Kirby Star Allies Sets A New Series Sales Record

I guess it's fitting that a handheld remake of a console Kirby game was beaten by a handheld AND console Kirby game. :V

But seriously, I was wondering about this, if Kirby sales would get a big boost from usual considering nearly everything else is. Apparently the answer is yes.

This is my least favorite Kirby game but I got it for half price by using my Gold Coins, so that is something I guess.

And no mention of the Switch Neon Blue/red sku being the highest for the consoles overall??? This site is going downhill more and more everyday....

PlayStation still took the top spot with it's multiple SKU's

I've never really played a Kirby game before for more than 10 minutes. I picked this one up to play with my 6 year old nephew and we absolutely loved it. When he left I continued playing for the rest of the day. It's pretty easy, and not very long, but the graphics are great and it's still a lot of fun to play.

@Spoony_Tech That's coming

If you’re under Kirby’s charm spell you bought this game and now have handsome Kirby on your Switch and that’s all that matters about this game lol

@SwitchVogel Why 2 separate articles though? Just combine them.

It could use another world or two, but it’s been a great one for my wife and I. Over 25 hours in right now.

Yeah it's easy & could use a little more variety but all in all a decent game. I don't regret buying it, it's my first Kirby game, so had to give it a try.

I bought it... but only for the multiplayer and due to the lack of Nintendo published titles right now... haven't played it too much.

At first I didn't think this game would be challenging based on the demo, but after playing the retail version for a few weeks I can say that the challenge lies in the red puzzle pieces. Though the ones in the early levels are hidden in pretty straight forward locations that you really can't miss, the later levels hide them better. Finding the little hidden locations is quite enjoyable.

So whilst the gameplay may be the easiest in any Kirby game that I've played, there is still something in the game to hold your interest. It's not as rudimentary as Sonic Forces, now that's a game I regret buying 100%. Nothing redeeming about that one.

I love Kirby games, but this is the weakest one I've ever played. I actually liked Raindow Curse better.

Planet Robobot is the best though.

Kirby launch sales, US physical sales only:
Triple Deluxe: 138,000
Rainbow Curse: 52,000
Planet Robobot: 160,000
Star Allies: 254,000

Good launch for Kirby Star Allies. It's the 5th biggest launch for the Switch, behind Super Mario Odyssey. Zelda Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 DX, and Splatoon 2.

The Switch itself sold 308,000 units in the US in March 2018, surpassing 5.6 million units sold. It will outsell the Wii U by the end of this month, if it hasn't already.

Great game, I just wish there were more combinations like Kirby 64, most of the combinations are just "now your sword has fire" "now it has ice" "now electricity" etc. rather than the cool things like snow and bomb = snowman, snow and electricity = fridge, rock and cutter = rock sculpting into animal friends. They were a lot more inventive back in the day, even if some of the combinations were hard to remember and a little confusing, which I guess is the main reason they went to basics

My wife and I enjoyed this game quite a lot.

Great to see Kirby doing well, despite the word of mouth being somewhat unfriendly. I find it an amazing game, especially seeing the three-CPU helper concept revived from the cancelled Kirby game, making it my favorite Switch game right now. Sure, they made the game super easy, but that's Kirby for ya...

@Pablo17 Huh. It's actually my second favorite Kirby game behind a three-way tie between Return to Dream Land, Super Star SNES, and Triple Deluxe for me. Different strokes for different folks, I guess...

@Scapetti Honestly, I find the combinations in Star Allies better. Not to say I hate having more options, but the problem I had with Kirby 64's combinations is that they were extremely unbalanced. Some of them like the Fire + Stone, Ice + Needle, and Bomb + Fire covered a wide range of attack radius, making them extremely overpowered with a press of a button while others such as the Fire + Spark, Ice + Bomb, and Fire + Ice were novelty doodads that barely did anything. Now, I won't back away from the fact that they did impress me on paper, but in execution, it was horrible.

With Star Allies, combinations felt like actual additions to your arsenal and unlike 64, neither of the combinations took anything away from your current arsenal. For instance, you get the fire effect on the sword, but you're still able to do everything you could with the Sword ability, just with the added ability to set nearly anything on fire. In 64, you have the fire ability with you, but when you combine it with another ability like the cutter, that is replaced with a fiery broadsword and therefore, you can't fire dash unless you discard it and grab another fire ability alone.

I'll get it once it hits $29 - my nephew will like it. But I knew this silly games was not enough to fight off the PS4.

@SuperWeird you reminded me I really need to finally buy Planet Robobot.

It's great to see Star Allies doing so well. While I kinda regret picking it up for $60, it was still a fun game and I can't wait to see what's next for Kirby on the Switch.

@Alto Yeah, same here. I can't believe I played Triple Deluxe and then skipped Planet Robobot. Why am I only hearing about how good it is now?!

Nightmare in Dreamland was a better overall game. But at least the series is getting good sales again. Now maybe they can make a Kirby game for Switch that actually looks like some effort went into it

And I still haven’t gotten this yet, I love Kirby games so I’ll pick it up soon.

@Pichuka97 For the time, Nightmare in Dream Land was great. Nowadays, I find it hard to go back to the one-button attacks...

@StephenYap3 True but it's the pacing of the game and the level layout that makes Adventure/Nightmare so great for me. Plus the way they are played out, you don't really need more than one move per ability. I find the different abilities more focused and that played into the level design of the game. That's just me though

I pretty much felt the same. It was pretty good but nothing special. It was also pretty one dimensional and short. It is nice that it has a challenge mode to replay levels with different characters none of the levels really hit me as worth replaying. I cleared the game in about 7 hours and haven't touched it since.

I found this to be pretty disappointing for a day one purchase. I’ve put in less than 10 hours and the main game is finished. Probably not going to play the secondary campaign with the other characters. I thought that playing single player with 3 cpus would be irritating but I will say that the cpus in this game are very nice and actually worked with me rather than against what I was doing.

@Spoony_Tech Simple answer is clicks.

I love Kirby. But this is easily the weakest Kirby ever. No skill. Set your AI player sit back and the game plays for you. Button mash A on any character. And, the game is truly 6 hours, with maybe 2 more hours if you go for mind-numbingly easy 100%

Kirby for toddlers.

@Mamabear so agree. Read my mini review here. A big dissapointment. It's platforming for people who suck at platforming.

@Heavyarms55 beat it in half a day. Got $40 in game stop credit. So paid $8 to "rent" it (with best buy gamers unlock, $48 price!)

Zelda BOTW, Mario Odyssey or Xenoblade X2. $48. 300 hours of game play. Each. Kirby? 6 hours. Snnnnoozzzze.

Must buy

@Scapetti To be fair, electricity + sword = lightsaber meant I never used anything else when I was ten.

Wait. People on Nintendo life told me Kirby was gonna flop! Lol

Kirby is a beast for Nintendo.

@TheCurator not

Q)What do you think?

A) I think good for it and well deserved. Kirby Star Allies is a terrific game and deserves to be played, so I'm glad to hear it's being picked up by so many people and so quickly as well.

I am surprised to hear that Nightmare in Dreamland had the previous best debut, as I think it to be one of the weaker entries in the series; fun but strangely not as good as the game it happens to be a remake of (Kirby's Adventure 3D on the 3DS strangely felt better than it).

Q) Have you been enjoying Star Allies?

A) Yes; I've been loving Star Allies. I haven't been a huge fan of the Switch so far, perhaps I'm still feeling blue about the treatment of the Wii U, but Kirby Star Allies was the first game on the Switch to have me hooked... that wasn't a demo (Octopath Traveller's demo is my 2nd highlight of the Switch so far). I think the game is fantastic; it controls incredibly, looks gorgeous, has some incredible boss fights and accompanying music, and has the most naturally fitting unique mechanic so far (the star allies).

I'm more a console gamer than a handheld gamer, so it's a delight to play a mainline Kirby game on the big screen again.

Q) What’s your favourite Kirby game?

A) That would be Kirby's Fun Pak for the SNES, which still remains my favourite video game of all time. I will say that Kirby Star Allies might be close it, have yet to try the multiplayer of that game, but Kirby's Fun Pak remains one of my earliest and most phenomenal gaming experiences.

I can't even count the amount of times I've played through Kirby's Fun Pak; be it with my friends or my brothers. Heck, I even played through it earlier this year with my brother for our YouTube channel; still holds up fantastically. That said, I was playing the US version via the SNES Mini, and unless I'm remembering my UK version incorrectly, the bosses seemed to loose health a lot quicker in that version.

One of the local outlets is selling New 2DS XL cheaper than usual this week, I was pondering getting it along with Planet Robobot... But I've not decided yet.

I played the demo and enjoyed it. I've played numerous Kirby games previously, (mostly) enjoying them all barring Rainbow Curse, which I felt worked perfectly in Canvas Curse for the DS but less so on Wii U. Still, I don't see myself in a rush to pick this up and owning Return to Dreamland (Wii), Triple Deluxe (3DS) and Robot (3DS) I feel I'm covered for now.

Dang, I remember several posters here claiming that Kirby was gonna bomb/ at best have mediocre sales. I myself still need to pick up Star Allies.

I love Kirby, played 'em all since GB days. Must get this one soonest.

Happy for Kirby. Not happy about the quality of this Kirby. No thanks.

Bought it and played it a night with friends. We all felt bored. I gave it another chance some days later, but it doesn't get my attention.

@Souldin who’s interviewing you?

Kirby star allies: Fun, but super easy, super short and super lineair. Definitely one of the weaker ones. Great endboss though (and I like the powering-up mechanic).

Now that Nintendo also has great succes in America with this franchise they will milk it even harder. Expect another one at E3 (maybe even 2). The quality will go down even more, mark my words!

Its not bad but far from being the best in my opninion

Return to Dreamland is my all time fav Kirby. Couldn't see much value in Star Allies to make me get it... I tried the demo and was unimpressed

I bought it day one, and while I have only spent 5 hours with it (I switch games every week in order to make them all progress), I thought it was very fun but also very easy, up to the point that I turned help off and still see tips everywhere. It's too easy, even for a Kirby game.

But... I don't regret the purchase, because I know when I finish it 100% I can keep it in my shelf for when my daughter grows up and starts playing video games.

Besides, if I hadn't bought it I would have regretted it later. I didn't buy Rainbow Curse back in the day because of bad opinions... and years later I discovered it was the classic game people starts appreciating as time goes by, and that it was beautiful and worth owning. So I bought it for a good price after someone caught a huge sale and decided to buy 10 copies and scalping, but anyway the final price was good.

You never know.

@KryptoKrunch people keep making the mistake of looking at UK sales and presuming this represents sales in other regions.

Kirby has always been a strong seller. Dunno why people were predicting this game would bomb

I'm baffled at why supply is so poor for this game in the UK. I had it on pre-order for £35 at Smyths (in retrospect a great price) but I cancelled it after playing the demo. It's out of stock at Amazon, Tesco, Smyths, Game. They had a used copy in my local CEX last week for £48. You can buy Breath of the Wild for that price! If I went through with that pre-order I could have sold it to CEX for a £1 more than I paid for it. Regrets, I've had a few, but then again...

Great! Now when is the next wave of dream friends coming?

Don't think it will be selling much thanks to you showing people to get it for "FREE"

As someone who owns six Kirby plushies, this news makes me kinda sad. Star Allies has become by far my least favorite Kirby game, and this can only encourage Nintendo and HAL to develop similar titles for the future.

@Pablo17 Really? You like Kirby's Star Stacker more? Or Avalanche? Or Block Ball? Or Squeak Squad? Or (dare I say) Battle Royale?

I really enjoyed it, even though it's mostly a co-op game, but the extra modes are great (The Ultimate Choice is especially awesome). Sure, I like it less than the previous trio of main series Kirby games (Nightmare in Dream Land, Triple Deluxe, and Planet Robobot), as well as Super Star (Ultra), but I think it's better than the rest of the main series games.

@Spoony_Tech Why combine 2 articles with 2 seperate pieces of news? The site isn't going downhill for making 2 seperate news articles about 2 different topics.

I need to play some Kirby games.

@Mr_Pepperami Oh, those are the questions asked at the end of the article. I like to structure my comments as answers to the articles questions, at least in the articles when they (NintendoLife) ask them, which is most of them.

@Whopper744 Agreed, another world or two featuring a couple extra bosses who aren't tougher re-fights would have been appreciated, but I did adore what I got from this game. It was fun from beginning to end and that's what matters.

That said, maybe they'll add an extra world during one of those Dream Friend waves; that would be awesome!

@SuperWeird I love Kirby games as well, but clearly differ in how I'd rate some entries, as Star Allies is easily among my top 5. Of the entries I've played, I would say I found Kirby Power Paintbrush (Canvas Curse in the US) as the weakest entry.

Planet Robobot is fantastic, though for some reason I've always preferred Triple Deluxe over it. I think it's the extra modes that I prefer, such as playing through as King Dedede.

@StephenYap3 Yeah, I'm also really glad to see it doing well. I was quite worried about it given the neutral, almost negative reception it was getting from folks around here and feeling rather out of place with the community at the time (like you, I absolutely loved Star Allies, which could very well be my 2nd favourite Kirby game; I just need to try the multiplayer with my brother).

So glad it defied that lukewarm response and has gone on to sell well; it seems plenty of people are picking it up and having a blast with yet another charming entry in the series. It is also my favourite Switch game currently as well; finally got me eager to sit down and play on my Switch for a long period of time.

@Pichuka97 It's quite interesting to see the variety of opinions from those of us who like the Kirby series. I really disagree with you on Nightmare in Dreamland; a game I found to be not even as good as what it is a remake of (I played Kirby's Adventure for the first time on 3DS and there was just something about how it controlled that felt oddly better). I also disagree with you on Kirby: Star Allies, which to me feels like the ultimate culmination of what they've learnt over the last three platformer entries and refined into an ultimate experience. Still hasn't beaten Kirby's Fun Pak from the pedestal of my all time favourite game, but an incredible effort.

Still, perfectly understandable reasons you gave for why you like Nightmare in Dreamland so much.

@ricklongo If they continue to make them as amazing as Star Allies, I think I'll be quite happy.

I haven't been a fan of the direction of quite a few of the really successful Nintendo titles recently (Pokémon Sun and Moon, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey), so if my all time favourite game series Kirby can retain it's fantastic gameplay direction, then I'd be quite satisfied.

That said, I think I've received so much Kirby goodness as of late that I'd be fine if HAL focused on a different game/IP for the Switch next year.

@Krisi I wonder that too; I need to when and who! I can deal with waiting, but not knowing is far harder.

@pullmyfinger You must really hate NES and SNES games. A lot of those classics "Ducktales", "Mega Man 2", "F-Zero", "Star Fox" clock in at less than an hour.

@pullmyfinger Quantity isn't everything. But yeah, KSA is VERY short for those not interested in replaying the same content over and over.

@Spoony_Tech I think all of the spring blizzards are taking a toll on your emotional well being. 😉

The site has been going downhill since TW left, though that's partly timing as this year has been a big letdown from last year so I'm not feeling any warm and fuzzies at the moment either, but having separate articles for hardware and Kirby is hardly a sin in gaming journalism. Par for the course.

Kirby sales must historically suck though if this game beat out Triple Deluxe and Roboton, I have it on good authority both those games were better than this one.

Cheer up, spring is coming, for real. 😀

@rjejr This is only for the sales debut in America, which a previous user (Westman98) posted above as:

Triple Deluxe: 138,000
Rainbow Curse: 52,000
Planet Robobot: 160,000
Star Allies: 254,00

In terms of overall sales, if Wikipedia is to be trusted, then Triple Deluxe has sold over 1.78 million by March 2015 whereas Planet Robobot has sold over 1.36 million copies by March 2017. It's too early to know how much Kirby Star Allies has sold worldwide, but it has currently (as of April) sold over 392,413 copies in Japan.

I personally believe Kirby Star Allies is actually better than those two, feeling it builds off of them and Kirby Adventures Wii to give a more refined experience with a more naturally flowing added element (the allies and ability combinations), but to each their own. They are all still absolutely amazing games; as par the course for the Kirby series.

never did get into kirby games.

It's a great game so I'm happy to see it selling well.

I hope Nintendo doesn't take away from this the idea that every new game should emulate Star Allies. It's a fine enough game on its own, but it squandered a lot of its potential by refusing to go anywhere with its story. It also seemed more interested in rekindling Super Star nostalgia and bringing things back than creating a lot of wholly original stuff. I saw how they responded to Triple Deluxe's amazing sales all those years ago, so it's possible the next few games will do away with Robobot's great storytelling and creativity.

@Souldin "sales debut in America"

Thanks, I completely missed that, I thought it was for lifetimes sales. I was going off of the title rather than the article.

My favorite is the first game, Kirby's Dream Land. It was really easy, and short, but, I like that it was just Kirby, and didn't clutter it all up with copying enemies abilities or anything like that. It was fun playing as Kirby eating things and spitting them out, and focusing primarily just on that.

@Souldin I should have said this earlier, but I do prefer for the same reasons as you, Adventure. And I didn't mean to rag on Star Allies. I 100% the game over a weekend and I liked what was there but coming out of Robobot, I expected more from Star Allies, especially for the 4th Kirby game in this sub-series. But you can't please everyone. Everyone has their own favorites for their own reasons and that's okay

@Spoony_Tech sales of a console and sales of a game sure seems like different topics to me. I mean, if you only want 1 article for “sales,” then why not do 1 “games announced” article and 1 “games review” article?

Plus more posts help the website serve more ads, which means more revenue, which means the website stays up for you to complain on 😉

@Dysnomia I do like my complaining lol.

Absolutely loved this game. Still 100 percenting!

"We thought it was pretty good, and while it didn’t seem like a particularly exceptional release in the pink puff’s long lineage, new NPD results show that it apparently was quite a hit with those that live in the United States." pretty much sums up how I felt about this game. It's decent but far from the best kirby game in recent memory or even close to being one of my favorites. I kept waiting for the game to throw somewhat of an interesting challenge or secret at me but it never came. The levels, while fun, were incredibly short, predictable, and easy. I expected more from Hal because they've shown themselves to be capable of more. Heck this game actually makes me appreciate the level design in Return to dreamland (the weakest out of TD, Robobot, and Return to Dreamland) more despite feeling like that game had repetitive level design as well

To end on a somewhat positive note I am very happy that Kirby is finally getting the recognition and sales it deserves. I just wish that recognition and sales numbers were attached to a better game. I have faith that Hal can do better the second time around.

@Thisismycomment I completely disagree about the red puzzle pieces. I found every single red puzzle piece first try (with the exception of one piece because I was being careless) due to Hal kinda getting lazy with their placement. Almost every single red piece was either behind an orange star door with a simple puzzle or placed at the end of the level just sitting there or in a chest.

I still need to pick Star Allies up. My son is crazy about Kirby games so even if this ends up being a disappointing entry overall, he'll still love it I'm sure. He plays that Kirby Fighters game for 3DS over and over for the heck of it and I'm sure that's pretty light on content. He even enjoyed Epic Yarn. But I'll be damned if I pay $60 for a Kirby game. When it becomes available for rental, that's when I'll get it.