Kirby Super Star

Is ending a console’s life with a Kirby title considered an instance of “going out with a bang?” Similarly to Kirby’s Adventure on the NES, Kirby Super Star was released on the subsequent console, the SNES, at the tail end of that console's lifespan. Most likely, the pattern of releasing a mainline Kirby game in a console’s twilight years is like receiving ice cream after a hectic bout of surgery. In this context, the surgery is a torrent of pain and misery brought upon by the ruthless games of the pixelated eras of gaming. Only now, gamers were subjected to five(+) years of 16-bit agony with some additional frills like the ubiquity of save files and relatively better game design. All things considered, this period proved to be much more lenient and understanding to a player’s personal welfare compared to the rudimentary rigidity of the previous generation. Still, the SNES library was filled with some excruciating titles that made gamers thrash around in a blood boiling rage and spew some unholy curses. Another Nintendo console was ready to wave bon voyage and roll out the red carpet for Nintendo’s next venture into the third dimension. Before this ambitious escapade, Nintendo once again needed to treat their wounded to the delightful dessert of a 16-bit Kirby to make them smile again. Naturally, Kirby Super Star would have to raise the stakes of how it patched up the SNES era. The lesions inflicted on gamers during this period weren’t as severe or consistant compared to the previous one. Still, fresh wounds that seem benign at first have the potential to become serious and shouldnt be brushed aside, and attending these wounds would be especially imperative on a new part of the body. Therefore, Kirby’s lightheartedness and breezy difficulty still had a place in the SNES library. Like every other next-generation Nintendo sequel from an IP that debuted on the NES, Kirby Super Star was yet another refurbished successor that built upon the NES title with the graphic fidelity doubled. Even with a game as gentle as Kirby’s Adventure, Kirby Super Star still needed to enhance the easy experience with the same level of polish and augmentation given to all of the other SNES sequels.

A logical first step, as always, in the advancement process when transferring over to a technically superior system are enhancing the graphics. Already, the graphics of Kirby’s Adventure were a console-grade enhancement to his black and white debut on the original Gameboy. The land of Dreamland looked depleted by the most primitive hardware ever produced by Nintendo, and translating it to the industry standard of a home console allowed it to flourish as an ethereal, candy-coated paradise in Kirby’s Adventure. Kirby Super Star is the third mark of Dreamland’s radical evolution in showcasing its visuals. With a 16-bit aesthetic in Kirby Super Star, naturally, Kirby’s fantastical homeland looks spectacular on a technical level. The moderate sepia overtone from Kirby’s Adventure that I hadn’t even noticed until playing Kirby Super Star has been refined into an aesthetic that is as lurid as it is decadently charming. All of the delectable elements that make up the foregrounds and backgrounds pop with a striking level of color. It’s almost as if the developers saw that Kirby’s Adventure was covered in dust, blowing off the airy detritus for Kirby Super Star and revealing the full splendor of its majesty.

Kirby’s gameplay is still simple enough where a rehaul is unnecessary. Sure, it’s broken when considering the laws of physics that other platformer protagonists have to adhere to that Kirby doesn’t, but Kirby’s idiosyncratic capabilities are at least rendered competently. If they weren’t, the intended ease at which his games are to be played would be awkwardly compromised. The gluttonous gumball still moves from point A to B on the X-axis, keeping himself afloat by engorging himself with oxygen whilst flapping his piddly little protuberances on both his sides. What Kirby Super Star decides to tackle in changing Kirby’s already solidified mechanics is quality of life improvements that flesh out the simplicities of the NES for a more capable generation. Kirby’s consistent six points of health that would deplete one at a time no matter what Kirby came in contact with has been shifted into a red health bar that decreases depending on the severity of the damage. If the player somehow tumbles off the map and dies, it's alarming how quickly Kirby’s health bar plummets. To accompany the more complex health system, the amount of food items that restore Kirby’s health has been increased to the size of a buffett. Alongside the fully restorative Maximum Tomatoes are delectable hamburgers, ice cream, fruit, and Japanese food items that all replenish a range of Kirby’s health. It’s a wonder how Kirby does not cramp up while flying on account of how many calories he can consume on the field. Overall, the health system is a minor change in Kirby’s evolution that most likely couldn’t have been implemented on the NES.

Of course, Kirby’s other ability better associated with his unique array of attributes is using his swirling black hole of a mouth to vacuum up unsuspecting victims and emulate their respective powers, and Kirby Super Star would’ve faltered if it omitted what Kirby’s Adventure had introduced. Executing Kirby’s iconic offensive move is essentially the same as it was in the previous game, but the developers decided to alter a few aspects of the innate ability along with the usage of it. Surprisingly, the number of copy abilities in Kirby Super Star is less than it was in Kirby’s Adventure. While this prospect may seem underwhelming at first glance, the developers ultimately did this to trim the fat from the playing field. For instance, having both a “freeze” and “ice” ability with two separate enemies seemed redundant, so the developers converged the two into an ice ability that encompasses the elements of both that Kirby obtains after sucking up the enemy that looks like a snowman. Plenty of familiar powers from Kirby’s Adventure are also treated to a wider extent of practical uses such as the hammer now having the ability to charge and a vertical swing move where Kirby spins it while running. New abilities include the swift Ninja, the reflective Mirror, the makeshift Jet that allows Kirby to zoom around like he’s using a jetpack, etc. It’s difficult to say if these moves were too advanced for Kirby’s Adventure to handle, but the fortunate aspect of debuting in Kirby Super Star means that they are granted with a multifaceted range of properties and uses from the start. The only confusing misfortune in Kirby Super Star is that the laser ability is gone, yet the enemies that harbored it in Kirby’s Adventure are still present. How else will Kirby bust a cap in his foes? Plus, Kirby now has a defensive blocking ability, but I never felt the need to use it on account of the copy abilities still acting as offensive juggernauts.

The most important quality of life addition in Kirby Super Star relating to his copy ability is the fact that the player can change which ability they use on their own volition. In Kirby’s Adventure, the only method of changing up Kirby’s ability was to receive damage, which would knock the ability out of Kirby and materialize into a star that would bounce around the room until the player decided to suck it back up and use the ability again. Given that there are a plethora of abilities to experiment with, I found it to be awkward and unfair for the player to harm themselves to shuffle the various properties that Kirby could receive. Fortunately, thanks to additional buttons on the SNES controller, Kirby can toss his current ability and neatly leave it as a hat on the ground for possible recovery. The game also allows Kirby to keep his current ability until he is hit multiple times instead of just once, so every little snag and inconvenience won’t eject an ability without haste. Once Kirby removes his current ability on his own, the player is introduced to the game’s most radical feature: helpers. The enemy that coincides with the ability that Kirby flings off his person materializes as a CPU, following Kirby around and dealing damage to enemies with their innate abilities. The helpers almost seem grateful to be given a chance to be at Kirby’s side after he swallowed them out of existence, for the AI is especially aggressive towards enemies to the point of being careless. I guess this is why the enemies have pet-like names such as Sir Kibble, Rocky, and Bonkers, reflecting their subservient relationship to Kirby. The helpers get so gung-ho in aiding Kirby that their existence tends to be ephemeral, collapsing in a red, frantic frenzy before they poof into the ether. To (ideally) ensure that the partners stick around longer, another human player can pick up the controller and man the helper character. The cooperative play in Kirby Super Star falls on the spectrum of the first player as Kirby receiving far more precedence, but not to the extent where the camera will forsake the second player like it does to Tails in a Sonic game. A human partner may not charge at the battalions of Dreamland’s creatures without care, but at least their caution will keep them alive for longer. If that fails, Kirby can replenish his helper’s health…by kissing them. I guess it’s only gay if you make it so...

All and all, Kirby Super Star sounds like the typical hard reboot that was commonplace across most SNES sequels to NES games given all I’ve detailed. However, Kirby Super Star avoids the distinction of being a turbo remake with how the game is structured. On the game’s box, Nintendo places a banner below the logo exclaiming that Kirby Super Star is “8 games in one!,” creating a sense of dread for anyone who has even heard of Action 52. Fortunately, this is just a case of hyperbolic marketing on Nintendo’s part. Kirby Super Star is segmented into eight parts that act as an individual campaign. It’s the most distinctive element of Kirby Super Star that separates it from Kirby’s Adventure from a narrative aspect, but it’s also the game’s biggest detriment.

The game’s main menu presents four main campaigns to the player once they begin the game, with two obscured campaigns on the menu that have to be unlocked through finishing the others. Initially, the first campaign, “Spring Breeze” in Kirby Super Star is a duplicate to the first world in Kirby’s Adventure, fighting that damn apple tree Wispy once again and finishing off King Dedede as soon as the first campaign. It’s a wonder as to why we give him the status as Kirby’s prime antagonist considering how insignificant he seems to be across Kirby’s titles. “Dyna Blade” upholds the same Kirby level traditions, only now with some narrative weight behind the encounter with the titular, metallic bird as the campaign’s final boss and organizing each level with a Mario-esque world map. It isn’t until “The Great Cave Offensive” that the player is faced with a gameplay premise so unorthodox that I thought it was an optional mode like “Gourmet Race” and the two mini games in smaller tabs at the bottom of the menu (why is Gourmet Race optional if it’s front and center with everything else?) Dear lord, I wish that it was. “The Great Cave Offensive” is a more patient trek through labyrinthian passageways, searching door by door for the eventual exit. The player is also intended to collect treasure along the way, but doing so doesn’t seem to net them anything other than chuckle at some items acting as references to other Nintendo games with arbitrarily high monetary values. I don’t dislike “The Great Cave Offensive” because it’s easy to get lost, but because the methodical pacing in nothing but confined spaces is counterintuitive to Kirby’s free-flowing, liberal gameplay. Implementing these spaces among the wide, open plains of Dreamland shows nuance in the level design, but The Great Cave Offensive overstays with its ambition. It amounts to nothing but a tedious slog.

I’ve given up on ranting about how Kirby games are painfully easy, for I have realized that this is like complaining that water is wet. Considering the campaign format, I think something the developers could’ve instilled is one continue per campaign, forcing the player not to take the smattering of extra lives and items in Kirby for granted. Alas, it seems my ideas in making Kirby more engaging would fall on deaf ears at Hal Laboratory, and the game still gives the player unlimited continues with checkpoints galore. However, I can still fault a Kirby game for misleading the player in regards to its difficulty. Each campaign features a difficulty rating represented by stars on a maximum scale of five. “Spring Breeze” is a one out of five, “Dyna Blade” a three, and “The Great Cave Offensive” an asinine four. I was led to believe that the unlockable campaigns would be much more difficult, and this was affirmed by the increased amount of stars. In reality, the preemptive notions given by the game were misleading. “Revenge of Meta Knight '' shows the return of Kirby’s sword-wielding rival when Kirby arrives on his ship to take him down. As amusing as the agitated banter between Meta Knight’s crew is as well as the epic scale of Kirby’s one-man army infiltration, I never had to worry about the consistently declining timer, not even during the escape sequence. The last level, “Milky Way Wishes” is introduced with a disconcerting disclaimer that Kirby must complete the level without the use of any special abilities. I thought the game was finally offering a climactic challenge that tested my skills, but what the game didn’t disclose is that Kirby would simply not be able to take enemies' properties through sucking them up. Instead, a series of powers would be secured for the duration of the campaign after defeating the bosses. Somehow, picking and choosing the abilities in a roulette makes Kirby’s gameplay even easier. Five out of five stars, my ass. At least Marx, the game’s final boss, manages to be a formidable final foe even with the array of abilities on hand. The only substantial challenge Kirby Super Star provides is a boss gauntlet after the game is over. Is this enough to quell my thirst for Kirby to kick my ass a little? The answer is reasonably so.

By all means, Kirby Super Star should be superior to Kirby’s Adventure. Like every other SNES sequel, it has no excuse not to be. Any game on the advanced hardware of the SNES inherently makes for a better experience, even if it’s not warranted by reflecting on a faulty gameplay template like with Kirby. All of the efforts gone into both streamlining and expanding Kirby’s gameplay, as minimal as it may seem, are still welcome additions that ultimately enhance Kirby. However, I still feel like Kirby’s Adventure is a more concise Kirby game because it isn’t fractured into pieces like Kirby Super Star is. The developers did this to discern it from its predecessor but in execution, the player is given a more nebulous idea of what Kirby is. Ironically, Kirby Super Star is considered the pinnacle of the floating gumball’s games. It still encompasses what makes Kirby fun for a mass audience, but the way the game presents itself is still perplexing.

God I love that weird little wad of bubblegum

Shows its age a number of times with the reuse of assets, rosy glasses aside its still one of the best games for the SNES. Huge nostalgia for this game, remember playing it after school everyday with my best friend growing up. Still hits me even after his passing. Will always have love for the Kirb's.