Kirby Super Star Ultra

The box art for Kirby Super Star Ultra

Creator: HAL Laboratories

Publisher: Nintendo

Console: Nintendo DS (originally for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System), WiiU

Release Date: September 22, 2008 (Ultra), September 20, 1996 (SNES), May 17, 2010 (WiiU)

ESRB Rating: E

I tend to avoid reviewing Nintendo games, if only to avoid making a biased review. I am a huge Nintendo fan, especially of their Pokemon and Super Smash Bros. series. However, having never played a Kirby game before, I thought I might be able to put together a review that didn't come off as fanboy sniveling. Here goes.

Kirby Super Star Ultra is the DS remake of an old 16-bit SNES game with the same title, sans the Ultra. As I just said, I've never played a Kirby game before, but my interest was piqued after enjoying playing as all three representative characters in Super Smash Bros Brawl, and watching the hilariously camp Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime. I have to note, though, that the character roles for that show was extremely wonky. There are two characters: one that looks like Kirby if he had the mind of Jason Voorhees, and one is a Santa Claus penguin. Can you guess who’s the villain? Because it’s the Santa penguin. Also, after playing the game, I found out that two of the bosses were minor characters on Kirby’s side, and that there is only one Waddle Doo. But whatever, I’m here for the game.

Obviously, if you have never seen a Kirby game before, a whole lot of that last paragraph was complete jargon to you, so I’ll attempt to elaborate. Kirby is a platforming series owned by Nintendo, and was created by Masahiro Sakurai, who went on to create the Smash Bros series as well (and some Kid Icarus thing, but it's so camp it practically pitches tents). Since his second game, Kirby’s main trait is the ability to inhale and absorb the powers of certain enemies, such as absorbing the aforementioned Waddle Doo to become Beam Kirby. Under this paragraph, I will have included all of Kirby’s forms, as well as the enemies who provide these forms. If you've played Super Star before, however, you’ll notice that the enemies shown are not the same colour as they are when you fight them. This is because they are in their helper format.

Kirby's forms and his helpers

When Kirby is in one of his forms, he can press the “x” button (on the DS consoles) to remove that power and spawn a helper. Helpers are AI who assist you as you play, and are recoloured so that players can tell who is friend and who is foe. Like Kirby, they have a set amount of health, and can restore health and be destroyed similarly. Unlike Kirby, however, giving a helper a new power will restore all health they lost, and it also allows you to get rid of a particularly useless helper power.

You start the game on a cork board, with several different postcards indicating levels. The only one available from the get-go is Spring Breeze, which essentially serves as a tutorial mode. Spring Breeze is the only time I’d consider calling something “infuriatingly easy”. It is practically impossible to die in this part of the game. Kirby’s health is enormous, enemies will go a full 5 seconds after seeing you to attack, and even the boss characters are defeated in 10 hits with the weakest power-up. Of course, this is merely the warm-up level. After you defeat Spring Breeze, you slowly unlock new game modes.

I mentioned earlier that this game was made by the same guy who made Smash Bros., and it’s not hard to tell. Each of Kirby’s forms has different moves based on what direction you hold, if you’re on the ground or not, and even grabs on certain forms. He also made a Boss Rush mode, which shares a lot of attributes with Smash’s All-Star mode, including a mid-match hub where you can restore health. Some of Kirby’s controls are weirder than Smash’s, however. In Kirby, none of the characters have the sheer number of attacks a Smash character would have, yet some of the control schemes feel weird and thrown in as a last resort. For example, as Fire Kirby you can press “b” and then the direction opposite of where you are facing to set yourself on fire, damaging nearby enemies. This doesn't take into account, however, that pressing the “b” button uses his default attack, and the fireball doesn't start up for a few seconds. Not to mention, too, that your enemies are rarely behind you. There are a few other attacks with similarly odd inputs, but for the most part every form is cool to use.

Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Kirby and Super Smash Bros.

If there is one thing the Kirby series is renown for, it is definitely not its story. The plot of every mode is extremely basic; really, they are just reasons to go around eating everything. If I were to pick something the Kirby series is actually known for, it’d be it’s difficulty - or, rather, lack thereof. The Kirby series is known to be incredibly easy, this point being best demonstrated by Kirby’s Epic Yarn, where it isn't even possible to die. However, after I completed three of the earliest modes- Spring Breeze, Dyna Blade, and Revenge of Meta Knight- I found that there was actually a decent challenge to the game. Not including the mini-games, which I swear are rigged, the DS-exclusive mode Meta Knightmare Ultra would be one of the more difficult modes.

In this mode, you play as Meta Knight (a.k.a. “Kirby if he had the mind of Jason Voorhees”), so Kirby’s copying ability is removed, and you essentially play as Sword Form Kirby the whole time. However, it compensates by adding four special abilities, which can be used at the cost of energy points: spawn a Blade Knight assistant, a healing ability, a quick-sprint, and a screen-clearing tornado move. Despite this, the mode is a bit more challenging due to the scarcity of healing items, the limited “energy” to use the special abilities, and the increased power of the enemies. The actual game is just recycled bosses and levels from earlier game modes (including the one where you fight Meta Knight, oddly), and a new final boss.

Meta Knight, Kirby's rival and the protagonist of Meta Knightmare

Another mode with significant challenge is "Revenge of the King", or as I've come to know it, "Spring Breeze on Steroids". This mode does not hold back, with every boss character having enormous health, and around triple the normal enemies. There are a few additional bosses, and over all it's an unexpected (but welcome) jolt to familiar players.
There are also two non-platforming game modes. There's The Great Cave Offensive, and a platform-racing game called Gourmet Race. In Gourmet Race, you race King Dedede (a.k.a. the “Santa Claus penguin”) while trying to collect as many food items as possible. There really isn't much to say about the mode, though; it’s fairly easy and straightforward. The Great Cave Offensive is an item collecting mode, which is difficult in the sense that there is an excess of backtracking and 60 different objects to find. There are some cool Easter egg objects, like the Triforce from the Legend of Zelda and the Screwattack from Metroid, but aside from that its fairly insubstantial.

King Dedede, the main antagonist of Spring Breeze, Gourmet Race, and Revenge of the King

        The only other remaining game mode is Milky Way Wishes. In this mode, Kirby is tasked with stopping the war going on between the Sun and the Moon by approaching a celestial being known as Nova. This mode is particularly interesting because Kirby cannot use his Copy abilities in the usual way. Instead, he finds his abilities one by one in various nooks and crannies, and after that he can select them at any time. This mode is more difficult to start up, but it is substantially easier than the normal modes once you have some of the better abilities. Boss fights are super simple: have yourself as Stone Kirby, and go invincible while your helper minion does your dirty work. Respawn your helper when necessary, then rinse and repeat.  

Screenshot of the DS mode, Milky Way Wishes. New power-ups are selected on the touchscreen. 

All in all, I had fun with Super Star Ultra, and it is deceptively fun. This game is a great introduction to one of gaming’s biggest franchises, and despite the childish simplicity and easy start-up, the game is fairly challenging in the later levels, and is definitely worth a playthrough for anyone with a DS and within walking distance of a pawn shop.

Final Rating: 9/10

-Kadabra Guy