I loved Kirby: Canvas Curse on the Nintendo DS, so I was excited to see the series make a comeback on Wii U as Kirby and the Rainbow Curse.
There’s just one problem, and it’s your TV.
I want to start by saying that Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is gorgeous and a blast to play.
Where Yoshi’s Woolly World is a stuffed-knit world, Kirby’s is built from hand-molded clay or, at least, a well-done facsimile. Everything moves and acts like clay. It’s visually arresting and immediately enchanting. It’s one of the coolest looking games I’ve ever seen.
The line drawing mechanic introduced in Canvas Curse is still fun and easy to pick up. I was having fun with the game seconds into the demo I played.
The difference between Kirby and the other games I played before and after it was that I didn’t get a chance to look at the TV even once.
The mechanic requires that you keep your eyes on the Wii U Gamepad almost the entire time. If you haven’t played Canvas Curse, here’s a quick intro. You don’t control Kirby’s movement directly. You nudge him along by tapping him and then you draw lines with the stylus to move him vertically. The stylus is pretty much the entire game – you won’t be using buttons very much.
Like I said, Rainbow Curse is a gorgeous game. The problem is that you’ll be spending the entire game looking at the okay-at-best Wii U GamePad screen rather than your nice, big TV. The game feels like a 3DS title and plays like one as well, and it left me questioning why it’s is on Wii U instead of the handheld system.
I had fun with it, but I’m sad I couldn’t get a better look at the beautiful clay visuals the developer spent so much time on.
