"Kirby, in his new, balled up form, moves with the environment with relatively accurate physics; all players can do is help him along the way. Tapping on the little guy will cause him to zip in the direction he's already moving, giving him momentum to make it through the hills and platforms in the levels he inhabits. The power of movement comes from the ability to paint rainbow roads anywhere on the screen; if Kirby rolls onto one of your created paint strokes, he will follow its path as precisely as he can. Drawing vertical lines in his path can act as walls to stop his progress, which is absolutely necessary to prevent the little guy from rolling into harm's way."

This isn't some Gumshoe type affair where the hero traipses along on auto-pilot, either; unlike Yoshi, Kirby is completely under the player's control.

Well, mostly under control. The breakdown works like this: Kirby's been turned into a ball, and his only defense is to break the fourth wall and beseech the brave player to use a stylus, er, magic paintbrush to help propel him to the end of the game and engage in the series of battles which, in fine video game form, will break his curse and turn him into his usual rotund-but-not-completely-spherical self. There's probably some nonsense about saving Cuddleland from the evil Grumpies or whatever in a cursory effort to add a little gravitas to the plot, but it's not like it matters. The story is just there to justify the fact that you have to use the stylus to control Kirby.

The important part is that controlling Kirby is at once intuitive, enjoyable and more than clever enough to excuse the narrative contrivances. As a perfect sphere, Kirby is subject to the laws of physics; he'll roll down slopes, but his inertia quickly dissipates on uphill gradients and flat surfaces. Tap him and he'll perform a quick dash; tap an enemy and you'll stun it. Dashing into enemies (or rolling into a stunned one) will destroy it. As usual, certain enemies possess special powers that Kirby can absorb, although his standard suction mechanic has been abandoned for simply ploughing into the foe. This is, after all, a game controlled with nothing but a stylus; HAL has wisely avoided over-complicating the action.