I never imagined in 2019 that Kirby Star: Discovery would be the only game I've ever played 100% in three years.
From the afternoon to the middle of the night, I thought "play a little more and go to sleep", and I ended up playing until dawn. In the end, I couldn't stay up and go to sleep, and before I fell asleep, my last thought was "get up early tomorrow and play." Kirby star: Discovery is the only game in nearly three years that has given me this feeling, and the last game like this was Super Mario: Odyssey.
While analyzing why a game is fun is a bit of a chore and a bit of an afterthought, I must blow up Kirby of the Stars: Discoveries with reason.
Because it's so good.
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A game that both little kids and older kids love
It is difficult to achieve "easy to get started, difficult to master", and contrary to many people's intuition, "easy to get started" is more difficult to do.
It's relatively easy to make the game difficult and fun, because the challenge itself is fun, such as the I Wanna series, or dig the ground to rise, in fact, it is not particularly good from the perspective of the quality of the level design, but the hellish difficulty will still attract the players of Jitter M.
It's easy to make the game simple, but it's hard to make it simple and fun.
Let's start with how easy Kirby Star: Discovery is.
The game has two difficulties, simple and difficult, I play wild mode (that is, Hardmode) to complete the level, but even if it is Hardmode, if you just want to play through the week, it is not difficult at all.
The tradition of the Kirby of the Star series is that it can fly in the sky for a long time, and this game is no exception. This setting gives the player almost unlimited possibility of skipping class, and the front is a bit more strange? Fly over; the ground is full of spikes? Fly over; the platform can't jump around? Just fly over.
Mistakes will not fall
Another traditional skill is that you can swallow the enemy, most of the enemies can be swallowed in one bite, the range of swallowing is very large, after swallowing the enemy, you can also copy the special ability of the enemy, considering the low attack power of the mob, basically no threat to us. Not only that, the development team also considered the visual error problem that may exist under the 3D perspective in great detail, so it was specially optimized, and in this game, "even if it is not actually hit, as long as you feel that it hits, it will really hit."
It's not like you're good at marksmanship
The only slightly more difficult thing is the boss battle, but in this game, compared to the huge bosses with fancy moves, the pink, round and rolling Kirby is actually more like the Big Devil.
If you like to be reckless, you can use this harmless looking toy hammer to perform a small hammer hammer blood strip disappearance technique for the BOSS:
BOSS: What happened to the kidneys?
If you raise the toy hammer to the full level and take a drug with more attack power, most bosses are one or two charge hammers.
If you like to play Yin, you can use the Blizzard Ice this truancy artifact, in addition to the rare defensive moves, 90% of the BOSS moves in this game, as long as you hold down the defense button, you can 360 degrees invincible defense without dead angles.
Laugh to death, not shed blood at all
Just press and hold! No blood at all! Even if the boss hits kirby in the defensive state, it will in turn take collision damage!
So what's so fun about a game with such a low difficulty? In fact, the answer is already written on the name of the game - explore, discover.
The first is the delightful scene design. In this game, there are 6 levels in a week, each level scene is completely different, grassland, coast, amusement park, snowy mountains, wilderness, volcano, each level can give you a new visual enjoyment.
Sunny forest
With the performance of the Switch, this picture is really good
And as you progress through the level, you'll keep unlocking new special abilities. There are 12 different special abilities in the game, and each special ability has 2-4 different variants. You'll always be looking forward to what the next unlocked ability will be, and what different effects will evolve after finding the blueprint.
At the beginning, you get basic abilities such as swords, throwing knives, and bombs.
After that, there will be tornadoes, laser guns, dragons, and time stops.
Who wouldn't want to become a cool dragon?
Love comes too quickly like a tornado
There is even the ability to "pull out" the bed anytime and anywhere, and sleep upside down.
Sleep anywhere
And the new addition of "stuffed mouth" in this game is even more interesting to explode, and the "Star Carby" that was fired out of the circle before is estimated to have been seen by everyone.
There are a total of 13 different "stuffed mouth" gameplay in the game, although the mechanism is relatively simple, but it is really weird and cute, ah, one of my favorite is the light bulb stuffed mouth and water balloon stuffed mouth these two ways.
Watching Kirby turn into a light bulb and walk upside down is that the corners of his mouth will unconsciously appear aunt smile, and When he tries to shine, Kirby will wave his small hand, this detail is really cute.
The first time I saw a water balloon stuffed with my mouth, I was shocked, it was so cute! And the pink skin will become a little lighter after Kirby is enlarged, which is very detailed.
Playing is also uncompressed to no, and it is inexplicable to wash away all the dirty things.
At the end of the week, there will be a Star Truck than this very outrageous but very reasonable form.
Discover different special abilities, discover different mouth-stuffed forms, and these alone will allow you to regain the whimsical and playful fun of childhood.
And the game's hidden exploration elements in the level are the most interesting and reasonable design I have ever seen.
In the game, each level only needs to reach the bottom of the level to rescue the three Wadou Rudi in the cage, but there are hidden extra objectives to complete in each level.
The wonderful thing is that when you play for the first time, except for the extra targets that rescued the extra wadou rudi, which is the extra target that all the levels have, the rest of the extra targets are displayed as question marks, and you need to try what you need to do. Rather than telling you what to do at the beginning, this design always makes the process of breaking through the level always full of surprises.
And you only need to go through the level with a curiosity, and you can always naturally find those hidden elements.
Through the element of gaps and cracks to hint at the basic operation of the hidden road, let's talk about the fun hidden elements.
When you meet a duckling and find that it will follow you, you will naturally walk past when you see the duckling again, and walking with a group of ducklings, you will see the mother duck, and after sending the duckling over, you have completed a hidden goal.
After seeing an animal-shaped snowman in the snow and subconsciously breaking it, a hint of hidden target pops up on the screen: 4 more snowmen can be broken to complete the hidden goal.
After turning into a water balloon and filling your mouth, you will encounter some wilted flowers, and naturally I wanted to try to see what would happen to the flowers with water, and the flowers really bloomed, and after making all the flowers bloom, congratulations on completing another hidden goal.
And if there are hidden targets that you really haven't found, the next time you pass this level, the game will give you a hint, and one of the best ones is "Swim!" "Broad Beach" This level has a hidden goal of "restoring the words of kanban". At first I couldn't find where the kanban board was, but after trying it twice, I suddenly found that the billboard in the following scene was missing a letter, and Kirby could just turn into a circle full of mouth next to it, and with the idea of trying it out, Kirby, who looked like the letter "O", stood in the position of the missing letter, and it really happened to be like this, which was one of the happiest moments in the game.
Almost all the hidden elements that need to be discovered to achieve 100% clearance in the game have extremely reasonable hints and guidance at the level of level design. It's not hard to put hidden elements in the game level, but it's a really, really remarkable thing to make all the hidden elements so that players can naturally discover them, even if they don't look at the raiders.
As long as you have a curiosity, the game will reward you, and this design is really wonderful.
Not only is the level design full of surprises, but in addition to some small games that can be challenged, there are small details that make people laugh.
For example, In Kirby's cabin, if you don't want to go through the front door, you can also learn Santa Claus to enter the house through the chimney.
Press the cross button on Wadou Rudi in the town to greet them, and Wadou Rudi will respond to you warmly. Of course, there are times when Wadou Rudi, who is sleeping or reading a book, will focus on what is at hand and ignore your presence, which some more crumb players will do:
via B站up主 -Day_
The core idea of the Kirby star series is that anyone can enjoy it, even a three-year-old child, as long as they can press the controller, they can make the game go on. And "Kirby of the Stars: Exploration and Discovery" carries this concept to the fullest.
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"Child Ring" under pink packaging
The above are all easy to use parts, so where is the difficulty of mastery?
Then we have to mention the three traditions of the Kirby of the Star series: the Two Weeks, the Arena, and the Full Collection.
Although the second week of the eye reused the week of the level scene, but the experience is completely different, the strength of the enemy is fully upgraded, the mechanism is more complex, you have to be proficient in the use of all the skills learned in the week to pass the level.
In the course of the two weeks, you need to collect 40-50 souls of the Lion King in each level, and the game's clever weak guide is also played to the extreme here. I found almost all the souls in the course of the second week, and before each scene passed, you will be prompted whether all the collection is complete, and the missed ones can basically go back and scan again to find the places that were ignored before.
The arena is a continuous challenge boss gameplay, divided into three difficulties, the first two difficulties are just warm-up, the final ultimate cup Z is the real challenge, all bosses appear in hidden form, with new moves and greatly enhanced speed.
In the final battle, you will also encounter the hidden form of the final boss in the game, which is also the biggest obstacle on the way for most players to collect all.
When it comes to the final hidden boss, congratulations on opening the "Ring kirby" or "Child Ring" mode. Boss's dark style and cool moves to the point of having no friends will make you wonder about life: Am I really playing Kirby of the Stars?
But even for the game's hardest boss, the game is very kind to provide a way for handicapped players (like me) who want to complete 100% of the level. First of all, the arena can also use BUFF props, double health, attack bonus, movement speed bonus can be fully pulled.
And then remember what we said earlier about holding down the defense is about equal to the invincible truancy artifact blizzard frozen? This thing actually has a more non-martial usage. The arena can also be challenged by two people, and in the double mode, 2P can be revived indefinitely when it dies.
So the picture of my passing through the most difficult arena is actually like this: I use 1P to press the defense all the way, except for a few defense breaking skills, which is basically equivalent to hanging up. Then my wife operates the 2P spear Wadou Rudi, because it can be resurrected indefinitely, so there is no need to consider defense at all, that is, rushing up to the boss's attack is to give him a beating, dead resurrection and then go up and beat him. With this routine, I played the hardest hidden boss in the game completely, and the amount of health was still full.
Of course, this gua sha routine requires a hundred million points of patience:
Touching clearance time
While the "hard-to-master" of Star Kirby is certainly relatively simple compared to the Soul series, it is challenging enough for most players. If you don't believe me, you can try to challenge the treasure road to reach the target time, and you will know that the target time is not necessary for 100% clearance.
Unlike the ordeal experience of grudgingly doing it for the sake of full collection of obsessive-compulsive disorder, in Kirby of the Stars: Discovery, every second in the 100% collection process is fun. (Of course, the player may feel differently)
True hidden boss
If there's one game that's easier to pick up and harder to master than Star Kirby: Discovery, it's Nintendo Smash Bros. Brawl, and if you think about it, the creators of both series are Masahiro Sakurai, and everything makes sense.
The most conspicuous pink demon in the crowd
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The strongest "open and hang game" in history
Finally, let's recycle the title, if you have carefully read all the above descriptions, you should agree that Kirby star: Discovery is a game that "comes with its own plug-in".
A hammer can kill the boss, the defense is 360 degrees invincible, the enemy can eat it in one bite, and the platform that was supposed to jump can fly over... Everything gives you the feeling that the pink demon in your hand is the god in the game.
And I've experienced this feeling in another game that can't be beaten by eight rods, that is, to give him love series.
One is a child-oriented game, and the other is an adult-oriented play, but in the "I am God in the game", they coincide.
I believe that in addition to the plot mode, most of the players' favorite thing to do in giving him love is to play a five-star good citizen. Look at which car is robbed and leave, see who is upset and pull out the arsenal, even the seemingly aggressive police are actually just to avoid you being too bored to cooperate with you to play a chase drama, after all, driving into the paint spot or changing clothes can make the police lose their memory in situ. Aside from Sin City's remote control planes, there's nothing stopping you from being God in this game.
It's no coincidence that these two seemingly unrelated games coincide in terms of core experience.
In 1995, a studio called DMA Design made a game called Kid Kirby for the Kirby Star series, but the project was canceled and not released. If you're unfamiliar with the name DMA Design, you know the name of the studio later—
Rockstar North, yes, is the studio that developed the Love For Him series.
Fate is so full of wonderful coincidences.
And that goes back to the problem, it's a very, very difficult thing to get the player to play God in the game like a hook, but not boring.
After all, opening and hanging, or using a modifier, will often ruin the game experience quickly, and if you are a "victim" of the Golden Mountain Ranger like me, you will definitely feel the same.
If you can do the player in the game has the same experience as "open and hang", but still think it is fun, it must be a great game, give him love to do it, star Kirby: Exploration and Discovery also did it.
The secret is also very simple, that is, to use exquisite gameplay design and hundreds of millions of details to stimulate the player's most primitive instincts. In giving him love, this instinct is destruction, and in Kirby of the Stars: Discovery, this instinct is exploration and discovery.
Today I happened to see a video uploaded by a rural teacher named "Rural Zhang Laoshi" at Station B, who bought his daughter a game cartridge for "Star Kirby: Exploration and Discovery", and then used his mobile phone to record the process of her daughter taking the courier, unpacking and playing the game.
This video doesn't have much complicated editing techniques, and in the shaky shots, we see a child's heartfelt joy after getting a game cartridge.
This may be the charm of Nintendo.
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Creativity does not die
Finally, I would like to conclude with a passage made by Satoshi Iwata, the former president of Nintendo, in an interview in 1999:
I think the gaming media today has become very pessimistic. When reading game reviews, I want them to talk about what makes a game stand out, rather than just focusing on the flaws, they love looking for flaws in the game. But no obvious flaws don't make a game fun; even a flawless game can be boring. So I think it's better to have a great idea than to pursue everything.
In addition, I also think that today's games are too inclined to put players in a passive state, they will reward players with cutscenes on the progress of the game, like saying "Hey, you want to see the next wonderful movie we do, right, let's get through this level first" Eventually the player will feel like a developer's little errand, I don't want to make this kind of game, but I hope that the player can find a way to enjoy the game, I know this will make certain demands on the player, but if the whole industry goes down this road, Turning the game into a simple process of collecting rewards, making the gameplay pale and routine, turning the focus of development to doing everything in the game, not making mistakes, if we go down this road, it will only go down the way, and all the games will eventually become exactly the same, boring to the extreme.
So let's extoll new ideas and different ideas.
This passage of 20 years ago, put in today's day, is still so deafening.
How pleased would it be if Mr. Satoshi Iwata could see for himself that 20 years later, Kirby of the Stars: Discovery is still carrying out his philosophy of play.
Respect