BlooMoon's review of Kirby & The Amazing Mirror.

After years, I finally got to experience this game’s multiplayer. And wow, I can’t believe how ahead of its time it was. Emulate this on Switch with online play, and the format feels like something that would release as a fresh and new idea today. It’s kind of silly that they included this rom as part of the 3DS ambassador program. Even if it did support local play, which I don’t think it did, so few people had a chance to download it. For that reason, I’ve waited a long time to play this game in multiplayer as intended. Thanks to Nintendo’s lackluster online subscription, that dream can finally come true. Kind of. Believe it or not, this game is pretty unforgiving as far as Kirby goes. It’s very difficult to navigate these levels to avoid getting hit and keep your power up. And the noticeable lag of NSO turns this from difficult to impossible. After our first session, we agreed it would be better for one of us to drive 2 hours to play locally instead. So, the “Online” in NSO isn’t really doing its job. Still, this is the best form this game has been officially rereleased in, which should be commended. This game is a super interesting blend of normal Kirby gameplay and a sprawling metroidvania map. Except Kirby theoretically has every key for every door via copy abilities. There are always these sort of puzzles that require a specific ability to open an extra area or find a collectible. But in this game, these puzzles are used to find the paths to bosses and level goals. It’s an amazingly natural evolution of Kirby level design, that feels very familiar but also brand new. It also feels like an iteration / remix of The Great Cave Offensive from Super Star. The setup is also fantastic in how much freedom it affords the player(s). You can beat the whole thing yourself, or team up with others. You can explore the map in whatever order you like. You can travel together, helping each other out, or split up to cover more ground. For our playthrough, we covered most of the areas together, then started reviewing which rooms on the map were unexplored and making a plan to split up and tackle different portions. It was fun doing your own thing and then suddenly being called in to help with a boss fight across the map. It’s also not too long, and can be finished in two or three sittings. Overall, a very enjoyable experience. I’ve been playing through a lot of Kirby games and the GBA / early DS games are my only real blind spot at this point. It’s awesome to go back and see a unique era of the series, witnessing both how it’s evolved since earlier games and set things up that improved in later games. I understand why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and I certainly don’t want every Kirby game to be formatted like this. But as a standalone thing, I really appreciate this game’s willingness to experiment, and I would be super open to an “Amazing Mirror 2” being released in the current era. I highly recommend getting some friends together to play through this game.