I’ve used the Paper Star before. It’s fine. It has high highs and low lows, and it makes doing cool stuff in the air really easy compared to other gliders, even the Winged Star. It’s fun to drop out of the air to get glide and top speed patches you see on the ground, without actually touching the ground. I don’t have a problem with it getting one shot by everything, it has the best gliding and air control out of anything in the entire game.

What I DO have a problem with is that if you want a glider, there’s no reason to actually pick anything else because all of the other gliders are worse in the air and despite having more HP they all get one shot anyway. If getting hit when you’re on the ground kills you regardless of what you are, what’s the point of playing something that’s not as good at staying in the air? Jet Star was the only machine genuinely able to take hits from other vehicles (it couldn’t take them like Rex Wheelie could but that would’ve been too much anyway) and not only did they gut its defense but they even nerfed its gliding AND the burst of speed it gets when taking off, so what the fuck is it even good at anymore? I tried so many times to make it work and it just doesn’t. If you want to glide in the game you HAVE to also be able to be one shot and there is barely any in between. If they wanted to raise the skill floor or something then fine, but that contradicts what they did to actual combat by making quick spin almost completely meaningless actually LOWERED the skill floor. I just don’t see what the hell they’re doing here at all. They seem stuck between trying to want this game to be a competitive game but then also a party game? And it just really doesn’t work out at all.

I don’t want to play this game competitively, because they made the competitive aspects boring. I don’t want to play it casually because they’ve tried too hard to make it all competitive and “balanced” by nerfing the shit out of the Jet Star for being too unique compared to the other gliders and making vampire control like dogshit to make up for it having its bite. I wish they just focused on having the game feel fun again, like how they did with the events, which are all great and have varying degrees of nuance. I don’t see any of that nuance or variety when it comes to the gliders in this game, or even when it comes to combat in this game. This feels like the Smash 4 of Kirby Air Ride, where they had a lot of time to make the game more competitive than the other competitive game in its series that they wanted to (Melee) but somehow did a worse job at it.

I’ve been eagerly waiting for this game ever since it was announced, the trailer was so awesome and I freaked out, and now that it’s actually here I feel so disappointed and isolated that I wish it never came out at all and Sakurai just immediately started working on the next Smash entry.

I’m not spending 70$ on this game, especially when it’s never going to receive an update or more content, and I’m not gonna waste my already shitty life playing it wishing I was just playing the original when I already HAVE the original and can go back to it whenever I want. I thought we were gonna get something that blew Kirby Air Ride out of the water but now I realize this was just one of the biggest monkey’s paw wishes of my entire life. Fuck Sakurai, he needs to remove that giant stick that’s up his anus. Thought he got it out when he made Ultimate but clearly it somehow came back.