I'm sorry, but I honestly disagree with a lot of this review. Before I go on, I should say that I've only made it to the third world, but I'd say I've played about 20 of the games stages, from memory, which all have multiple areas, and several are very long.

The game is simply a children's game, or a beginner's platformer, at the very best.

The stages, so far, have been incredibly simple.  Essentially, each area has a few branching paths, and in the end, they all lead to a door, and you progress to the next area.  Exploration is literally directing Starfy over to the end of a path, picking up the couple of star gems, items that refill your health and can be spent to buy things, and then heading back and going the other way.  Three times in a world (Worlds, I believe, have 6 stages and 3 bonus stages, as well as a boss fight at the end), you'll find an extra doorway that you can go and play one of a few mini-games in, including a brief race, or a "find the item," type of challenge.  When you win, you unlock the bonus stages.  Each bonus stage, IIRC, contains an extra piece of a costume Chessa describes above, for dressing Starfy and Starly.

What's unfortunate is that, aside from it's cutesy atmosphere, and doll-like character designs, which all look great, the rest of the game falls flat.  When I first learned Starfy could wear costumes and accessories, I thought you could "dress" him, and then the sprite on-screen would resemble the changes.  Unfortunately, that's not true, and all those bonus stage costumes, as well as the ones you buy with star gems, are purely for show on the pause menu.  Aside from picking out the way your CG Starfy is dressed, you can unlock brief scenes related to the themes, but it's purely a distraction from gameplay, and likely wouldn't amuse the platforming enthusiast one bit.  Don't expect anything on the level of a Zelda game from the exploration, as this game's exploration is more akin to a Genesis Sonic game:  There's multiple paths in each stage, and a few gems on these paths, but ultimately, you're going to the same place.

The platforming and combat, essentially the action of the game, well, is very weak.  Most combat involves spinning Starfy into enemies, and, if done in quick enough succession, earns bonus star gems.  It's very basic, and very easy.  Starfy's only weakpoint in a spin-attack is that if done too rapidly, he becomes dizzy and needs to recover for a few seconds.  Enemies only pose danger when they enter the screen without enough time to react because you're trying to swim through the stage quickly.

The game also takes Starfy's abilities and gives them out bit-by-bit.  Unfortunately, this means the abilities are completely locked until you reach a stage where the abilities are necessary.  At this point, you're shown a quick "How-to" cutscene, and suddenly Starfy can utilize the move.  An example is the ability to run on land:  Hold down the spin-attack button, and Starfy will zoom across the ground.  The moves are very simple, and really, the game is simple enough that every ability could be open to the player at the beginning, but for some reason, non-story-related reason, they're locked.

When reading about the transformations, I always see praise, and I'll agree, just being in the Dragon transformation is better than Starfy's standard gameplay.  There's typically more enemies on screen, you don't get dizzy from attacking, and rather than swim, the sections are all on land, so the game has less of an artificial feeling of exploration and more of a feeling of a platformer.  This is definitely good news, and where the game would be most associated with most Kirby games.

All-in-all, I could not give this game a score.  It wouldn't be fair to it.  The game isn't for me.  It's not likely for platformer enthusiasts.  Go play some more Mario, Sonic, Kirby, or Donkey Kong Country, or any other platformer.  This game is too easy and too simple for you.

Who is it for?  It's for your son or daughter, who's never played a platformer before.  It's for your mother, or grandmother, who doesn't know how to play a video game, or has only seen Tetris.  For this type of crowd, the game might be just perfect, and couldn't be any better.  For the rest?  Don't waste your time, you'll be disappointed.

You just described a majority of platformers. This is just an easy one of them.

While you are certainly entitled to your own opinion, and I appreciate your feedback, I would like to address a few points from your argument.

First, you stated that you are only on the third level and thus basing all of your assumptions for the rest of this title on the fact that you haven’t even played halfway through this game. I will admit, up until the third area the exploration is a bit weak, however after the fourth, and especially later areas, it does at least become a bit more time consuming in order to find everything. Also, just because the exploration isn’t challenging doesn’t mean that it can’t be interesting and rewarding. As a matter of fact, the third area contains levels where yet to be learned Starfy abilities, Starly, and upgraded Bunston abilities will bar a player from finding all the chests, so it’s nearly impossible to be one hundred percent successful at the point you are in the game.

Also to clear up a point that may have been confusing in my review, I was at no point ever comparing the exploration element in The Legendary Starfy to that of Zelda. My Zelda comparison was aimed at the similarities between collection the crystal shard pieces and that of putting the triforce back together.

However I do agree with you on some points. I too was disappointed that the costumes couldn’t be fashioned on Starfy for in-game play. In fact I thought it was almost a tease or a cop out on Nintendo’s part, but I was smitten enough to see Starfy dressed as a Reindeer so I thought I’d let it slide. The level of ease at which the game can be tackled was also my biggest frustration throughout, and while it left me wanting more at times, it didn’t destroy the overall experience of the game for me. As I stated clearly in my review, if you are a gamer who requires a challenge, this title is certainly not for you.

I didn't know that things picked up much more nearer the end of the third level/world.  I honestly couldn't tolerate the game in anything but short bursts.  I'll try some more eventually, but I reserve that you shouldn't have to get halfway through a game for it to become a rewarding experience.

I'm aware your Zelda comparison wasn't for exploration, I'm simply using Zelda as a reference point, where, in games like LttP, exploration is a key part of the title, there's new enemies and items to be found everywhere, and lots of different puzzles to solve at almost any given time, whereas with Starfy, at least to the point I was at, it was simply taking every route possible.

Does the main campaign really last 8 hours?  I can blow through Kirby games really fast, so that was one of the reasons I was planning to skip this game.  But if it will last 8 hours it might be worth it for me to pick it up for $20 down the line.

It lasts a long time, I've spent a few hours with it to get where I'm at, but it's been dull, honest.  It doesn't feel like a Kirby game, despite its charm.

How does this one compare to the previous games?  Because the previous games weren't that great... too easy = zzz.

It's about on par with the games before it, but leagues better than 4. If you were bored by the challenge level in the others, you won't be in for much different here.