Kirby: Squeak Squad (DS, 2006)
A solid Kirby title, though lacking in some areas.
Nostalgia Factor: High. I’m a massive Kirby dweeb.
Difficulty: Pitifully easy. One of the easiest Kirby games in the series.
I burned through Kirby Squeak Squad in one sitting (about three hours). It's developed by Flagship, the same studio behind Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (GBA). It appears that they used the same engine (though likely modified), which closely mimics the feel of Kirby Super Star. It's at least another solid Kirby title, but this one did not impress me like Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.
Squeak Squad feels a little bit like a cash grab sequel. They reused tons of assets from The Amazing Mirror and there was not much new content other than the Squeak Squad mini-bosses and a few new abilities. There are fewer abilities overall than Amazing Mirror, and aside from “Animal,” the new abilities are nothing stellar. Like most Kirby titles, Squeak Squad is very short.
The sound effects are noticeably poor. They sound like bit-crushed Gameboy samples. I’m not sure what happened here. The sound effects from Amazing Mirror sounded just fine. Many of the levels suffer from some pretty bland level design, and the game is pitifully easy, beyond the standard level of “Kirby easy.”
Satoru Iwata, former President of HAL and also former President of Nintendo, had a simple vision for Kirby games (rest in peace, Satoru). His desire was for anyone to be able to pick up a Kirby game and play and have fun. As simple as it sounds, it’s a difficult vision to realize. If a game is too hard (ie: Dark Souls?), many gamers will abandon the game in frustration. However, a game can also be too easy. I think Squeak Squad begins to flirt with that pitfall. Kirby’s Epic Yarn definitely failed in that regard.
There are some notable highlights in Squeak Squad. Thankfully, they didn’t try to shoehorn touch controls into the game like other DS titles, but they did add an interesting bubble storage system which utilized touch. You could store up to 5 “bubble items” to use later. You could also combine certain items or abilities to create more powerful combinations.
Just like The Amazing Mirror, Squeak Squad has some gorgeous pixel backgrounds. The soundtrack is functional. There’s a few nice new tracks, though I found a few tracks to be unnecessarily “childish”. The new Animal copy ability is fun, and the new Metal ability is at least intriguing, though a little boring. Metal makes Kirby less mobile, but nearly indestructible. He just slowly walks through portions of the level crushing everything in his path until the player loses interest and ditches the ability for something else. The new Bubble ability allows you to make bubbles out of enemies’ copy abilities. The fact that treasure chests take up a spot in the limited inventory can be frustrating.
The Squeak Squad itself is well designed. The band of thieves are cute and nefarious, though the miniboss-like encounters are repetitive and fatiguing. You can either face them in battle as soon as they appear, or you can just race to grab the large treasure chest before they do and run to the exit, skipping combat entirely. If they grab the chest first, you’ll need to go into their hideout and defeat them.
The story behind Squeak Squad is hilariously inane. Someone stole Kirby’s strawberry shortcake just before he could take a bite, so this entire adventure is about tracking down these thieves and retrieving Kirby’s cake. It’s just silly enough to be perfect for a basic, lighthearted Kirby game.
Overall, Squeak Squad is a solid Kirby game. It’s lacking in some areas but still worth your time if you’re a Kirby fan.