With Tetris on the Game Boy puzzle titles became absolutely huge on handheld consoles. Kirby was also a very popular game and his presence was focused around Nintendo’s portable system. So what happens when you take these two popular ideas, and mix them? Kirby’s Block Ball, that’s what. Developer HAL Laboratories decided to release a Kirby themed puzzle title for the platform and the results were absolutely fantastic. It’s not particularly original however. Kirby’s Block Ball is clearly a Breakout clone. I was just happy it wasn’t another reskinned version of Puyo Puyo to be perfectly honest. Either way let’s take a look at this fast and frantic retro puzzle game. Here’s our review!
Initially I expected this to be a reskinned version of Puyo Puyo. Thankfully that’s not the case. If you aren’t familiar with Breakout then let me give you a rundown of how it plays. It’s a top down level based puzzle game that functions somewhat like pinball. You guide a paddle at the bottom of the screen but can only move it left and right. Your simple goal is to bounce a ball off of it to prevent this from reaching the bottom of the play area. When it does you lose a life and start over. Your goal is to eliminate every block in each stage. These become more technical with more diverse patterns and hazards. I’ve always been a fan of Breakout, but to be honest I expect a little more in the various clones. Especially one made by a Nintendo affiliated studio. Thankfully HAL has us covered.
As you may be able to guess Kirby himself functions as the ball. Well, sort of. During normal gameplay he isn’t his old recognizable self and just looks like a generic ball. Kirby grows and transforms into his normal persona when you perform a power hit with the paddle by pressing A just as he comes into contact with it. This speeds him up and he becomes more destructive, but the effect lasts only a short while. Then it’s back to the same old regular ball. In normal gameplay Kirby bounces off of everything. It’s always predictable thanks to the physics engine, but things can quickly become chaotic making it tough to predict where you’ll need to block it. As he continues to reflect off of blocks Kirby speeds up. The longer you last the harder it is. When you lose a life the pace is reset thankfully.
Kirby’s Block Ball has many gameplay elements that set it apart from the pack. Let’s focus on the franchise trappings first. Many of the stages are littered with staple foes from the classic Kirby games. These can’t harm Kirby, and serve only as more objects to destroy. These are different than the standard blocks because they move around. In addition, Kirby’s ability to absorb special moves of foes is also returns. There are only four of them here, and they’re pretty rare. These include the spark, stone, needle, and burn abilities. They are activated with the B button and transform Kirby and increase his destructive force. They only last a short time after being used, but can be activated an infinite number of times. That is, until you lose a life in which case you go back to using just the standard Kirby avatar.
There are also a lot of mini-games here. These include modes where you’re using your paddles to snag stars flying across the screen, another where you’re trying to guide slime enemies to the top of the screen, and more. My favorite is an air hockey mini-game where you compete against the CPU. The prizes for these are extra lives, but their real purpose is to break up the regular action and keep things fresh. I can’t lie; these are pretty entertaining and I loved their inclusion. This is one element that really hits home the classic Kirby atmosphere. My only complaint (and it’s a minor one) is that I wish we had more than just four mini-games to choose from. It is nice however that you can pick which one you’d like to play when activated.
Kirby’s Block Ball has one more major element that sets it apart from most other Breakout style puzzle titles. While by default you have the paddle which moves along the bottom of the screen some stages throw others at you. These cover the other sections of the screen. This means you can have up to four paddles to cover the bottom, top, and left/right sides of the play area. To make matters more complicated the ball can go off-sides on whichever sections of screen have a paddle in play. This means you’ll need to pay attention to the entire screen and can’t simply wait for Kirby to be returned to the bottom. Some levels feature just the top/bottom paddles, while others feature just one on the side, or both. While the gameplay for this sort of title can be repetitive this element goes a long way to keeping things fresh.
One major issue Kirby titles have long suffered from is that they’re simply too easy. While Block Ball is more challenging than a traditional franchise offering it’s still pretty easy by puzzle game standards. The fact that you can gain extra lives so easily saps away a lot of the frustration you would otherwise experience. It was rare that I had less than three extra lives on deck. There’s a high score mode which throws in some optional challenge but considering it’s a Game Boy title I didn’t have the urge to compete against myself in this regard. There are eleven different ‘worlds’ and they have five stages apiece. You can run through the entirety of Kirby’s Block Ball in around an hour. That’s actually pretty good for a Breakout clone, and this one is hugely replayable.
Puzzle games have an interesting problem on the Game Boy and other similar handhelds. The screen is small, and if the action is too difficult to see then you’re gonna have a bad time. Thankfully HAL knew this. All of the elements in place here are very easy to see. What’s more is that it’s easily recognizable as a Kirby game. The whimsical style of the franchise rears its head at every turn, and I’ve long been a huge fan of it. I also love the huge boss characters and how they too are based on classic Kirby monsters. The action animates quite smoothly considering the hardware with some decent scaling effects. Even though the action can become quite frantic (especially with the two ball power-up) the framerate holds steady. The soundtrack is also really good. The music is pure Kirby.
