It took long enough, but another of Nintendo’s cute, marketable mascots has made its way to North America. The Legendary Starfy is not the most innovative platformer around “" in fact, it combines its originality with elements from other Nintendo franchises “" but the end result of its mixing and matching is a quality marine platformer that will have you coming back for more.

Starfy is the prince of Pufftop, a kingdom in the sky. One day, a bunny in a spacesuit crashes into Pufftop and is captured by unknown assailants until Starfy saves him with his spin move “" the bunny, Bunston, then runs off to the world below. Starfy and his pal Moe give chase, and your adventure begins. Surprisingly, the story in this platformer is entertaining, and you won’t want to skip the text-based cut scenes, or the comic book style cartoons that occasionally come up during important moments. The localization is very well done and humorous, much better than the tripe that usually pollutes these types of games (I’m looking at you, hedgehog.) Despite an appearance that the game and some of the humor is intended for a younger crowd, you won’t roll your eyes unless the game means for you to do so.

Starfy and his friends are cute “" almost disarmingly so. Close your DS with the game running, and Starfy emits a wail like you’ve hurt his feelings by leaving, but he’ll greet you with a satisfied cry when you return to play again. The assault of cute on your senses is never ending, with Starfy making adorable faces as you run, jump, attack, or just sit there. The music is catchy and bubbly, and will get stuck in your head while you play and after you shut off your DS. The 3D backgrounds are well drawn and animated, and add to the 2D foreground; both utilize all of the colors of the rainbow in that sugary sweet style that Kirby is so well known for. The aforementioned cut scenes involve a bunch of character animations that look like your typical Japanese animation emoting, which is pretty adorable when it involves little sea creatures and a star.

The controls seem a bit awkward at first “" why is the button to dash on land and underwater different? “" but that goes away as you learn more abilities. When you require that the transition process between abilities is seamless late in the game, it is, and the control scheme will make much more sense than when you first start up. These powers vary from longer and stronger spin moves to double jumps to the ability to float, and you will use all of them in a variety of ways over the course of the adventure.

You have your basic Mario style run and jump platforming, but you also have Kirby style gaming mixed in as well “" though in the case of Starfy, many of these powers are inherent, rather than acquired the way Kirby does. It all works very well together though, which is somewhat surprising given the amount of things they want you to learn to do and implement. Besides reaching the exit, you will have some other goals, like collecting treasures and pearls. Treasures can be heart containers (collect three to extend your life bar) or costumes and accessories for a 3D model of Starfy to model on the pause menu. Pearls come in large and small sizes (worth five and one pearl respectively) and are used to regenerate your health and to buy unlockables from the pause menu.

Starfy is an established character in Japan, with four releases on the Game Boy Advance, but outside of an appearance as an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the ocean’s resident platforming hero has yet to make it to the west. That is about to change next month, when the Legendary Starfy hits store shelves in early June, but as of now we still don’t have much detail as far as what the game entails.

Luckily, six of the people who worked on the game sat down with IGN for a conference call, so now we have a little more to work with. Starfy is a 2D platformer, set in the ocean, which means that the main character’s range of motion is more than we are used to in many platformers-after all, he’s moving through water, so the effects of gravity are a bit different than they would be for say, Donkey Kong, or the Mario Bros, or even the other star-shaped platformer, Ristar.

The developers claim that this version of Starfy is the most accessible, as they have had four other games to perfect the Starfy formula on. It would be nice if North America’s first go with the series was the definitive Starfy experience, but it’s tough to tell without having played any of the others. Thankfully, the developers say that they would be willing to bring those here as well, based on fan response to this one. You know what that means; if you think you want Starfy, or you’re a fan of 2D platformers-something Nintendo has the best record in the industry for over the past 20+ years-then pick this one up when it hits store shelves.

We’ll have a review for Legendary Starfy shortly after it ships to retail on June 8. For now, check out these screens provided by Nintendo. We’ll have more information on the game as it moves closer to its release date.