Bye-Bye BoxBoy Review – A Look Back at the 3DS Puzzle-Platformer

Bye BoxBoy Review Bye-Bye BoxBoy serves as Nintendo’s last chapter in the 3DS BoxBoy trilogy.

NerdBite · 18 May 2019

black computer keyboard on brown wooden table — Illustration · Photo by Islam Wazery on Unsplash

From the NerdBite archive. This article was first published on 18 May 2019 and is kept online for reference. It has not been updated, so details may be out of date.

Bye-Bye BoxBoy Review

Bye-Bye BoxBoy serves as Nintendo’s last chapter in the 3DS BoxBoy trilogy. In our Bye-Bye BoxBoy Review, we’ll take a look at the final 3DS entry in the series and how it stacks up to its predecessors. Also note that BoxBoy and BoxGirl is available now on Nintendo Switch as well!

Developed by HAL Laboraties, the team behind the Kirby series, Boxboy offers a simple, cute, and charming side-scrolling adventure starring a box named Qbby. As a minimalistic title, your abilities revolve around creating boxes and your ability to overcome puzzles and traps.

Rather than learning new abilities, the game continuously evolves through its use of stage design elements, just like in a Mario game. It becomes more challenging the further you progress, occasionally giving you new abilities that change the way you use your boxes.

Qbby, Qucy, and Qudy.

In addition, you’re also accompanied by a Qbaby in some worlds. These serve as sort of escort mission stages. You’ll guide the little box while he opens up paths for you. Thankfully, they’re not as irritating as the escort missions you may be used to in some other video games!

Story

The story in the series is a simple quest to save the Box Planet from black smoke that plagues their land. Nothing is written in dialogue, as the story is only told through the cutscenes. You’ll enter several planets to quell the black smoke, which are shaped as different symbols. These symbols also serve as the type of power you’ll obtain in each of these worlds. Note that those powers can only be used in their respective worlds.

Part of the story includes saving the Qbabies, which will help open up paths for you. Like in past games, there come sad moments when a box must sacrifice itself by fitting itself into the planet in order to save it. Whether they stay gone forever or not isn’t known. While this happened in past titles, the characters turned out to be okay. But note that HAL Laboratory is known for writing tragic stories in their games, as seen in Kirby: Planet Robobot and other titles in the series.

Audiovisual

Like its predecessors, Bye-Bye BoxBoy takes a minimalist approach with visuals and sound. While the visuals feature some color that appear in the worlds, such as when you clear one, the entire game is monochromatic.. Essentially, it plays like a throwback to the Nintendo Game Boy days. This comes from HAL Laboratories’ origins – Kirby’s Dream Land on Game Boy. In addition, there’s even a mode where you can make the game’s color yellowish, based on the original Game Boy itself!

The music consists of simple, catchy tunes, like when you clear a stage. As with the visuals, the audio takes its cues from the chiptunes of the Game Boy days. Also, you can also unlock the soundtrack through in-game currency!

Gameplay

As with BoxBoy and BoxBoxBoy, this title puts you in the role of Qbby, a.k.a. BoxBoy. As a simple little white box, you’ll create boxes that serve as platforms, hooks, and other shapes to get you across to your goal. The game’s levels evolve with different types of obstacles, such as wind, gravity, or underwater. As a puzzle-platforming hybrid, the game takes place on a 2D plane. With 6-8 stages per world, each stage is broken up into 3 segments.

In these 3 segments, you solve a puzzle to get to the next part of the stage. If you fall off or get hit with spikes, you can retry as many times as you like. If you collect a Crown, you’ll gain additional currency at the end of the stage. This will allow you to purchase extras!

New to the series are the special abilities. In certain worlds, you’ll obtain a new special box. One allows you to make rockets, one can be controlled with telekinesis, and one can teleport you. These create many new possibilities in the puzzles you’ll find.

There are well over 100 stages in the game, which increase in difficulty the further you go. But please note that if you find it too easy, you will find the most challenging stages in the postgame content, which includes several worlds. You can use the in-game’s Hint system (1 Play Coin per hint). But note that the game’s Hint system will not help you collect crowns. If you didn’t get the crown, you can restart a stage or even the segment you’re on.

Extras

As mentioned earlier, you’ll obtain bonus currency for collecting Crowns. Doing so enables you to unlock things from the shop. These include Costumes, Music, Challenges, and even Comics. These 4-panel comics are humorous little skits in the daily lives of the main characters.

The Challenges feature stages that restrict your ability. One is “don’t jump” while another is “don’t fall from more than 2-blocks high.” They seem simple at first, but get harder the further you progress.

If you’ve beaten either of the first two games, you can carry over purchased costumes. If you acquired 100% completion in those, then you can wear the Royal King or Royal Queen garb. Use special amiibos to unlock some more costumes as well!

Beating the game unlocks the postgame challenge. These are the hardest challenges in the game by far. You’ll use the teleport, rocket, and telekinetic blocks in incredibly difficult challenges. Some of these might even require you to sequence break, so to speak. You might have to break some rules and fit boxes in a way not conventional for the game. Likewise, you may even have to check a guide on YouTube unless you’re absolutely bent on clearing without a guide.

Final Thoughts

Bye-Bye BoxBoy continues the same traditional gameplay used in its predecessors. With the new types of boxes, however, you’ll find new possibilities and challenges than before. It completes a wonderful puzzle-platform trilogy that continues on Nintendo Switch. Furthermore, you can also try a demo first before you jump in.

Fans of platformers and puzzles will love Bye-Bye BoxBoy. You’re not required to play the prequels, but it’s certainly recommended. All three games round up some of the most enjoyable experiences you’ll find on the 3DS. Plus, fans of Kirby will adore BoxBoy. We hope this review will give you insight before you dive into the Box World!

Thank you for reading our Bye-Bye BoxBoy review. Have you played past games? Are you getting BoxBoy and BoxGirl on Switch? Let us know in the comments below!

8.5

Great

Bye-Bye BoxBoy Review – A Look Back at the 3DS Puzzle-Platformer

The Best of the Boxes.

Bye-Bye BoxBoy brings the simplistic puzzling action from the past two entries with more options than ever before. Thanks to its continuously-evolving stage design and large postgame campaign, you will surely appreciate the best and most challenging entry in the series. Even if you didn’t play the other two titles, you will certainly have a blast with this one. With the added length and challenge, it gives the game that bit of oomph to earn that extra .5!

Pros

Evolving level design

Tons of solid extras

Charming and addictive

Cons

Hint system is a little too forgiving.

Related Topics:3DSBoxBoyKirbyNintendoPlatformerpuzzle

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Rango

I’ve been playing video games since I owned a Game Boy in 1993. I love Nintendo and PlayStation. I enjoy JRPGs, Platformers, Action/Adventure, and Fighting games the most.

Bye-Bye BoxBoy Review – A Look Back at the 3DS Puzzle-Platformer

Bye-Bye BoxBoy Review

Story

Audiovisual

Gameplay

Extras

Final Thoughts

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