Kirby Battle Royale Demo Impressions

Nintendo’s pink puffball hero Kirby has been in a lot of games for the 3DS. Most Kirby games are platformers, but we did see a free-to-play fighting game called Team Kirby Clash Deluxe for the system too. And this month Kirby will be in another fighting game for the 3DS: Kirby Battle Royale! Nintendo released a demo for the game yesterday and I wanted to share my first impressions of it. Is the Kirby Battle Royale demo any good?

I usually feel very positive about Nintendo games in general and I am fan of Kirby’s games. I even thought that Kirby’s free-to-play game Team Kirby Clash Deluxe was not bad. Generally though, I think Kirby works best as a platformer. So what do I think of the Kirby Battle Royale demo?

Well, first of all, the graphics in the demo are really good. I like the slightly cel-shaded look to the characters and the environments are good. Even the over-head view for the gameplay is nice.

That said, the actual demo content is extremely lacking. You get to play the intro to the game, which I liked a lot (it had a lot of platforming), and then you can play a mini-game, apple collecting, or one-off battles with computer controlled opponents or with other players locally. The game does have online but its not available in the demo. There is more to the story too, but you just have a tiny intro segement to play. Even worse is that the demo limits how many times you can play it in a day.

The demo gives you “demo tickets”. Basically, each time you play a single player or multiplayer mini-game or battle you use a ticket. You only have so many tickets and so will have to wait to another day to play the demo again. I’m not sure why this was done because I can see only playing the mini game or battles so much anyway. The content is so limited and then they limit how you can play that content. Thats pretty lame in my opinion.

I wish this demo had focused on showing off the story mode a bit more. The preview for the full game looked cool, but the demo itself doesn’t really sell Kirby Battle Royale to me. There is some more unlockable content in the demo, I think, but I’m not sure I really feel like playing the demo anymore.

Yes, the apple collecting mini-game is fun. The battles are fun too. However, Kirby Battle Royale just feels like another free-to-play experiance. At least thats the vibe the demo is giving off. In fact though, Kirby Battle Royale is a $39.99 game. I’m just not sure the game is actually worth that much though.

From what I can tell, the full game has a story mode, online, single-player mini-games, battles, and unlockables. That seems like a lot of content. So maybe the full game will be worth the asking price. But the demo feels too much like a cheaper game and not enough like a full Kirby experience. I wish I felt more positive about this game…

What do you think of Kirby Battle Royale? Have you played the demo? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Kirby Battle Royale comes out on January 19th, 2017 for the 3DS.

Note: if you plan on buying the game, you can transfer some save data from the demo over to the full game. Like Meta Knight! Now that is cool.