Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Nintendo 64, 2000)

Previously on The Three Decade Project, I talked about Ehrgeiz for the Playstation. Ehrgeiz is a game that hits close to home for many internet tough guys and keyboard warriors. This is because in addition to having had sex with a multitude of models, the average internet tough guy already has his hands registered as lethal weapons.

Now, we send it back over to the Nintendo 64. While the Playstation had adult fare like Metal Gear Solid, the N64 was now cornering the kids market. With "play it loud" out the window, Nintendo's new M.O. consisted of having no RPGs or games that appealed to grown-ups, instead relying on trotting out the same superstar franchises of the past to keep fans happy. It was just like modern WWE.


Somewhere in space, on a heart-shaped planet...

...the citizens of Dreamland go about their business. This is a real rogue's gallery of characters right here. If I were an astronaut who landed on this planet, I would back away very slowly.

But wait! Something huge is blocking out the sun. Damn it, Val Venis!

Bastardly shadow creatures swoop in and wreak havoc. I assume these things are related to Dark Matter, the bad guy of the earlier games. They might also be related to Dethl, the "bad guy" at the end of Link's Awakening. Shadowy eye-monsters were "in" that decade.

Here's the heroic Kirby, who loves all people. He's the opposite of the Westboro Baptist Church, who exist only to inform everyone that "God Hates Homobama".

This game plays essentially the same as the rest of the Kirby games. You can fly, you can absorb the powers of enemies, and so forth. However, flight is limited compared to the other games (you slowly plummet after a few seconds). The controls are sluggish in general, but it's especially bad while flying. Flying Kirby completely lacks buoyancy, and it's like you're controlling a flying boulder.

Kirby UNLEASHES HELL with the fireball power. I've always liked this power, because it lets Kirby go all Dragonball Z and blast himself across the screen. Speaking of which, I'm really excited for the upcoming Movie 14. It's going to wash away all of the stink left by Dragonball Evolution.

While a good portion of the stages in this game transpire on a regular 2D field, the majority of the game takes place in what I can only describe as 2.5D. Maybe "pseudo-3D" would also work. What this means is that the game looks 3D, but you're still boxed into a 2D plane of movement. It's a lot like Mega Man X7 and X8, and I didn't like it in those games either. Either go full 3D, or stick with 2D. My cynical side wonders if they did this because it'd look 3D in screenshots and sell more copies.

Everything in the world of Kirby is overly cute. Even this nefarious UFO, which no doubt wants to anally probe the good people of Dreamland, is cutesied up to the max. Don't be fooled, Kirby! The probes are already armed!

 
This painter is a recurring villain in the Kirby games. His portraits come to life...and attack. In this game he joins you after you battle him, which is cool. If I had his power, I would spend all of my time painting beautiful, seductive women. Then again, given my poor painting ability, it's very likely that they would come to life as dragon-apes instead.

It's worth noting that in this game Kirby collects quite a posse. I wish this were an RPG and they were all party members, because they serve little purpose outside of the wordless cutscenes where they all sit around having picnics and being super friends. I think a Kirby RPG could have been an incredible game, right up there with Mario RPG on the scale of "improbable, yet awesome". Who knows, maybe we'll see one someday.

Surprisingly early in the game, Kirby locks horns with his archnemesis King Dedede. This is usually one of the endgame battles in your typical Kirby game, but not here. He joins the posse, and has a bit more of an active role than the others because you can occasionally play as him. More on that in a bit.

The first world boss (as is tradition) is Whispy Woods. Since this game takes place in weird 2.5D, you can't actually attack the boss until he sends his body parts into your limited plane of movement. This is common throughout the game, and it's pretty annoying.

Wait a minute...is that a Cactuar?

King Dedede is playable occasionally, but only for very short segments of levels. One of the things that could have made this game much more enjoyable is if Dedede were selectable as a character throughout. While he doesn't have Kirby's Shang Tsung-esque powers of mimicry, he does have a Bowser-esque ability to SMASH THROUGH STUFF.

Our hero stumbles upon an antlion den. Luckily, Prince Edward of Final Fantasy IV fame is here to let us know that there is nothing to fear.

Phew! I was worried for a second ther-

-AHH! JESUS! GET OUTTA THE WAY, KIRBY!

Thanks a lot. Fuckin' Prince Edward of Final Fantasy IV fame.

The "overworld" - where you enter stages, anyway - is kind of cool. Reminds me of Yoshi's Island a little bit.

Another boss. A lot of the boss fights in this game take place on circular - yet still 2D - planes. As in, the area turns as Kirby runs to the left or right. It makes it a bit difficult to aim at foes when they aren't restricted to the same plane. This combined with the sluggish, leaden controls means that the boss fights in this game are a chore.

Our heroes wander in the desert for a while and nearly expire from the heat, which is as dark as this game gets. Luckily, the painter dude conjures up a bunch of food for them to eat. Forget food... once again, I'd conjure beautiful, seductive women. I'd then send them out to find food while I sat there awaiting their return like a lion in the savannah.


This sandcastle-filled level is inventive. It reminds me of Donkey Kong Land Returns... that game is full of inventive, magical things like this. Kirby 64 definitely has its moments.

The underwater levels are serene, at least until you find yourself face-to-snout with...

...this very bad fish. In other news, more games need to have a shark as a boss.

Kirby's next journey takes him through the jungles of 'Nam. The color palette in this game is so vibrant that I'm starting to wonder if I'm accidentally playing it in HD or something.

Wait a minute...that font looks familiar. Did they steal it from the Mario games? I guess technically Nintendo would be stealing it from themselves, if that were the case...

My favorite power in this game is the double-lightsaber, which was clearly inspired by Darth Maul's weapon in the previous year's The Phantom Menace. Kirby can't fly while this is activated, which limits its usefulness quite a bit, but the sheer cool factor of running around slashing your way through foes with a double lightsaber can't be understated.

Continuing the Star Wars references, this reminds me of that planet where Obi-Wan and Anakin have their climactic final battle. I half expect The Emperor to slowly saunter down the hill to take Kirby's soul.

If this planet looks familiar, it should. That's the Earth...frozen over. Is this an ice age, or a nuclear winter in progress? Does Kirby 64 take place in a dark, dark vision of our own future? Is this the Fallout 3 of Kirby games?

There are a number of "rail stages" in this game where you're stuck on a sled or other moving object and need to dodge obstacles. As you can see here, the game warns you well before you actually reach an obstacle; combine that with the slowish speed and the nearly complete lack of pits and this is far easier than your average Mega Man rail stage.

The fire power + the bomb power = Fireworks. This might well be the best power in the game, because it nearly makes Kirby invincible. You can run through a level generating nonstop fireworks that obliterate everything in your path, something that got me through most of the last two worlds without losing a single life.

Aside from most of the world being frozen over, there's also this bizarre factory level. Seems like it's in full production. My God, this... this is the Skynet future from Terminator!

The boss of this world is a giant mech, and you battle it in the city from Blade Runner. Well, more accurately, you battle the mech's arms, because the rest of it is outside of the 2D plane you're trapped on.

It has a second, super-menacing form. This reminds me of Final Fantasy VII battle graphics... except I'm pretty sure FFVII had better graphics three years before this.

The final world...well, I was expecting something dark and sinister, but instead we get the rainbowy fields of Elysium. Huh.

Areas like this castle make me really wish that the game were 3D. This game could have been a Mario 64 style platformer and likely would have been better off for it. Instead, I'm pretty sure this game could have existed on the Super NES with few changes. It's like Nintendo realized that the N64 lacked a Kirby game and just kinda slapped this one together. Wouldn't be a bit surprised if this started development as "Kirby's Dream Land 4" on the Super NES.

The final boss is a weird orb that shifts between a bunch of elemental "forms". This isn't Dark Matter as per usual, it's... "Miracle Matter" or something like that.

There's an ice form!

And a fire form! 

Gotta say, this whole game was worth playing once just to fill that gap that existed (this was the only pre-Wii Kirby game I missed out on in the past), but it still falls on the "mediocre" end of the spectrum for me.

Our heroes have a celebration and all is well with the world. Well, aside from the bad guy clearly still being around. It seems I got the "bad ending" of the game. In order to get to the true final boss and get the good ending, one must collect all of the crystal shards hidden in the game (all 80ish of them). No thanks, this quick run-through was plenty of Kirby 64 for me. I'll Youtube the real final boss and check it out that way.

Kirby 64 is definitely a game for kids. Considering that Kirby's Dream Land was the first video game I ever bought, you could say I have a soft spot for Kirby games despite being nowhere near the right demographic for them. At least, I thought this was the case. It has been a while since I played a Kirby game, and after this one I think I'm done. It isn't that this is a bad game... no, far from it. The biggest problem with this game is that I'm not 9 years old. Also the problem with watching modern WWE.

Next game.


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7 comments:

  1. Yikesy mikesy -- Dream Land is heart-shaped? Man, that's a twist on the canon I never would have guessed...

    In any case, Kirby. I admit I don't have much experience with the franchise, but from the games I've played -- Canvas Curse and Epic Yarn -- I'd say the...well, let's call it "youthful" style of the game is refreshing as well as appreciable. Hard to hate something so adorable, if you ask me.

    And now I need to head to YouTube to check out more of this game. I have to see some of those powers for myself, you see.

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    1. The powers are definitely the high point of this game. The one thing that kept me interested to the end was seeing more of them, and what I could create by combining powers. Good stuff.

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  2. "With "play it loud" out the window, Nintendo's new M.O. consisted of having no RPGs or games that appealed to grown-ups, instead relying on trotting out the same superstar franchises of the past to keep fans happy. It was just like modern WWE."

    Where does Conker's Bad Fur Day fit in this analogy?

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  3. "Areas like this castle make me really wish that the game were 3D. This game could have been a Mario 64 style platformer and likely would have been better off for it. Instead, I'm pretty sure this game could have existed on the Super NES with few changes. It's like Nintendo realized that the N64 lacked a Kirby game and just kinda slapped this one together. Wouldn't be a bit surprised if this started development as "Kirby's Dream Land 4" on the Super NES."

    Maybe Nintendo realized that the N64 lacked a 2D platformer?

    KDL4 SNES is unlikely given how extremely late KDL3 came out on the system. I will completely agree that it is KDL4 in all but name, though. After the first game, the Kirby platformers split off into two branches. The better one is Kirby's Adventure leading to Kirby Super Star. The other one is Kirby's Dream Land 2, then 3, then Kirby 64.

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  4. LOL this must be the first and only time "Kirby" and "sex" have appeared in the same post

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  5. Seriously, you played this game for *how* long, and only two screens & posts discussing the single greatest aspect of this game as well as the single most creative interpretation of Kirby's "gain enemy abilities" ability... The "Combin-o-tron"!! I seriously loved this part so hard... As the above poster, most of the game's enjoyment was searching out & experiencing all the different combos. I actually drew & illustrated a lush multi-page document chronicling each ability combination.

    <3

    Good review otherwise, though.

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  6. Sounds like "Combin-o-tron" should've gotten more column space! I agree this would've worked better as a 3D game.

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