• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Sacred Reviews: Kirby's Friendly Island

Intro

"Kirby's Friendly Island" is going to be a hard game to write a lengthy review for since the game itself is extremely short. Were talking about a game that can be readily beaten in under five minutes during your first play through. In fact, this game's greatest strength might be that it makes for a quick and easy game to beat if your looking for a review target late at night. Though I suppose we should start with the story.

Story

As you can probably guess by the title you play as Kirby, a classic video game character with the ability to copy other people's abilities. Though, I suppose some might best know this character for his starring role in "Kirby: Right Back at Ya!". A show that used to feature on the FoxBox, a Saturday morning cartoon block on the Fox Network. At any rate in this game our goal is to make Kirby's various friends happy by completing various short quests such as bringing King DeeDee five cupcakes to helping Rick hook up with his girlfriend.

So while there is some variety the bulk of the game is comprised of simple fetch quests where you need to locate someone or certain objects within the confines of seven maps. And most of the objects are laying out in the open.



So it's pretty hard to miss them. The only real challenge is helping Kine count. And after testing it a few times I can safely say the correct answer is always the same three numbers. Which is kind of sad since the developer could have made it a bit more difficult by having Kine generate numbers at random instead of a set pattern. Though I suppose that would make this game a little less relaxing if you have to actually count how many times he flaps his lips every time you play.

And your reward for making everyone happy is pretty lame to be honest.



After you've helped everyone you can find a pink blob in the area you started in that says "Thanks For Playing" if you interact with it. A reward that just feels lame since it means the game doesn't even include a proper end screen.

Gameplay

You run around collecting things by walking over them and interact with people by pressing the z key on your keyboard. Outside of that you have a really short mini-game about counting with Kine. That's really all there is to this one gameplay wise. There aren't any battles or epic mazes to crack. You simply need to run around collecting stuff that's less hidden then the $20 bill I found under a thorny bush recently.

Graphics

Graphically the game appears to have lifted assets from a few official games and set them to a pink palette in honor of Kirby. While I'm not sure where the Kirby sprites come from. The map tiles were most likely lifted from "The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX". While I've never managed to beat that game I'd recognize those trees anywhere.

Outside of the borrowed assets the game also tries to copy the look of a Gameboy game being played on the Super Game Boy by including a graphical border. Oddly enough I never actually used a Super Game Boy that was a little before my time. So the inclusion of a graphical border reminds me of the times I used to play Pokemon Red, Blue, or Yellow on "Pokémon Stadium".

Sound

Sound wise the game is a bit odd in that title screen lacks a background track. Outside of that the game clearly uses songs that were pulled from one of the many Kirby games. My best educated guess is "Kirby's Dream Land 2" since it features Kirby's friends on the box art.



Conclusion

I suppose this can be a brief distraction if you need a break from a game that is frustrating you for one reason or another. Outside of that I really don't see that much value in playing this one. After all, one of the worst quest types in existence are fetch quests. And this game features several of them.