Kirby and the Amazing Mirror

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror arrived on the Game Boy Advance in 2004, developed by HAL Laboratory alongside Dimps — a collaboration that gave the game a slightly different texture from the mainline HAL-led entries. By 2004 the GBA was well into its commercial peak, with the Nintendo DS looming on the horizon but the handheld still commanding a massive install base. The game followed Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land (2002), a GBA remake of the original NES Kirby's Adventure, meaning players had recently revisited classic linear Kirby design before Amazing Mirror introduced something far more ambitious: a sprawling, interconnected Metroidvania-style map. Rather than progressing through discrete worlds and stages, players explore a single enormous mirror world divided into themed areas — forests, clouds, ice caverns, and more — all linked by warp points and branching corridors. The structure rewards exploration and backtracking, as new copy abilities unlock access to previously impassable routes. Kirby's core mechanics remain intact: inhaling enemies to steal their abilities, floating indefinitely by puffing up, and sliding or dashing to dispatch foes. The copy ability roster is generous, featuring classics like Sword, Fire, and Beam alongside entries such as Magic and Smash, the latter mimicking Super Smash Bros. moves as a playful nod to HAL's other flagship series. A notable structural twist is that the game features four Kirbys simultaneously — the player controls one while three CPU-controlled (or human-controlled via link cable) Kirbys roam the same world. Calling them with a cell-phone item causes them to warp to the player's location, and certain puzzles or boss encounters are designed with cooperative presence in mind. Boss fights gate progress between the mirror world's major zones, and a final sequence ties the narrative together around a corrupted mirror and a dark doppelgänger of Kirby. The game was received positively in its era, praised for its non-linear ambition and the novelty of its multiplayer conceit on a handheld platform, though some critics noted the open structure could feel directionless for players accustomed to the series' traditionally guided pacing. Its visual presentation was bright and fluid, making strong use of the GBA's color palette, and the soundtrack delivered the melodic, upbeat compositions the Kirby series is known for.