking point. Game Informer's Kyle Hilliard rated the game 6.25/10 and wrote that while the game has a great soundtrack and a lot of polish, it ultimately failed to offer much of a challenge. HAL's effort, he says, "ultimately amounts to a forgettable adventure that demands so little from the player that I sometimes felt like I was barely involved at all."

Most things in life are better with friends, and Kirby Star Allies are no different. Most reviewers seemed to enjoy the game's four-player co-op mode regardless of the final score they gave it, so if you have some friends to play with, this game could definitely be a good buy. If you're planning on playing alone, however, it might be a good idea to dig a little deeper and figure out if you'll enjoy Kirby Star Allies despite its problems.