Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (2000)
Nintendo 64 · Wii · Wii U
3.71 from 905 ratings
1935 members have it in their collection · 34 playing now · 367 backlogged · 242 wish listed
How long? Main story 4h · with extras 5h · 100% 28h (from 9 logged playthroughs)
Kirby's first 3-D adventure is also his Nintendo 64 debut, and it finds the always-versatile hero battling a new enemy called Dark Matter. Dark Matter is after a distant land's powerful crystal, but a young fairy named Ribbon attempts to save it by escaping with the gem to Dream Land. Now the crystal has been broken, and it's scattered around …
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Kirby's first 3-D adventure is also his Nintendo 64 debut, and it finds the always-versatile hero battling a new enemy called Dark Matter. Dark Matter is after a distant land's powerful crystal, but a young fairy named Ribbon attempts to save it by escaping with the gem to Dream Land. Now the crystal has been broken, and it's scattered around the world. Take control of Kirby and help him journey across six worlds, battling a wide variety of enemies and challenging bosses, as he tries to collect all 100 pieces of the shattered crystal.
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Details
- Developers
- HAL Laboratory
- Publishers
- Gradiente, Nintendo
- Genres
- Adventure, Platform
- Themes
- Action
- Franchises
- Kirby
- Series
- Kirby
- Event
- Nintendo Space World '99
Release dates
- Mar 24, 2000 (Full Release) (Japan) Nintendo 64
- Jun 27, 2000 (Full Release) (North_America) Nintendo 64
- 2000 (Full Release) (Brazil) Nintendo 64
- Jun 22, 2001 (Full Release) (Europe) Nintendo 64
- Feb 25, 2008 (Full Release) (North_America) Wii
- Mar 07, 2008 (Full Release) (Australia) Wii
- Mar 07, 2008 (Full Release) (Europe) Wii
- Apr 15, 2008 (Full Release) (Japan) Wii
- Sep 16, 2008 (Full Release) (Korea) Wii
- Jun 25, 2015 (Full Release) (Europe) Wii U
- Jul 30, 2015 (Full Release) (North_America) Wii U
Related
Bundled in
- Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition (Jul 2012)
Featured in lists
Rating distribution
5 stars
180
4 stars
357
3 stars
307
2 stars
52
1 star
9
Community All Reviews Statuses
Status TheBeautifulEric Feb 26, 2023
Random thoughts
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- Most similar game to Dream Land 3, which surprised me. DeDeDe had the same pattern, animal buddies are referenced and have unique abilities, and the cutter is the same (it sucks).
- This is the only game with the copy ability where I recall Kirby being able to inhale underwater. This was super useful considering it would've been annoying …
Random thoughts
I only listed one pro, but I still think this game is worth playing. I was enjoying the heck out of it at first, but after dealing with the crystal shards I kind of soured on it pretty quickly. I think that this game would've been amazing if it integrated the Milky Way Wishes mechanic of unlocking abilities and being able to switch to them freely afterwards. That would've alleviated the tedium I experienced when going for the crystal shards and would have made for an all-around better experience. The copy ability combination felt really unique and I think it'd be cool if it appeared more often. I think Star Allies includes it in some fashion, but I haven't played that one yet. I think I'm done with Kirby games for awhile until they add more on the Switch Online service, it's been fun experiencing these games for the first time.
Edit: I'm not sure if it was always this way and I never noticed or if it's something that's found in these older Kirby games, but all of the Kirby games I've played recently seem pretty short.
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- Most similar game to Dream Land 3, which surprised me. DeDeDe had the same pattern, animal buddies are referenced and have unique abilities, and the cutter is the same (it sucks).
- This is the only game with the copy ability where I recall Kirby being able to inhale underwater. This was super useful considering it would've been annoying losing an ability combo without the chance of getting it back underwater.
- This is the earliest game I've played that follows the multiple collectibles per level system that is basically the standard after Squeak Squad released.
- The game is 2.5D, but there is no interacting with the foreground and background. It is useful in some cases to get a better view of what's around the area, but other than that there really isn't a gameplay significance for this decision.
- I preferred the sprite art in earlier games over the 3D models in this game aesthetically.
- I really like the ability combination system. Unlike the animal buddy system in Dream Land 3, they felt worth it because they were pretty powerful. They even found a way to make 56 different combinations, just like Dream Land 3. 7 base abilities + 49 different combos.
- No multiplayer for the main game. It's a shame since the two previous games had it and this game is on a console with 4 controller ports.
- Collecting all the shards felt like a nightmare. It isn't always obvious that an environment object is destructible even after you find out the color matches what ability you need to break it. And there are a lot of stages where you can't even find the ability you need for the crystal shard within the stage itself.
- Floating and running feels slower than in other games.
I only listed one pro, but I still think this game is worth playing. I was enjoying the heck out of it at first, but after dealing with the crystal shards I kind of soured on it pretty quickly. I think that this game would've been amazing if it integrated the Milky Way Wishes mechanic of unlocking abilities and being able to switch to them freely afterwards. That would've alleviated the tedium I experienced when going for the crystal shards and would have made for an all-around better experience. The copy ability combination felt really unique and I think it'd be cool if it appeared more often. I think Star Allies includes it in some fashion, but I haven't played that one yet. I think I'm done with Kirby games for awhile until they add more on the Switch Online service, it's been fun experiencing these games for the first time.
Edit: I'm not sure if it was always this way and I never noticed or if it's something that's found in these older Kirby games, but all of the Kirby games I've played recently seem pretty short.
Status Reset_Tears Jul 12, 2022
I immediately didn't like this one, but I decided to keep at it for at least a few worlds to see if maybe I'd grow accustomed to it, try to meet the game on its terms. But nope, this is just not for me. Was legit kind of stunned how flat and boring most of the stages were. They generally …
I immediately didn't like this one, but I decided to keep at it for at least a few worlds to see if maybe I'd grow accustomed to it, try to meet the game on its terms. But nope, this is just not for me. Was legit kind of stunned how flat and boring most of the stages were. They generally all look like this:
Lv 1 __________ /¯¯¯|___________________..... ________––– _____________________
Lv 2 ______/\ ____________________________________________________************
In this one, Kirby walks very slowly, attacks very slowly, and... well, it's just a slow game. I tried to just roll with that, but there isn't enough of a draw to this one to keep me invested. The main gimmick of this is that he can suck up an enemy, take its ability, spit out a star of that ability at another enemy (with a different ability), and receive a new combined ability. This is a great idea on paper, but in practice it didn't make the game any more interesting. None of the combined abilities I used felt any better than regular abilities, or any more fun to play with.
So yeah, this one's a wash for me. I will give the game credit for one thing though: the graphics, and more specifically, the 3D character models used for this N64 release. The low-poly renditions of Kirby and friends are very cute. That era was a short-lived but fun one for simple but endearing anime-ish character models (perhaps best exemplified by Megaman Legends). Wouldn't mind seeing new games with this style get made more (off the top of my head, there's Frogun).
Status PixelSlayers Jul 6, 2019
This is definitely one of the more challenging Kirby games. Still not SUPER hard, but definitely not a walk in the park like some of the others! Really enjoying it a lot.
Status PixelSlayers Jul 5, 2019
Sit back and flip through an old magazine with us! Today we're looking back at Nintendo Power #134 from July 2000, with Kirby 64 on the front cover.