So... I played Squeak Squad. That was the most anti-climatic Kirby game I've played so far. It's not a bad game, just very disappointing. Some of the new abilities like Bubble and Magic Kirby were pretty fun, whereas some like Metal weren't that fun to use. One thing that annoyed me was how storing powers worked. I'll give the designers credit for allowing me to hold on more than 1 item, but what made it annoying was how it conflicted with the treasures. I had to give up items and copy abilities just to store them, and that got irritating. The Squeaks themselves... what was the point of them? I get that they're a team of bandits, but after playing the game, I don't even know the names of any of them. Their fights were predictable and boring and they never changed their tactics at all. At least the treasures were decent, and I do like the option to change Kirby's color. That added some decent flavor in my opinion. The soundtrack was pretty solid, and once again, has Kirby remixes, which are always good if you ask me. Hearing Butter Building is a plus in my book. The story was stupid, but since Kirby's never been a story-driven series, I'll let it slide, even if I don't know a thing about the Squeaks. The backtracking was the worst part. Games like Kirby 64 had backtracking too, but it didn't annoy me to the level that Squeak Squad did. Maybe it was because some of the levels, one of them being a maze, requires complete knowledge of the stage to get all of the chests in one go, and playing levels over and over just to get all the chests made it feel like a hassle. Squeak Squad just felt rushed to hell, and it didn't feel like it was a good rush job either. It felt lazy at some points, and it disappointed me because this game had potential to be great. I'm not going to call Squeak Squad awful as a game because it is a functional, playable, and well-made game, but as a Kirby game, it's not that good. I'd call it average at best, and terrible at worst. As to how I rank the Kirby games from best to worst from what I've played, here's my list:
Kirby 64, Triple Deluxe, Adventure/Nightmare in Dreamland, Super Star (Ultra), Squeak Squad, Dream Land.