Kirby Triple Deluxe suffers from the same fundamental problem most standard Kirby platformers have in the past: With so many powers and abilities at his disposal, breezing through its levels becomes incredibly easy for most of the game. It just gets boring. Despite some expanded ideas, neat graphics and music, and a few fun boss fights, there aren’t a whole lot of reasons for anybody older than 12 to pick this one up

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Playing as Kirby is kind of like playing as Superman foiling common bank robbers: he’s practically unstoppable. He can swap between 26 useful and diverse abilities by copying them from his foes. For example, the Bell copy ability gives you useful defensive and offensive powers against bosses. Each one has layered mechanics and combos, but they’re almost never needed because enemies are so weak.

Mini-bosses step in and attempt to add a tougher challenge, but adding more hitpoints doesn’t really matter if they can’t really hurt you. The only times I died were when I got lazy and fell down a pit.

Since everything is already so easy, I was really disappointing when it got even easier. Every once in a while, with great childish fanfare, I was just handed a Miracle Fruit that gave me the new Hypernova ability. It supercharges Kirby, allowing him to inhale large enemies and objects to solve simple puzzles. I didn’t even have to do anything to earn this power, so it felt excessive. The last world does finally kick up the difficulty a notch, but it’s hard to get excited for a game that doesn’t build up the way it should.

Kirby Triple Deluxe has some redeeming qualities: Developer HAL Laboratory uses stereoscopic 3D in fun ways, and you can expect occasional bosses and obstacles to practically pop out and say “Hello!” from time to time. But these 3D tricks are a little deeper than simple eye candy. Paintra, the second world boss, often tosses paint on the screen between attacks to obscure your vision, and Flowery Woods is an oversized tree boss in world one that aims attacks right into the screen. Those boss fights are a highlight, and the only mildly challenging part of the campaign. Loading

The most fun I had playing Triple Deluxe was in its peppy additional modes. Kirby Fighters is a four-player competitive brawler in the vein of Smash Bros. that makes the most of the Kirby’s expanded copy abilities. Don’t expect Smash Bros.-levels of depth and balance here. In fact, it seemed pretty imbalanced, but it’s fun for a short while at least.

I also got a kick out of Dedede’s Drum Dash, a silly mash-up of platforming and music. It scaled up in difficulty quickly, and actually got a little too hard, but a challenge was a welcome change at that point. There’s also some incentive to return to the campaign for speed runs and collectible 8-bit key chains that can be shared through StreetPass. Loading

Finishing Triple Deluxe opens two additional challenge modes that should appeal to hardcore players, but you have to slog through that too-simple seven-hour campaign to unlock them.