With a passing glance, Whipseey looks an awful lot like a Kirby game. In fact, even holding your eye for a time, it still looks an awful lot like a Kirby game. It also sounds not dissimilar to a Kirby game. But it is not a clone of a Kirby game.
In fact, it plays a bit more like the old Castlevania games, albeit with cute Kirby/not Kirby graphics and music. This is due to your main character, who has been turned into Not Kirby, having a whip with which to both attack and swing on. No sucking.
There are just five short levels, although they each have a number of areas and a variety of increasingly difficult to deal with challenges, with a boss before you move on to the next. It’s barely an hour long, but it isn’t a walkover, as you only have five lives and if you lose them, you have to start the whole level again. Getting to the boss only to die and have to restart the level is a very 1980s way of gaming, but managing to get to the boss without dying at all gives you a nice wave of achievement.
Aside from the shortness, the only other real issue is the collision detection can be somewhat suspect, especially when it comes to one-hit-kill spikes. Just give them a wider than you need berth and they’re not so bad.
On the Switch, Whipseey and the Lost Atlas is normally about a fiver which, for the length and lack of replayability (once it’s done it’s done) is a little steep. However, it’s half that at the moment and it’s cute and fun enough to warrant a purchase at that price.