Friday, May 9, 2014

Kirby Super Star (Super NES, 1996)

Kirby's Dream Land 3, I respect you and I'mma let you finish, but it's time for the best Kirby game of all time. OF ALL TIME!



Kirby sails in on a 3D star! THIS is 1996 intensity! Nintendo was putting a lot of these SGI graphics into their SNES games at the time.

 Seriously, this is impressively 3D-looking. The rest of the game is your standard 2D, but that's fine. The color palette in this game is far, far nicer than KDL3 already. Much more vibrant, not so washed-out.

The main claim to fame here is that this game actually consists of a bunch of smaller games. There's Spring Breeze, which is essentially a remake of the original Kirby's Dream Land. Just a five-stage romp with fairly low difficulty. Dynablade is another action game with a higher difficulty level and more stages. Great Cave Offensive is an RPG-ish game. There are some minigames like Samurai Kirby and Megaton Punch, and later on you can unlock the more difficult games in the form of Milky Way Wishes and Revenge of the Metaknight.

 I didn't mention Gourmet Race above because it's a mystery to me. While Spring Breeze is the lowest-tier game and the one you're supposed to do first, I buck tradition and go for Gourmet Race.

This is a race against King Dedede where you need to grab as much food as possible. It's fun, to say the least.

Difficult to take screenshots since this game is so fast-moving. Dedede has a lot of the same powers as Kirby, such as flight.

Dedede wins on my first go, but the important thing is that I had a blast with it.

 Next go, I succeed. Onward to the next game.

 Spring Breeze starts with the same first stage as Kirby's Dream Land.

 The difference is that Kirby has his now-standard special weapon-powers in this game. In essence, this becomes an even easier version of Kirby's Dream Land.

 Case in point, you can pummel the Poppy Bros with cutters and end the fight quickly.

Another new addition to this game: You can summon enemies to assist you, and they're fairly overpowered. So far the difficulty of this game is a bit too low, but we'll see how things go as it continues.

The endless rivalry between Kirby and Whispy Woods continues, as our hero lobs bombs. Gotta say, it's pretty great to play my first game again... in SNES-form and with powers added. When I was a kid I used to wish for a KDL remake with those things, and then it existed.

 Weird thing is, this game completely skips Castle Lololo. In KDL, Float Islands was the third level. Wonder why. Maybe Lololo and Lalala had a run-in with the law and Nintendo didn't want to use their likenesses in further games.

 Aha, it seems that this second stage is a weird fusion of Float Islands and Castle Lololo. The boss here is the nefarious Lololo himself. Weird, not sure why they didn't just have them be separate stages as the Lord intended. And where's Lalala? This battle is way too easy like this. What about Kaboola? That was a fun fight. I guess you could say this is a scaled-down version of KDL in some ways...

 Ya know, let me speak on Kaboola some more. That fight was a lot of fun on the Game Boy. What about Kaboola? DAMMIT WHAT ABOUT KABOOLA?

 KDL's stage four is next. This was a tough one in the original game, but I'm not expecting too much difficulty out of this variation.

 As is tradition, we get Standard Kracko before pumped-up Kracko. Kirby easily trounces him with a sword... and it's awesome that this game lets you have swords early on.

The weapons in this game also have multiple uses. The sword can be thrown, for instance. They went all-out to make that extra effort with every little thing, even weapons. This game is SO GOOD.

 Kracko beefs up at the end of the stage. This is like his Muscle Freeza form.

This was a boss rush on the Game Boy. What are they gonna do without Kaboola? Have a blank fourth door?

...more like no doors. The place is empty, and you go straight to...

 ...King Dedede Versus Kirby, LIVE ON PAY PER VIEW AT WWE SUUUUUPERSLAM!

Dedede attacks with a devastating FIVE STAR DUCK SPLASH FROM THE TOP ROPE!

Kirby takes to the air with a SUPERMAN SLASH!

 King Dedede chases Kirby with his sledgehammer! BOW DOWN TO THE! BOW DOWN TO THE KIIIING!

But wait! Kirby is hulking up! HE'S HULKING UP, BY GAWD!

STUNNER! STUNNER! STONE COLD STUNNER!

ONE! TWO! THREE!!!

 Kirby proceeds to take Dedede's Castle, which has all of the stolen food from Dreamland...

...and carry it over the ocean while all the food falls out. Seriously.

Dreamlanders: "YOU LOST ALL THE FOOD! WE'RE STILL STARVING! OUR LAND LOOKS LIKE BOSNIA!"

Dynablade is the next step up. This game doesn't immediately fall at your feet and die the way Spring Breeze does.

Not three, but FIVE stages of punishment await!

This game is just awesome. It has the same kind of energy as Super Mario RPG. Not sure if it's because of the similar energetic colors, or the general happy feeling.

What the hell? That's FFIX's Quina Quen! I thought we killed him in Kirby's Dream Land 3!

...which came out a year after this game. Just...why?

 Dynablade features a lot more of the bosses and powers that were introduced in later games. This one isn't a remake of anything, it's entirely new.

 Now there's a miniboss that I've never seen before. Kirby easily dispatches him with the mighty sledgehammer.

The helper summons really are overpowered. If I'm in any danger of losing a fight, I just sic them and retreat. It's like playing as a Hunter in WoW, no real chance of ever losing any fights. ...though that kinda goes for all of the classes in WoW, it's especially pronounced with Hunter for the same reasons as this game.

Kirby's helper summons continue to RUN ROUGHSHOD over my enemies as Kirby stands around going Super Saiyan to impress the ladies.
 
  Kirby gets on the mic and cuts a BLISTERING battle rap while his helper summon completely trashes another miniboss.

 After the five stages, you face the one major boss of Dynablade...

 ...Dynablade himself. He's a huge, vicious bird.

 I zap Dynablade with the Mirror power (which sends out a bunch of mirror-barriers to blast enemies) while the Hammer Bro wails on him. He may be the big boss of this game, but he can't stand up to this kind of onslaught for very long.

 But wait! In a shocking and depressing turn, it seems that the slain Dynablade had a bunch of babies.

 Our hero leaves the babies in the care of the now-reformed Whispy Woods. Well, if Kirby trusts him with bird-kids, that's good enough for me.

They age quickly, and Kirby goes flying with them. WHAT A HEART-WARMING GAME THIS IS.

 It's so much better than Kirby's Dream Land 3, too. That game just made me appreciate this one more by playing it immediately afterwards.

 Onward to some real challenges... tomorrow, as the best Kirby game continues.


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3 comments:

  1. BEST KIRBY GAME EVER YEAH THIS IS SUPER NINTENDO INTENSITY 1996 4 LIFE

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  2. YEAH! This was a really fun read. I agree with you the colors and graphics are superb, and they also put an effort into making every single screen pleasing.

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  3. I played it so much with my sister and my friend as a kid. Definitely the best multiplayer game of my childhood. We even tried to explode each others with bombs ( it's the only way to attack a friend)

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