Learning Japanese (we really think so)
Nintendo’s enemy-slurping blob turns 30 with an inventive, irresistibly upbeat and often very funny platform adventure
While it might not be the biggest of open worlds, the Shibuya of Ghostwire: Tokyo is so densely packed that there’s always something to investigate or seek out. What really brings the city to life, though, are all the little culturally specific details that only feel possible from a Japanese studio.
Everything you come across has an in-depth description telling you about its history and significance, from Daruma dolls and Shinto rituals to the many snacks you pick up to recover your health.
One especially outstanding twist is how you rescue spirits by absorbing them into paper dolls and then going to phone booths around the city that have been rewired so their spirits can be sent to safety. It’s genius, and the animations for it are a delight.
Perhaps some of this won’t really resonate if you’re not a Japanophile – but who wouldn’t be charmed by floating cat merchants, or mischievous tanuki disguising themselves as everyday items? (Speaking of which, yes, you can pet and even converse with stray cats and dogs).
It’s ultimately this element that successfully disguises the fact that you’re mostly playing a pretty routine collectathon.
Much like the titular pink blob, Nintendo’s Kirby series has taken many forms over the years – and his Switch debut is also his first fully 3D outing. Kirby’s journey through the Forgotten Land is a largely linear affair but it’s a world that’s packed with hidden treasures.
On the way you’ll be visiting overgrown shopping malls, an eerily empty carnival and a desert wasteland. Key to progressing through these levels, solving environmental puzzles and uncovering secrets is Kirby’s ability to inhale his enemies in order to take on their unique talents: suck up a sword-wielding enemy and he becomes a swordsman; gobble up a mole and he can suddenly drill through the ground; eat a fire enemy and he harnesses their geothermal energy to spew lava at anyone in his way.
Upgrading these abilities sees Kirby turn into an increasingly formidable blob – but activating Mouthful Mode, which allows him to become everything from a jumping car to a walking vending machine, is when the fun really starts. In fact, we wish there were more Mouthful moments.
This is not a difficult game. Kirby’s ability to fly means that walking him carelessly off the edge of the level is an easily rescuable error, while you can hold a button to block at any time, greatly reducing damage. That’s not to say some of the more epic multi-stage boss fights won’t test you at all, though – and only those who take their time and master each ability will reach the end of a level with every hidden objective ticked off.
Anyway, criticising it for being too easy is missing the point.
The joy of this game is upgrading Kirby’s abilities and seeing an adorable pink creature gradually transform into an unstoppable Swiss army knife of destruction. If you’ve got young children we’d struggle to think of a better first game for them, but Ninty fans of all ages will be grinning at this. Matt Tate