This game kinda ruined discussing kirby online didn't it? lol

Anyway, on replay I surprisingly loved this quite a bit, it's probably the easiest mainline kirby game yet and the level design can be kinda empty at some points, I think it's just a really fun game, it controls well and the selection of copy abilities is really good. The ability to have up to 4 friends was really nice and reminded me of super star, which is always a good thing in my book, being able to combine certain copy abilites with wind, fire, water and such was also a neat idea, and so were the friend power ups, they can be pretty fun, throwing your friends has never felt so good. I also adore the theming in this game, something about places like the Jambastion and other locations feels really cool, and so are the boss descriptions hidden in the pause menus. Call me a sucker for call backs but I also loved the dream friends in this, they offered really different unique and fun experiences wether I played as them or not. Bosses in this game are also really fun too, especially the final boss, its in the running for the best final boss in a kirby game imo. The soundtrack is pretty nice as well, there are some real jams on there.

Side modes are pretty fun as well, this game probably has the best arena in the series with so many different ways to do the boss rush to make it accessible to those who like the easier side of things, but the game can make things difficult when it wants to in the arena, even if adeline and the mage sisters kinda break the whole thing in half.

Heros in another dimension is a nice epilouge to the main story of the game, the addition of collecting hearts throughout levels is also pretty fun, with the reward for doing so unlocking some of the best dream friends in the game which is an awesome reward for going after collectibles.

Guest Star mode is kinda disappointing however, at least on 1 playthrough, it's meta knightmare or Dedede tour, but instead of going through the game again at a faster pace with a new character or set of abilities with harder foes to face, you just play as a friend though the entire game again, albeit at a faster pace than the main story, there's not even any harder versions of bosses, with the exception of Morpho Knight, who is an awesome boss, apparently things change up when you play as dream friends, which I haven't done yet, but why wait until the player beats the game once in order to offer the option to play it again, this time with actual variety? it strikes me as weird, but this mode is still kinda fun.

I feel like I look back at this game the way people look back on super mario 3d world, at the time people found both games to be pretty generic and worried for the future of the series, as this was their big jump to an HD console release. Only difference is 3d world has actually benefited from hindsight and become quite a beloved game while star allies seems to be considered what it was at release, a generic, unfinished, mixed bag, but I don't know, I think it's a pretty fun game in hindsight, the additional content HAL added after release is also pretty cool even if I would've preferred it to be there day 1. I get why some people don't like this game, or even find it a bore, but maybe replay it and you'll have a tiny bit of fun, I hope