Kirby: Canvas Curse review for the DS

Review by: GCNMatt

Kirby: Canvas Curse for the Nintendo DS, is the first legitimate new game for the DS. What I mean is, it isn’t a hastily compilation of brief mini-games, a tech demo, nor is it a remake of an older game. This game has real levels to explore through, and bosses to tackle in an all out battle to the death. However, with Kirby’s recent track record, there hasn’t been a great game from him since Kirby Super Star for the SNES in my opinion. Will Kirby: Canvas Curse bring retribution to this franchise, or will it continue to do what Kirby does best, suck.

Now when you hear the word curse, you often think it is some evil demographic involving plagues, death, and Halloween specials. This isn’t quite true with Canvas Curse. The story involves an evil witch that turns Kirby into a ball, and is causing chaos throughout Dreamland. Now Kirby must stop her, but he can’t do anything without his legs and arms. So then, Kirby is given a magic paintbrush that he can use to draw paths and loops to overcome the challenges he’ll encounter, which is where you’ll come in.

You do not use the buttons or control pad in this game, everything is done with the touch screen. You can control Kirby by simply touching him with the stylus. Doing so will enable him to roll briefly. Repeatedly touching him will cause him to roll faster and kill enemies, which requires you to touch the enemy prior to contact. You can also break blocks that are in you way by touching them. The other screen is neglected and its general purpose is to provide you with a map, which displays your current location. As with the other Kirby games, Kirby is unequipped with weapons, so he must suck and inhale special enemies by rolling into them, thus giving him their abilities. You can expect Kirby’s regular abilities to be present in the game: Beam, Fire, Ice, Rock, Tornado, etc.

Using these techniques in combination with the paintbrush is where the fun and difficulty of the game come into play. You can lead Kirby up hills by drawing upward ramps with your stylus, and it’s the same story when you want him to go downhill by drawing downward ramps. The lines act like escalators depending on which direction you’re drawing them. So if you were going uphill, and you were drawing a downwards line, Kirby won’t go anywhere. Being the superior lefty that I am, I had a hard time with this, since I normally draw from right to left. You can also draw loops, and make Kirby act like Sonic the Hedgehog and roll at super fast speeds.

The difficulty comes from having to use the lines to avoid hazards such as lava, spikes, and rows of high voltage broken circuits that give you just barely enough room to squeeze through. In addition, you only have a limited amount of ink to draw lines with, and the hard part comes from running out of ink while avoiding all these obstacles. Sometimes, you won’t be able to draw lines, because you are under a waterfall, and the ink washes away, so you must strategize how you’ll get across platforms while under these circumstances. Ironically, you can draw lines while underwater, so I don’t understand why those lines aren’t washed away. Your ink refills slowly as you travel along the lines and refills much faster when on the ground, but most of the time you’ll be in the air, so be in for a challenge.

One can expect to see these challenges often throughout the levels that they’ll inevitably encounter. The levels are fairly lengthy; the levels are separated by three to five areas, with a bonus challenge at the end. Throughout the levels, you’ll collect star points, which are like your typical platforming collectable, collect 100 star points and you’ll gain an extra life. In addition, you can find the three medals that are hidden in every level. You can use these medals to unlock special features like sound tests, and different painting lines (instead of the default rainbow line, you can have a zebra line.) There are three levels to each world, and after completing the third level you are treated to a boss battle. The boss battles come in one of the three varieties.

One boss battle involves Kirby acting like a pinball, and he’ll bounce off walls defeating enemies, and you can direct him by drawing lines that act like paddles. You’ll eventually make it to Kracko, the huge thundercloud with an eyeball, and you must penetrate through his cloud exterior to damage his eye.

Next, there’s a race with Kirby’s nemesis, King De De De. The race is very similar to the Gourmet Race game from Kirby Super Star, where you’re trying to win the race while also gobbling up the most food. You are both in mine carts, or some similar vehicle (that’s what it looked like for me,) and you can draw Kirby’s path towards the food with the stylus. As you collect the food, you’ll move faster, but there are also random enemies and King De De De’s hammer throwing that will try to affect your chance at victory.

Finally, there’s a boss battle that is best described as the **BLEEP** child of connect the dots and electronic Simon. Your foe, Yo-yo Gim, will run through a specified path of dots, and you must draw the path exactly as he did it, and sometimes the game doesn’t respond to your drawing so you have to do it again. While doing this, you are being pursued by slow-walking bombs, so you must work quickly and carefully. After completing all the challenges, Gim will explode for no apparent reason and you’ll be victorious.

The boss battles and gameplay both look great, despite that they aren’t in 3D; instead, the game utilizes sprites for the characters. Kirby: Canvas Curse looks identical to its GBA counterparts, which isn’t a bad thing, since sprites work well for handheld games. But they seemed underwhelming compared to the awesome soundtrack this game offers. The music consists of remixed and updated versions of music from previous Kirby games. The most noticeable were the Bubbly Clouds and Floating Island themes, but there was no Green Greens theme to be found. The sound effects are what you expect from Kirby; various bleeps and bloops. Nonetheless, the sound for the game is solid.

In closing, HAL Laboratories has delivered a hit with Kirby: Canvas Curse, and it should prepare you for the wave of upcoming games for the DS. In my opinion, this is currently the best game for the DS, and should keep you occupied longer than six hours, which the rest of the DS library fails to do so (except for Super Mario 64 of course).

-GCNMatt

Concept: Guide the Pink Panther’s left testicle by drawing lines through a great adventure.

Graphics: The sprites work well for this type of game.

Sound: Updated versions of Kirby themes that will get stuck in your head.

Playability: Drawing lines to guide Kirby is not a problem, exhausting your paintbrush ink is where the difficulty comes in.

Entertainment: I had a peculiar infatuation with touching a pink ball, and you will too.

Replay Value: Moderately High

BOTTOM LINE: 9

Kirby! You sure have let yourself go this time!