Kirby: Power Paintbrush

HAL are well and truly back in the hot seat, relying upon nobody else for this instalment of one of their key franchises. As is tradition with the Kirby games, the story is one of such detail and suspense that George Orwell would be proud of it

 

If you've played and enjoyed any Kirby games in the past, you'll be right at home with the difficulty level and length of the title. Upon entering the game you are given the opportunity to partake in a brief tutorial mode to learn the basics, and after that you're on your own to tackle the main game. The levels come in sets of stages, each with three 'acts'; there is no relation between the acts in each stage, and you can tackle the three in any order you want. Once you've beaten all three acts in a stage (each ending with a mini-game where you must fire Kirby across a stretch of land as far as possible - as fun as it sounds), the next stage is opened up, with a boss battle presented at the end of each stage. In total there are seven stages, giving a total of 21 levels and a stage for the final boss in the main game

 

Since Kirby currently looks like a medicine ball, he won't be doing any walking. Instead, he rolls around the levels of his own accord. In a similar vein to Yoshi Touch & Go, you do not strictly have direct control over your character's movement, aside the odd tap on him to activate a special move (the default is the very important dash, which does as it says on the tin

 

Kirby: Power Paintbrush is an extremely fun game, which bestows a great deal of freedom upon the player while being very clear and stern about what it asks of you. At times you will definitely die repeatedly, particularly during the devilish seventh stage, but more often than not you will go back for more and think 'one more go', just because the rainbow mechanic is implemented so well. That's not to say that the game is without its faults