Kirby Super Star Review!

 

This game Fucking ROcks.

You know who I love? Kirby. This pink little freakazoid who walks up to a random little guy and inhales their spirit and takes their essence. I love this little fella, I love this tiny little creature, and most of his games are kinda peak if u get what I mean. The little dude on the gameboy had some bangers, but to be honest, it wasn't till the Super Duper Nintendo where this pink gyroid started to really have some fun fun fun. Kirby Super Star is awesome as hell bucks, and you’re about to learn just why. Strap in baby it’s time to enter Kirby City.

To be quite frank here there isn’t a real big overarching plot. Super Star is structured like a minigame collection of sorts, with a bunch of smaller, bite sized games you play through. You got Spring Breeze, Gourmet Race, Dynablade, Great Cave Offensive, Meta Knight’s Revenge, Megaton Punch, Samurai Kirby, Milky Way Wishes, and the Arena. Each one plays mostly the same though a few have some variances to kinda change things up and make them feel fresh compared to each other, and all of them are pretty good! (besides one of them). Spring Breeze is the easiest to explain, simply being a remake of Kirby’s Dreamland just with copy abilities. It’s pretty fine, but for some odd reason it skips the Kabula Stage and the boss rush in the final stage so it’s not the full thing, but it’s short and Dreamland 1 is always a fun time. Dynablade is another rather simple adventure about you trying to stop a metal bird, but the levels are fun, and you even got a few new secrets to find throughout. Gourmet Race is one of the more unique ones, letting you race against Dedede, collecting food along the way. Whoever gets the most food wins! It’s 3 separate maps and if you get 1st place you win an additional 30 food. Dedede’s Ai isn’t the best so it’s a pretty free win, but it’s a good time killer and you can win in less than 10 minutes. Meta Knight’s Revenge has you running through Meta Knight’s airship under a time limit with constant action going throughout the game. It’s a blast, and it really keeps you on edge with the ever present time limit. Great Cave Offensive is the one I dislike, having you explore a cave structure searching for treasure before escaping. The level design is super simple as it’s mostly based on you finding the treasure, but I find most of the treasure puzzles to be boring and I always dread replaying it each time I go through the game. Milky Way Wishes is easily the best, having you explore different planets to collect different stars in order to grant a wish on the giant clock Nova. What sets this one apart from the others is the fact you can’t absorb enemies for abilities, instead locating different abilities that let you change to any at will. This is incredibly fun and had me constantly trying out all the different copy abilities, leading to a ton of variety throughout. Arena is just a boss rush and Samurai Kirby and Megaton Punch are pretty basic timing minigames. It’s a pretty neat package and while the game is rather short overall, each one is usually a blast to go through so I don’t mind the direction this one goes for.

Now the big thing that makes Super Star so much fun to me is the way abilities were changed here. Beforehand, all the abilities were super basic, only being a single move with no variance to them. It really became which attack you thought was the coolest, and nothing much else. Super Star actually adds various different moves to each ability, and this leads to me actually switching between different copy abilities all the time. Each one benefits in different circumstances and while they still have a few I prefer over others like Plasma or Hammer, I don’t really hate using any of them, and it makes every single playthrough feel fresh, each one having me try new abilities in different ways. It feels like such a massive upgrade over what came before, and this would end up becoming the blueprint for future Kirby games, sticking with this formula up to now even. Abilities are even useful when not being used, as you can transform any ability you have into a partner character, letting you gain a useful ally in combat that can be overpowered at points (shoutouts to the copy one). If you have a friend too, they can pick up the 2nd controller and actually play as the copy partner, letting them tag along for the rest of the journey. It’s not the greatest co-op honestly, things can feel rather claustrophobic sometimes with the other character, but it’s still a great way to get a friend to play with you, and I have a lot of fond memories playing with other people. The game’s also really pretty too. I know people prefer the DS remake, but something about the Super Nintendo Sprites hit differently for me, and I much prefer the look of this compared to what the DS goes for.

All in all, Kirby Super Star is a pretty phenomenal game, and while it isn’t my personal favorite, it’s still one I find myself replaying over and over again, and I can see why it’s a lot of people’s favorites. It’s the game that sticks out as a pretty big upgrade for Kirby at that point, and it’s a rather fitting end to Sakurai’s run of Kirby as well. It makes me excited to check out Ultra, as I haven’t touched that version in awhile, but at the very least, you can never go wrong with the SNES original! Poyo!