-In January 2015, I discussed my 12 favorite Kirby abilities.
-In early May 2015, I reviewed Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, because I owned the title on the Wii’s Virtual Console.
-Then, thanks to Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special
Collection, I reviewed Kirby’s Dream Land in November 2015.
-After which, I started 2016 with a quick post about the Kirby anime, which didn’t really measure up to my expectations. Also, I was
hoping to post recaps of the episodes of the Kirby anime, one per day, on days
that had no reviews, but I was unable to follow through with that promise due
to real life issues jumping in.
-Then, in March, it was Kirby’s Dream Land 2.
-Then in May, I took a look at the nine games in Kirby
Super Star.
-Two weeks ago, I reviewed the final classic Kirby
title in Kirby’s Dream Collection, Kirby’s Dream Land 3.
-And finally, I reviewed the three episodes of the Kirby anime that were made available in this collector’s item, then gave 12 additional recommendations.
Today, we end this. It’s the last post about Kirby’s
Dream Collection: Special Edition! I will be done talking about Kirby games for
a long while after this! I feel a bit sad, kissing the franchise goodbye on
this blog… but as they say in French, “ce n’est qu’un au revoir”. Who knows, I
might buy more Kirby games later, and then, I will come back to the puffball to
discuss his mighty exploits again. Therefore, allow me to honor him for what
is, at the moment, the last time.
Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition is, as I
described it, a collector’s item for Kirby fans everywhere, released in 2012 to
commemorate the 20th anniversary of the franchise. It is a bundle of
six classic games for the fans who may not have owned one or another of those,
and it’s a great introduction for players like me, who know the series but have
only played one or two titles and wanted to see more. It’s sold in a box that
contains the game, yes, but also a 45-track CD containing the highlights of the
soundtracks of Kirby games from his humble 8-bit beginnings to today, as well
as a collectible book that details the History of Kirby and offers interesting
info on the development of the Kirby games and the creation process that went
behind its unforgettable characters.
I won’t talk about the booklet much, in part because I
tend to read it a lot, but mostly because I have a bad tendency to forget where
I last put it the next time I actually need it. I’m kind of a scatterbrain like
that. I’ll just say that it shows sketch drawings of characters like Kirby,
Dedede, Waddle Dee and Meta Knight, showing their evolution on paper before
they became sprites, and later, 3D models. The game also goes back on all the
games released before the 20th anniversary collection, including the
spin-offs like Kirby’s Pinball Land (probably just as bad as a certain game
called Mario Pinball Land) to Kirby Air Ride. Great stuff!
On to the music CD found in the Wii game’s box. It
contains 67 minutes of music, spread over 45 tracks. Yes, you’ve read that
right. Of those, 14 tracks are under 1 minute in length, starting at 0:32 (with
the main theme for Kirby’s Dream Land, no less!), 22 are between 1 and 2
minutes in length, and the last 9 range from 2:11 to 4:42. The last few tracks
include:
-“Returning to Dream Land”, a medley of tracks from
what was then the latest game, “Kirby’s Return to Dream Land”;
-“Electro Kirby”, a great techno song that contains
parts of famous Kirby tracks;
-“Gourmet Race To Green Greens: Chamber Music”, an
orchestral version that combines these two songs, and it sounds really epic;
-And “Dream a New Dream for Tomorrow”, a very peaceful
track, perfect to close the album with a last nod to the “dream” theme of the
series.
I suggest that you seek out this CD, or at least check
out the YouTube playlist I’ve found that lets you listen to all the songs.
Next up is the Wii game itself: It opens on an 8bit
Kirby walking into frame with his allies. A CGI star shows up, which Kirby
inhales, turning them all into their CGI forms (though King Dedede isn’t too
happy with his now protruding tummy). Waddle Dees pass by and form a big 20 in
Star Blocks. Kirby inhales the blocks and spits them out, then gets clobbered into it by Dedede, forming the title
screen. We get to a screen with three options: “New Challenge Stages”, “Classic
Titles” and “Kirby’s History”, We’ll go in the last option for now, since I
covered everything in the middle option and the first option can wait some
more.
In “Kirby’s History”, we can see everyone’s favorite
copy puffball running through a hall, stopping next to points with years on
them. On every year, there’s either a Kirby game’s box art when a Kirby game was released that year (or more than one,
in some cases), or golden 8-bit statues of retro Kirby characters for years
that saw no new release in the Kirby franchise. When you pick a game, Kirby
inhales it, bringing you to a screen where you can rotate a 3D model of that
game’s box (.....yaaaaay?), or watch a moment of its gameplay. As a bonus, if said game is in
Kirby’s Dream Collection, you can press a button to play it! The years without
Kirby games offer fun tidbits of trivia about that year, which is pretty cool. On
the 2002 spot, you can access the three episodes of Kirby: Right Back At Ya I
reviewed a week ago. The last option, which itself is Kirby’s Dream Collection:
Special Edition, contains a video clip of the musicians playing “Gourmet Race
To Green Greens: Chamber Music”.
Magolor, ready to race! |
Killing golden Waddle Dees for fun! |
Magolor, stop cheating! |
This mode is based on the Challenge Mode that started
in Kirby’s Return to Dream Land, which I haven’t played yet. And while you can
reasonably beat these 13 levels in a short enough timespan, the last ones are
pretty tight on timing – oh yeah, did I mention that the Challenge Stages are
timed, thus you need to hurry? Chances are, in the final levels, if the waves
of enemies don’t kill you, the timer will. It’s even worse in the Smash stages,
which work like the towers of midbosses in the Kirby games.
And of course, if you think about it, you haven’t
beaten Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition until you’ve attained 100% in
each of the six games, and gained all Gold medals and trophies from the
Challenge Stages. Good luck with all of that.
Honestly, what else can I add to this? It’s an
excellent collector’s edition to celebrate what were then the 20 years of the
Kirby series, and if I had a Wii U, I would already be looking forward to the
25th Anniversary game! The music CD has plenty of tracks, and even
though most are very short, they’re a pretty great look back through music at
those 20 years. The booklet is also pretty great, most Kirby fans are bound to
learn a few new things by reading through it.
As for the game itself, I really like the “Kirby’s
History” section, if only because of all the gameplay videos and the three
episodes of Kirby: Right Back At Ya that are available on it. I also love being
able to play through these six games. They’re not a walk in the park; reaching
the end of every game is simpler than actually beating them.
The Kirby games really master the idea of gradual difficulty that you’d expect
from most platforming games, and the copy abilities don’t technically affect
the game all that much – that is, if you don’t play for completion. Were you to
play for completion, you would encounter puzzles that get harder and harder as
you progress, and you would probably see your frustration increase to
unbearable levels due to some of those. Whether it’s a certain mini-game
located near the end of a tough level – looking at you, Kawasaki – or the
ever-popular “get to the end of a difficult level with a near-useless ability”,
we can tell the folks at HAL Laboratory know what they’re doing. Their goal is
for you to enjoy the regular game, and swear like a sailor when the time comes
to achieve 100% completion. Nowhere is this made more obvious than in the Boss
Battle modes, most of which give you a single life to beat all the bosses of a
game, with no abilities nor healing items on the way. Hell, the Boss Arena from
Kirby Super Star is hard as Hell, and it allows you to use abilities and get a
Maxim Tomato if you need; it still took me upwards of 20 tries before I could beat it!
The difficulty of the Kirby games pretty accurately
represents the universe of the series: Cutesy, nice, bright and easy on the
surface, but dig just a little deeper and you’ll find a world of Hellish
monsters with an insane difficulty. Same goes for the New Challenge Stages
playable here: Most of them are actually pretty simple if you know what to do,
but to get that prized Gold Trophy you need superhuman reflexes. Once again,
pretty much like the regular Kirby games.
Is this a good collector’s item? To be honest, I don’t
know. I personally think that for 40$ (its original release price), these six
titles + the New Challenge Stages + the music CD + the booklet is a more than
welcome gift. It's a very reasonable price, considering most regular Wii titles are actually more expensive than that. Maybe a figurine would have raised the price too much… but hey,
that doesn’t really matter. I got my Kirby plushie anyway. And then there’s the
Kirby Amiibo to fill that gap. So yeah, I’m perfectly satisfied with what we
got here. I do wonder what they’re going to do for the 25th anniversary,
which happens to be next year…
Okay, now that I’m done talking about Kirby, as you
may guess, the review schedule will get turned around some more. I will no
longer preface my review arc with a Kirby game. This means we’re coming back to
the regular order, with slight differences however:
-A VGFlicks about a film related to video games, or an
Episode In Gaming about a TV show related to a game franchise;
-A Nintendo DS game;
-Two Wii games;
-A WiiWare or Virtual Console title;
-As a new addition to the order, some reviews of Steam
games, sometimes done like Demo Reviews, sometimes full reviews, all depending
on the size of a game and what I can say about it. I have yet to figure out how
to arrange that;
-And once again, a Top 12 to close the arc.
Due to the Olympics and the closure of my extended
look at the Kirby series, we’ve already covered two Wii games, done the Episode
In Gaming part, and we’ve also done the Kirby title, which leaves us with a
Nintendo DS game, a WiiWare or Virtual Console game, some Steam Stuff, and then
a Top 12. Alright, goodbye!
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