The good news is that I only have two Kirby games left to review, after which I’ll write a final post about Kirby’s Dream Collection and I’ll be done with it. And today, I am not reviewing a single Kirby game… well, I am. But that game contains multiple smaller games. And… wait a second, am I talking about Kirby Super Star or Kirby’s Dream Collection? Wow, there’s like an Inception thing going on. There’s this game that is a collection of smaller games, and one of those smaller games is also a collection of smaller games! It’s like Matryoshka dolls!
I'm glad to see the job center has a lot more Kirby. That's neat. |
Everyone knows more feet equals more buttkicking. Although neither really attacks by kicking... |
As for how this review is going to work, I think I’ll
split it between games. Oh no, I won’t post eight different articles. But I’ll
separate this review among the eight games, starting with the ones that are
unlocked at the beginning and moving forward until all have been covered, with
my thoughts on a game at the end of its section.
Let’s jump right into this!
Spring
Breeze
In this remake of Kirby’s Dream Land, we control Kirby
as he heads out into the not-so-dangerous realms of Dream Land on a quest to
retrieve the food King Dedede stole from the land’s inhabitants. If you want,
you can go read my review of the original game. Obviously I won’t spend a lot
of time explaining this one.
First Kirby makes his way through Green Greens. Note
that, while this game does follow the same basic structure as Kirby’s Dream
Land, the layout of each level has been altered. It’s not a direct copy of the
first Kirby game. Although, obviously, Kirby has yet again to fight Whispy Wood
at the end of this level. Because of course he has to. I mean, that tree can
take all the damage our little puffball can inflict, it’s a giant tree. It’ll
only stop being the first boss when Kirby suddenly develops a Chainsaw copy
ability. Hm… Chainsaw Kirby… I kinda want to see that.
Castle Lololo is mysteriously absent; I guess Kirby
didn’t have to stop by the castle for a reason or another. Instead, we move on
directly to the Float Islands. Kabula, who used to be fought in a bizarre
shoot-em up, is absent; instead, we see Lololo and Lalala again. Good to know
those two aren’t actually gone. The game would suffer so much without those
nods to HAL Laboratory’s short-lived game series Eggerland Mystery!
The third level takes place in the bubbly clouds
again, and when Kirby is in a cloudy land, you know what that means: Friggin’
Kracko! Yep, even in easier games this damned cyclopean cloud will not leave me
alone! Well, at least you can make quick work of it thanks to Kirby’s copy
abilities.
Finally, we get to the final level, Mount Dedede. This
time around, instead of having to battle the previous levels’ bosses again,
Kirby has direct access to Dedede’s boxing ring. And what a battle, ladies and
gentlemen! Kirby kicks Dedede’s sorry penguin butt! Yeah, the Copy Abilities
make this battle really easy, compared to the original Dedede fight where Kirby
had to rely on inhaling collision stars and toss them at the King in order to
hurt him. Once more, Kirby collects the Sparkling Stars and grows the size of a
hot-air balloon, uprooting the castle and raining food all over Dream Land. And
inflation fans rejoiced.
This is the easiest game in this collection, so short
you can beat it in less than 10 minutes. I guess it was the point; this being
the shortest and easiest game, as an introduction to Kirby’s many abilities,
allowing players new to the series to get a good grasp of its features. The
enemies and bosses also tend to behave a little different from their versions
of the first K’sDL. Although I have to wonder if it wasn’t made too easy. With
the new system, I think we could have had a complete remake of Kirby’s Dream
Land and its difficulty would still have been just fine.
Megaton
Punch
Outside of the main six games, there are two
mini-games available from the start; I’ll discuss them both here then continue
with the other sub-games in this collection.
This mini-game is split in three levels, and in each
level you face three enemies with increasing difficulty. Megaton Punch is
really a timing challenge, as you need precision to tap the A button at just
the right moment. Kirby and the challenger arrive at the contest and place
themselves over rock platforms. There are three steps to this, and if you
perform better at each step than your opponent, you beat them. The best score
possible is 201, and the final enemies score between 180 and 190. Oh, by the
way, this contest almost breaks Pop Star in two. Every time. I’d hate to be the
construction enterprise that repairs the planet after this competition! Oh, by
the way, hello Mario, Luigi and Birdo in the audience! I think the Bros. are
just there to take notes on that Kirby guy they’ll be facing soon in Super
Smash Bros. for the N64 (since the first SSB came out 3 years after this game).
Samurai
Kirby
Another timing mini-game, very similar to the Cowboy
Kirby mini-game from Kirby’s Adventure. Samurai Kirby and an opponent face each
other. When an exclamation mark appears on the screen, be quick to press the A
button. The first opponent to draw its sword wins the encounter. There is a
tiny time window in this mini-game, thus it’s really difficult to get to the
end. There’s the Beginner, Novice and Expert difficulties, each with five
opponent (Waddle Doo, Wheelie, the Chef, King Dedede and Meta Knight). Good
luck beating Meta Knight!
Dyna
Blade
Someone has been stealing the crops around Dream Land!
Dammit, Dedede is that you again? No? It turns out that the real culprit, this
time around, may be a giant bird of prey that goes by the name Dyna Blade. And
yet, she was a very peaceful bird before! Why did she start attacking the
crops? Kirby sets out to solve this mystery.
This one is a little more difficult than Spring
Breeze, but still nothing too tough. Unlike Spring Breeze, this is a completely
new game, and the levels may contain copy ability puzzles that take Kirby
either to healing items or extra lives; thus it pays to visit every corner.
Kirby games, in general, tend to favor exploration. However, most levels here
don’t feature full-on bosses, and instead Kirby has to fight bigger and
stronger versions of previous enemies.
Kirby starts this quest in a Green Greens-like level,
after which he makes his way through a castle. In the castle, there’s a hidden
switch that you can activate, letting Kirby access a bonus room on the world
map. That bonus zone contains trophies of various enemies granting Kirby copy
abilities. You can use one to create a Helper, then get a Copy Ability. Hm, I
wonder if these trophies were the inspiration for Assist Trophies in Brawl…
Level 3 takes place in a cave, and Level 4 in a place
that combines water sectors and magma sectors. Also, at the end of Level 4,
there’s a quick Boss Rush with about four bosses. Ah, the Kirby series sure
loves that trope… After which we get to Level 5, just a hill leading to the
battle with Dyna Blade. That’s one giant, colorful bird. She’s not all that
difficult to defeat, although only hitting her head will deal her any damage.
With a strong Helper and a good copy ability, Dyna Blade goes down. Oh no!
Don’t worry, Kirby wounded her pretty bad but she’s still alive. Kirby goes to
the right and finds a nest with three Dyna chicks. At first he’s irritated by
their constant chirping and, realizing that they’re probably hungry and their
mother can’t take care of them at the moment, he decides to do so in her place.
He feeds them Whispy’s apples, teaches them to fly, and this short game ends
with a nice shot of Dyna Blade and her now grown chicks flying off into the
sunset. D’awwww.
Since this one is just a little harder than Spring
Breeze, it represents some kind of difficulty curve akin to those in normal
platform games; so far, Kirby Super Star feels as though a platform game with
many worlds actually had each world be a game with a distinct story. It also
becomes more important to learn how to use every ability to its full potential
(a copy ability can have a number of special attacks) and to learn how to use a
Helper to get the best results.
Gourmet
Race
Yes, the game that caused this ear worm to exist.
God I love the Brawl version.
Beating fat penguin in a race? Piece of cake! |
Um... not as easy as it seemed at first... whoops... |
This is a pretty challenging sub-game. You actually
need talent to win this, as the CPU Dedede is really good. Better get some
speedrun skills. The concept is pretty novel, this is a neat sub-game. In fact,
I should probably call it a mini-game since it takes under three minutes to
complete all three levels. It’s a good exercise in controlling Kirby.
The
Great Cave Offensive
Not to be mistaken with that underground base with a
lot of unpleasant and insulting pictures hanged to the walls; that’s the great
offensive cave.
Kirby fell into a large cave and somehow forgot he
could just fly out. Or maybe he doesn’t want to fly out… after all, it’s been
said that this great cave is filled to the brim with treasure… And Kirby is
going to do everything he can to get out with all of them!
So many sections to explore. |
To access some particular treasure chests, you need a
certain combination of abilities. You use Kirby’s ability, then he rids himself
of that ability, and can either take back his current helper’s ability as his
own or trust that his helper will do the right thing. In some cases, you have
to backtrack across a large section of a level to get the ability and/or Helper
you need to get one particular treasure chest.
By the way, I know it’s kind of childish, but I will
always find it very funny how Kirby kisses his Helper no matter what Helper it
is, whenever either of them gets a healing item; this way, the health bars of
both characters refill a little (or entirely with a Maxim Tomato). Is there
anything you’d like to tell us, Kirby? Oh right, you don’t talk. Oh well, it’s
not a problem. Either he's discovering things about himself or he's just really affectionate. Guess that’s the only way they found to get both characters to
heal. How does it work anyway? Some Helpers don't even have mouths!
I think we're still a long way from getting an actual Kirby RPG... |
This large cave takes them to a lake where they fight a whale, then into a place where they battle… an RPG system?? Yep. That’s a boss featuring three different enemies that Kirby has to fight. Then we get to an underground castle and Kirby beats up a chameleon that can turn invisible. Finally we get to a Garden Area with a lot of cloudy, sky-like sections…. still underground… okay… with a lot more treasure chests to find.
One funny thing about the treasures in this game is how many of them are references to other Nintendo games. Kirby, Captain Falcon called, he wanted his helmet back. Oh, and be sure to hand that Triforce back to Link when you two see each other in the next Smash game. You can keep the DK barrel, though, Donkey Kong still has plenty of those. He doesn’t care about barrels nearly as much as he cares for his banana hoard.
Finally, Kirby reaches the very bottom of the cave and
fights Wham Back Rock, facial features without a head, and a hand without an
arm. Hm, it looks like that damned gloved hand from a certain fighting game… Is
it just me or Masahiro Sakurai is just stealing ideas from himself? I mean,
everybody knows Master Hand, who knew Wham Bam Rock?
After this final boss is defeated, Kirby goes through
a couple of rooms, uses elevators, breaks some stone blocks and finds himself
back at the entrance of the entire cave. He blasts through the rocks blocking
the way out, and flies back home, with all the treasure he collected (a total
booty worth 9,999,990G!). The last image for The Great Cave Offensive is Kirby
surrounded by riches.
One of the best games in Kirby Super Star. Well,
actually, they’re all good games, it’s just that this one in particular has
greater depth, better ideas, than the first ones I’ve looked at. The interest
of Kirby Super Star is how it features a bunch of games, always with Kirby as
main focus, and six of those sub-games are platformers with either mini-game
elements (in the case of Gourmet Race) or a little something more that
separates that game from the others. In the case of the Great Cave Offensive,
the focus is not on the platforming but on the puzzle elements. Alright, the
platforming part can still get really tricky at times, but everything about the
platforming here revolves around finding the collectibles. Hell, after you
defeat Wham Bam Rock and find yourself back at the beginning, you can just go through the whole
place again to look for whatever treasure chests you missed! Exploring is
encouraged and there’s always something nearby that allows you to get a
treasure chest, usually without too much trouble. The Save points are also
placed perfectly, and it’s easy to find them – or to go back to them, since
they’re always located in hub-like sections. If I do have one point of criticism, it
would be that a few treasure chests outright require the Helper to be
controlled by a second player, because the CPU Helper’s AI follows Kirby around
and some switch puzzles require that Helpers actually stay in a certain spot.
But you can use a second remote in those sections, it works too.
And that’s all for today. I’ll be continuing this
Monday with Revenge of Meta Knight and Milky Way Wishes. See you then!
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