Kirby Squeak Squad is the second Kirby game released for the Nintendo DS. Unlike Canvas Curse, Squeak Squad goes back to the more traditional Kirby gameplay. It would be the last original “main” game released until Kirby’s big resurgence in Return to Dreamland. Notably, it was developed by Flagship, who also developed Amazing Mirror.
Nintendo DS games can really be hit-or-miss because of the unusual era in which they were created. Some releases at the time pushed really hard to fully utilize the double screen setup and the touch screen gameplay, sometimes to its detriment. Luckily, Squeak Squad doesn’t attempt to abuse the touch screen aside from their mini games, with its usage limited to storing power bubbles and mixing some items in the bottom screen.
The Flagship Style
Kirby Squeak Squad is a game that just feels different. It was more pronounced during Amazing Mirror, but even here you can tell that Flagship has its own approach to the Kirby formula. In general, I would describe their games as Kirby titles that have superb fluidity and crispness in the graphics department, but with some more unforgiving mechanics and encounters.
Where their hardcore nature shows up is in how they handle copy abilities. Like Amazing Mirror, abilities are lost after a single hit and need to be recovered. Thankfully, the puzzles in this game are more forgiving, unlike Amazing Mirror which had you lugging abilities throughout multiple rooms. The bosses are also completely random, but we’ll see that during the no-hit achievement section.
Progression Achievements
Kirby Squeak Squad is a very fluid game with some very straight forward and easy to digest level design. The game is broken into 8 worlds with ~5 levels plus an extra stage and a boss encounter. Thankfully, Squeak Squad is no longer an interconnected world and features a world map where you can choose which level you want to play. Getting the collection achievements only requires you to beat each of the 8 levels.
There’s also an achievement for each copy ability you get. For the most part pretty standard stuff. As long as you try every ability you will get these without any issues. The only 2 that are harder to miss are UFO and Ghost. For UFO you just need to keep an eye for these enemies in the few stages in which they appear or get a “?” to give you one. Ghost is only available once you acquire the ghost medals and spawn the ghost mid bosses.
On the topic of copy abilities, there’s also “secret” abilities you can get by mixing, for example sword and fire. I suggest you take a look at the list and mix once you get the enhance scrolls for each of the materials.
Going for 100%
There’s a total of 120 treasure chests to collect in this game. Each stage shows how many there are in each of them, so it’s easy to keep track and collect all of them. Some will be hidden and others will require you to beat puzzles. The best advice I can give is to always get the ability of a mid boss. You will find out that they are very often used in the next room to solve a puzzle. Other than that, they aren’t that hard to find as long as you take your time exploring the level. There are no insanely hidden rooms like the moon in Kirby’s Adventure.
For the big chests, each one you grab will trigger an encounter with the Squeak Squad. If they get them before you do, just hit the leader once and they will drop it. On the same note, don’t get hit by any mouse-like enemy because they all make you lose chests on contact. If they got away, you can always follow them into their hideout and defeat the mini boss to get it back.
By getting all 120 chests, you will also get most of the collection related achievements.
Extra Mode
After beating the game you unlock Extra Mode. Extra is designed for players to beat the entire game back-to-back to collect all the chests in as little time as possible. The good news is that there are no achievements related to a full clear of Extra mode. The set only tracks the Extra clear of each individual world.
In my opinion, this is a huge plus for the game, as it makes the whole experience more approachable. I’ve never liked sets that featured “single session” achievements. I understand it’s necessary for some of them to work, but I think that in this instances the creators should always lean towards creating a fun experience rather than doing a challenge “just because”. Nothing is worse than having your emulator crash or your device run out of battery while attempting any of these.
You might be wondering why I’m saying that you don’t need to do it in a single sitting if there exists a World 8 clear achievement. The nice thing about Extra is that you can choose any World from the very beginning, so nothing is stopping you from booting the game and starting on World 8.
The No-hits
Boss fights are, in my opinion, the biggest disappointment of the game. The way Flagship creates boss fights is a mix of cookie cutter attacks and complete RNG unpredictability. The best way to understand it is to just know that each boss has a set of attacks and will randomly perform one of them every set time. If the attack has particles, then these will also be created at random. As you can imagine, depending on the luck, the boss can just decide to checkmate you and do a pattern that is impossible to dodge. It feels less skill-based and more luck-dependent to have the boss give you the right patterns.
Despite that, getting the no-hits is extremely trivial. Tornado is the undisputed best ability for this, as it will make you completely invincible while you are attacking. As a side note, the achievements don’t work if you use the invincible candy. You can no-hit every single boss by using tornado to attack and remembering the timing when the attack ends to get to safety before attacking again. It’s very easy to get into rhythm and the method is fool proof. You can also do this on a clear save file to use the item world to regain Tornado should you lose it during combat. If you get hit, start and select to exit the stage and try again.
The Extra Vanilla No-hits
Where it gets really annoying is during the vanilla boss challenges. These challenges have you beat any of the bosses in Extra Mode, without taking any hits and without using any copy abilities. In my opinion, doing Kirby runs and/or Arenas without copy abilities is a time-honored tradition. It is very enlightening in regards to level and boss design.
Unfortunately, these are Flagship bosses we are talking about. The one aspect that immediately surfaces about the bosses in Squeak Squad is that none of them were designed with no ability Kirby in mind. The thing about them performing random attacks, is that you may or may not be able to get a star to fight back. I’ve had encounter where Mecha Kracko just spins in circles for minutes until its AI decides to finally do an attack that gives me a star. This, coupled with the unpredictability of some attacks just makes it so that getting the no-hit ends up being a small part playing well and a big part having the boss cooperate.
These are neat challenges to have in a Kirby game and I don’t blame the creator for how tedious they are. Rather, I blame Flagship for not having learned how to make engaging boss fights after Amazing Mirror.
Tips for the Vanilla Challenges
The biggest tip I have is to always beat the boss first. Once you do, you can go back to the level and exit by pressing start + select if you get hit. This will make your attempts go more smoothly.
Also, learn how to use star bubbles. If you use the bubble ability on normal enemies, you can store stars. Mix 3 of them and you get a big star. You can store up to 4 big stars and a small one before you run out of space to mix. These are guaranteed hits that will spare you the headache of dealing with boss AI. I recommend you start using them once the boss is <50% HP. Depending on the width of the boss and its movement, you can sometimes time these big stars to hit multiple times on bosses such as Kracko and Daroach.
Learn which stages have easy access to bubble. Off the top of my head, 3-4, 6-4, and 8-1 have bubble enemies at the start of the stage. You might want to unlock 1-5 too because it’s a short stage with 2 easy 1ups to collect.
If you get hit during a fight, don’t restart right away! Instead, wait to swallow a star and then exit the level. Fat Kirby state persists through stages and door transitions, so this allows you to start your next attempt with a guaranteed hit.
Individual Boss Strategies
I won’t include strategies for all of them, but I will give some tips on some of the more troublesome encounters:
- Mecha Kracko: Always attack second. When it spit enemies, don’t rush to absorb them or else you risk getting hit. Always wait to see his next attack to make sure you can inhale without getting hit. Sometimes you just have to let it go and wait for the next chance to strike. On phase 2, never try to attack on the pattern with 4 small platforms, trust me.
- Bohboh: Stand as close to the lava and facing away from it. You should be safe here from his side switch attack. Always be inhaling in case he drops fireballs. If he screeches, slide to let him hit the ground, switch direction and try to absorb falling boulders for easy hits. You should be safe from him while rising if you are at the edge of the screen.
- Metaknight: His jump height is around the same as the height of the thin platform. An easy exploit is to run to the edge of the screen and then fly a little higher than the platform to pass over him and on to the other side. Rinse and repeat. What you are looking for is his little attack the spins in place and leaves a star. Fly over him and quickly absorb this one for a quick hit, then continue kiting him around.
- Dark Daroach: Your priority in this fight is to inhale the red bomb, which can only be done with a powered up inhale. Go to either edge of the screen and time it so that you are always on the strong inhale when he attacks. Get a hang of his attack rhythm after teleporting to time your strong inhales. Once you get a red bomb, fire away. If you wait for him to appear then you might get hit by a second bomb. Always prioritize staying safe over staying offensive.
- Dark Nebula: Since this fight occurs on the same stage as Dark Daroach, you can’t exit the level or you will be forced to replay his fight. Instead, stock up on 1ups and let yourself be killed if you get hit to retry the fight.
The Boss Endurance
I recommend saving this achievement for last, as it guarantees you know the bosses pretty well. You should also try to do this without abilities to get both achievements at once.
The strategy is to pickup 5 ability bubbles and start mixing them. If you mix 2 items and shake them around a little before releasing them, you will see the bubbles change color. Do this until you see rainbow colored bubbles. What we want is to either get a 1up or a “?”. When you get a “?”, try to get a Maxim Tomato from the roulette. At this point Boss Endurance shouldn’t be that hard, but you are still at the mercy of RNG so I suggest trying this with at least either a 1up or a Tomato. Don’t try to get both as the odds are very low.
Also, before leaving the first door, inhale the Triple Star but don’t eat it. It’s just an easy star to get the first hit on Dedede. After you beat Dark Daroach, you will have to do the same little trip you did during adventure mode. Also, don’t grab the Triple Star, just inhale and throw it away. During the walk up to Dark Nebula you will get another Maxim Tomato and some healing items, so don’t stress if you barely made it past Dark Daroach alive.
Victory Lap
At this point, all that’s left is the minigame clears. These aren’t very hard, so just do your best! You’re almost there!
Conclusion
Overall, I think Kirby Squeak Squad is a very fun game! For all the bashing I’ve done to Flagship, they did implement a very cool treasure system and made it engaging to gather color palettes and ability scrolls to keep the game exciting, unlike later titles where collectibles were just gimmicky items.
Similarly, I think the achievement set is really well made! It encourages you to fully explore the game and some of the traditional Kirby challenges without going too overboard. I was particularly impressed with Extra Mode because I could see another developer pushing for full clears or timed challenges, but those would have soured the experience without being challenging at all, just tedious and time consuming. Not a big fan of the Vanilla boss achievements though. I see the vision, and I would fully support them in any other title, but Squeak Squad wasn’t conceived with normal Kirby in mind and the boss patterns sadly reflect that.
