Bosses circle Kirby in the whole 3D space, or loom malevolently at the front of the image. It’s a game where rollercoaster trains trundle from the background to the foreground to run Kirby down, while giant hands splat him flat against the screen.

Judged on graphics alone it’s one of the most exciting titles on the platform, not just filling its scrolling levels with dazzling colours and mind-boggling cartoon spectacle, but actually making good use of the 3DS’s 3D effects.

Nintendo stalwarts, HAL Laboratory, has pulled out all the stops to make a 2D platformer so exuberantĪnd stuffed with goodies that it’s almost impossible to resist. OK, so it’s just another 2D platformer with 3D elements, but only in the sense that The Avengers was just another superhero film. It’s not just a decent platformer, but one of the best games to hit the Nintendo 3DS this year. Yet with Kirby: Triple Deluxe, we’re beginning to wonder whether the joke has been on us. While grown-up gamers can still revel in the antics of the little Italian plumber or his simian ex-nemesis, Donkey Kong, too many of us are all too happy to snigger at Kirby, and put his games down as ‘fine for the kids’. The little pink blob has always been the toughest sell in Nintendo’s roster not as lovable as Mario or as heroic as Link and Zelda not as dastardly as Wario or as adorable as Yoshi. Are you a Kirby-hater? No need to be ashamed – we’ve been there too.

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