Kirby Power Paintbrush - DS/DSi

While the DS’s touch screen has obvious applications as an alternative to a mouse pointer, a few games have really run with the stylus as a way of directly controlling your character, like Pokemon Dash and Namco’s Pac ‘n’ Roll. Others have charged players with using the stylus point to create platforms for the character to use – like Yoshi Touch and Go. Inheritor to this new tradition is Kirby Power Paintbrush.

A none-too-convoluted plot provides the premise. Nintendo’s most chameleonic character, Kirby, is shape shifting again, but this time the transmogrification is not his own doing. An evil witch has turned him into a ball, and the hag hasn’t stopped there either – she’s turned the whole of dreamland into a living picture.

If Kirby was still a puffy pink thing he wouldn’t stand for this… now he’s a ball he’s not going to roll for it either. This is where you come in. Using the stylus trace a multicoloured track for our spherical friend to roll along. Keep Kirby out of trouble but be aware that his new form has its advantages – he can smash enemies out of his path. Despite the innovative control style this is a game with old school sensibilities – as you journey through Dreamland you’ll see levels with time honoured themes, be they volcanic, arctic, cavernous, ghostly or underwater.

And even in ball form, Kirby retains his powers of transformation, with the ability to turn into a wheel, an ice block and a fireball amongst other things. Aside from the main game, there’s also various challenge modes, where you can tackle bosses, go for a time attack through a level, or try the idiosyncratic line attack – a minimalist mode where you have to use as little paint as possible as you complete the level. A tidy package then, using the DS’s touch screen while still keeping in touch with those ever important roots.
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