Kirby art of art Kirby.

Game Info.

Genre Action (2D platformer)

Publisher/Developer Nintendo/Hal Laboratory

Release 6/05

As usual, things are going great in Dream Land until someone of pure and utter evil comes in, this time a witch, to ruin everything. This witch also happens to be artistic - EVIL artistic - so she (like Bowser before her in at least two Yoshi games) turns Kirby's homeworld into a painting. Rather than living with the awesome change in style and some of the finest looking backgrounds ever, Kirby decides to put an end to this treachery in an all new adventure, Kirby Canvas Curse for the DS.

Gameplay
The real catch to Kirby Canvas Curse is that it's the first side-scroller that plays entirely on the touchscreen. The evil witch has put Kirby permanently in his ball form to roll around for an eternity, unable to exact his revenge on her for messing up his world. Just after she makes her escape, though, Kirby finds the magical brush with which she performed said destruction. It's up to YOU to paint paths for Kirby to roll on so that he can... platform for 22 stages. Come on, that's gotta' be good enough for a side-scroller premise! :)
Removing Kirby's abilities to jump, fly around, and suck up enemies is at least as extreme as would be removing Mario's ability to jump or Link's to use his sword. This looks pretty bad on paper, I know, but it allows for an entirely new game that you just couldn't have played otherwise. True, Nintendo could have made and maybe someday should make a more traditional platformer for the DS, but for now I feel it's important for the system to have its own animal - let it be a different system before you go down the same roads traveled for over two decades.
The levels you play through are full of flavor. From the hilly countryside to the haunted mansions to the throats of volcanoes, you won't find too much monotony. The enemies and obstacles are for the most part very typical for a game of this sort, but naturally, with the unorthodox controls, gettind around them is something brand new. This isn't always a blast, actually. Frustration often prevents me from staying in the game. Thankfully, you get a choice between the three levels in each world - it doesn't have to be played entirely linearly. Touches like this are refreshing.
Besides story mode is a fantastic extra; Rainbow Run mode, in which you can play a small section of each level in either record time or with the least amount of path-drawing. It may not sound like much, but Rainbow Run is fun. It's precisely the kind of thing more handheld adventure games should include - shorter, quicker versions of the epic story mode to squeeze into your on-the-go gamer lifestyle. I'm completely in-love with this feature.
8/10

Control
More than any other game, even any other Kirby game, Canvas Curse reminds me of the Japan-only Super Famicom title Mario & Wario in which you played as a fairy guiding a blinded hero (either Yoshi, Mario, or Peach) through a series of traps and platorm stages. The feeling of detachment from the main character is something unsettling that you find in both games and is pretty much unique to them. Unlike Mario & Wario, however, Canvas Curse makes the hero a little less vulnerable by giving him some ability to affect his surroundings. Whether this works or not is hard for me to decide. The dash move Kirby performs when you tap on him is more useful for maneuvering than for attack purposes. Unlike some reviewers, I find it very useful and well-designed, despite its multi-purpose feel. Kirby Air Ride also had controls that played off of one interface (in that game's case, the A button, and in this game's, the touch screen), and I'm starting to enjoy the flavor that brings to the table. The only problem is that when Kirby dashes through an enemy with a certain skill, he copies that ability (akin to the way he usually sucks up such an enemy to gain its abilities), so when you then tap him, he uses that ability instead of performing the basic dash. To compensate for the loss of the dash, most copy abilities now also move Kirby around a little bit, but it can definitely be more of a hinderance than help to have copied an ability in this game. This here is really a shame. Copy abilities are Kirby's main thing, and to see them so muddled up in this latest game is somewhat of a letdown. A few copy abilities, like the rocket ship and balloon powers, are however very useful and fit the gameplay quite nicely, so it's not all a waste.
Because Kirby is so bouncy, getting him to follow the paths you draw is trying, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness. If Kirby stuck to the paths a little more, for instance, if he felt attracted to them the way Mario was to the bungee cords in Mario Sunshine, I think this would've been a much more enjoyable game. In places where the ceiling is covered in lava or spikes, and ESPECIALLY in swimming levels, I basically just get tired of playing, and it's all but entirely the cause of Kirby's bounciness.
6/10

Graphics
The hand-painted, hand-drawn, and hand-doodled backgrounds are even more fantastic-looking in this game than in Kirby's two GBA titles. I don't know what it is with Kirby games and backgrounds, but they're without a doubt the prettiest in any major platforming series.
While the game is sprite-based, it looks very smooth, showcasing the DS's supreme 2D capabilities. As long as 2D games keep looking this good, I won't mind if we don't see more 3D enhancements on this system's games.
8/10

Sound
The music is fantastic, albeit mostly recycled from old Kirby games. At least the new ways they're remixed are cool. For instance, the ice cream land song from Kirby's Adventure, I believe, is used in a futuristic level and remixed to sound techno. Nice touch.
9/10

Replay Value
While the game is somewhat short overall, the learning curve is huge. As much as the word "innovative" gets thrown around, DS touchpad games are so much so that they take a long time and a real dedication to get used to. This game punishes you for fucking up, too - there's very little leeway with the controls. It makes you feel like you're learning how to play games for the first time. That definitely adds to the thickness of the game you're plowing through, but it can also sometimes hinder your want to keep playing.
Red medallions are hidden throughout the levels and can also be earned in Rainbow Run. You can then use these to unlock new material for the game, such as songs in sound test, an increase in maximum health, and my personal favorite, new color schemes for your paintbrush to paint. Also, once you've beaten Story Mode, new characters from the Kirby universe in ball form are unlockable, each one with slightly different rolling speeds and weight than ball Kirby. Again the people at Hal who brought you Smash Bros. Melee and Kirby Air Ride deliver tons of unlockables, and again it boosts the replay value quite noticably.
Rainbow Run in and of itself is a great expansion to the story mode. Its arcade-like charm fits the handheld format nicely. Probably the single aspect of the game that'll keep me coming back the most.
8/10

Overall
Overall, I enjoy this game a lot and would consider it one of the DS's early greats. While it's not likely that Yoshi's Touch 'n Go will be remembered when people are transitioning to 2009's Nintendo DS 2, I think Kirby Canvas Curse will be missed. It may not be the best platformer in and of itself, and in fact it may not even be the best Kirby platformer - last year's Amazing Mirror and the earlier GBA re-release of Kirby's Adventure are much better examples of why this series is so good. But Canvas Curse is so undeniably different and bold and fits nicely in the "second wave" of DS games I've come to understand (games that use just the touchscreen), that it's hard not to grow fond of in at least some awkward sense. I won't spoil it, but the final boss battle is a perfect example of why DS games kick ass. So many fresh ideas. So much color. Definitely worth a purchase.

FINAL SCORE: 8/10
=Great=
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