The pink puffball returns to 2D

As a father of two young girls, there is no better way to introduce them to the platforming genre than Kirby games. And Kirby's Return To Dream Land Deluxe is perfect for letting them play while letting you join in on the fly to help when needed. It's a fun and hectic ride for the whole family.

This game is a gorgeous 2D platformer that requires the players to move Kirby (the pink puffball) from left to right, with moving parallax background, to reach the end of the stages.

It can be played as a single player game but can be joined by up to three additional players at any time (the extra players can choose to be a blue Kirby, King Dedede, Bandana, Meta Knight or Waddle Dee). The fact that the game allows other people to join in and drop out at any time is perfect for quick family fun and can be a godsend for kids who need their peers to help when they are stuck in later more difficult stages.

Because Kirby is equipped with plenty of useful survival skills (such as enemy inhaling, infinite floating, skill copying and a forgiving health pool), it makes the game easy enough for beginners to jump into the fray and breeze through the stages. The players are required to suck in and copy enemy abilities to wade through obstacles to reach the end of stages. Many times, in most stages, an upgraded version of the enemies appear which let you take their ultimate abilities for yourself and break the somewhat boring platforming while giving extra oomph and spectacles for you to push through the stages while unlocking hidden rooms and items.

The game seems very easy in the first half, but plenty of challenges in the form of tricky platforming and nasty enemy placements are introduced in the last half. Not to mention the plethora of hidden puzzles and collectable items that are tucked away in hard-to-reach places or that require certain skills to get to which make seasoned players push themselves a bit more.

In the story mode, there are a total of 38 stages and will take around seven hours from start to finish. But Kirby games are notorious for secret rooms and collectables that will make completionists scream in agony.

This game also comes with a copious number of extra levels, mini games (for both single player and multiplayer), boss rush mode, collectable masks, music mode and much more. All these extras can only be unlocked after completing tasks, collecting certain items, or clearing the game, and will easily double the amount of play time if you want to collect them all.

One mode in particular can be unlocked after beating the game's main story mode once. It's called Magolor epilogue. This mode is not included in the original Nintendo Wii version of the game. In this extra mode, the game lets you play as Magolor, the mage whose ship was attacked and needed Kirby to help him in the main story mode. Magolor has lost all his power and abilities except for jumping and puny magic firing, but you can regain his abilities by defeating enemies then use points earned from defeating them to upgrade his powers.

This is a must-have for families of gamers.