Impressions | Super Kirby Clash

Today I want to share with you some very quick thoughts on Super Kirby Clash after playing a handful of solo and online levels.

First of all, this is a “free to start” game, which means you can download and play it for free, but there’s always the option of speeding up progress with microtransactions. In this case, at least super early into the game, it feels quite generous with its premium currency, called gem apples, but still leaves me with a feeling of not wanting to waste a single apple. Currency can be used to purchase gear (head-gear as well as weapons) for Kirby and its AI-controlled teammates, but also consumable items and emotes that can be used in the lobby. The pricing seems all well and good, but I’m left wondering how impactful the gear is for progression and how long can I keep the same gear until having to spend more currency to continue progressing.

About the gameplay itself, that is very simple. In the 2D lobby you can basically visit the shop or take on quests. Quests are comprised of 2D fights in teams of four against a boss. The combat is pretty much a hack’n’slash of four versus one, but button mashing doesn’t seem to last long (believe me, I tried). It’s nothing too hard don’t get me wrong, but you can’t just be standing right next to the boss mashing the attack button. For that, there’s four classes - no, roles - of characters, divided into an agile sword user, a bulkier hammer-wielder, a healer and a mage. As you can probably guess, the first two are close-range types while the other two stay away of the action. To sum the combat, these roles do have a tangible impact during the fights, but the fights themselves are quite simple, it’s pretty much a matter of hitting the boss until it dies without losing too much health. There’s simply a smidgen of strategy to be had over the abilities of each role.

Lastly, I just want to bring up the quests modes. Quests can be taken on accompanied either by AI-controlled teammates, by other online players (and yes, it includes an option to search for friend sessions) or by a mix of both. Surprisingly, the online is quite good, with little to no lag and made up of straightforward menus. Good on this one Nintendo!

And that’s pretty much all I have to say for this game. If you want a game to pass the time, Super Kirby Clash is free and it’s pretty good to waste a couple of hours away. I don’t know how the currency plays up in the later stages but as usual with free to play, to start, whatever kind of freemium game, I’m always skeptic of the monetization. Luckily, Nintendo does have a good track record on its freemium games. All in all, if you want something new to download, you can spend some time with this one. One last tip: use the passwords SUPERKIRBYCLASH and GEMAPPLES to get some free gem apples ingame.

Oh, and here’s a dumb thing I edited because I always need to make Jojokes (jokes about Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures).