Kirby's Adventure (1993)

Preliminary: Everything about this is super cute so far. Not as straightforward as the original Gameboy Kirby but still just full of nice touches and cute colors/sprites and so far quite fun gameplay. Not in love with the new addition of copying enemies' abilities so far but I think it will grow on me. Also, not a fan of the usual NES sprite overload slowdown.

All of this is so nostalgic and familiar even tho I didn't own it. My cousin loves this game tho. Lol the Cutter power made that first boss a joke, easier than the semi-bosses I'd come across. I think Cutter is my favorite power so far, maybe Beam, but probly Cutter.

Day 1

This is way too fast paced for me to take time to screenshot, but there were some great purple waters and other screens. All around good colors and cute vibes.

So far tho it's definitely one of those situations where I want to like it more than I actually am. Some frustrating enemy mechanics, level design, and mechanics like with the slowdown of your attack.

But here I am, quite addicted and struggling to put it down despite the frustrations. I had to give up my Cutter ability (well, decided to) to get the Hi Jump for that one level on Ice Cream Island. Luckily there is a place to get Laser power, but I miss my Cutter :(

And a second boss down. Gotta love that post-boss tune.

Many of the mechanics continue to be really irritating with how the enemies sometimes fall different ways etc, and the collision masks are quite sloppy, but here I am.

Ooo I liked the like dark purple neon area of this level.

Day 2

The frustrating enemy mechanics and weird delay in turning around/some frustrations with the controls. This probly should just be a 3 star and move on, tho the Look and Feel/connection to the first Kirby game which I love may boost it. I wish I were having more fun with this...

Day 3

Welp I kept going back and forth on this. It's a great platformer, with clever level design ensuring you have the right power ups for different parts and bosses, cute little optional caveats, and a robust game. But it's just not clicking with me. I finished Level 4 Grape Garden and decided to call it quits.

Look: 8/10 Cute

Sound: 8/10 Cute

Play: 7/10 Something about the controls or the enemy mechanics or the NES sprite slowdown just could not get me to engage with this as much as I would expect.

Feel: 7.5/10

Attachment: 7/10 I'll stick with the GB Kirby!

Overall: 7.5/10

Completion: Through Grape Garden

Playtime: ~1h 45m

This is an excellent starting point for anyone who's looking to play Kirby's older titles. It just knocks Dream Land off the park.

Feels a little too long and a tad bit repetitive, but it's still a fun game with awesome gimmicks. Beware that when there's more than 2 enemies on the screen the game gets laggy and it's very difficult to move around.

Also worth noting that the ending is awesome, I wasn't expecting the plot twist and felt very satisfied! Can't recommend it enough.

This is the only Kirby game I remember playing as a kid, though I didn't have the luxury of playing on real hardware, but rather one one of those hundreds-of-games-in-one cheapo bootleg machines that had a bunch of NES roms on it, at a friend's house (I vaguely remember playing Mario 3 the same way, though I had definitely played that one before on the NESticle emulator in first grade computer class during off-days, but I digress). All I really remember from that time are the aspects of the game that were also present in the dub of the Kirby anime that would come on public access TV at the time, and finding the game fairly challenging because I think it might have been impossible to save in that format. This was all over 20 years ago now, of course.

Anyway, about the actual game. The only other Kirby game I have ever played to completion that I have any memory of is the original Kirby's Dream Land, which happened more or less by accident considering that's a game that can be completed in 15 minutes. Imagine my surprise when Kirby's Adventure turned out to be a good bit longer than that. I did have fairly clear memories from my childhood about a few of the setpieces from the game, the boss fights in particular, though I must confess that I had absolutely zero memory of the boss of world 5.

I don't have a terribly clear memory of just how the challenge was in Dream Land on account of it being so short, but my experience with this game this time around was like a weird middle ground between my faint recollection of the past and my expectations in the present; in short, I remember the game being hard (probably largely on account of the aforementioned inability to save), but I figured that I'd have an easier time now that I'm more experienced and critical— and this was mostly true, but said critical thought led me to remark upon certain parts that ended up seeming a lot more sadistic to me than I would have expected. For instance, some of the later levels would have rooms really densely packed with rapidly spawning enemies, making it all but impossible to make my way through without getting hit at least once (and thus losing my powerup), and sometimes this went on for so long that I'd just end up losing all my health and a life, only to make it through relatively unscathed on the second run now that I was expecting all that and find a now useless maxim tomato waiting for me just beyond the point of my prior death. Something similar occurred with a lot of the bosses, which surprised me with how limited the chances to hurt them were if you didn't go in with a powerup. Conversely, the mini-boss encounters with the Meta-Knights, which I remember being somewhat challenging, were a lot easier than expected, and the same goes for the final boss, which took me only one attempt.

Other than that, I must say I'm fairly confident that I never came close to 100%ing the game when I played it as a wee lad owing to how ridiculous reaching some of the hidden switches is, particularly the one in 6-3; never in a million years would I have had the interest and/or patience to find all the hidden doors and figure out the right powerup sequence to reach that one without looking it up. Getting launched out of the cannon in 7-5 also has to be one of the most dumbly designed challenges I've seen due to how much sheer luck is needed, though at least it doesn't count towards that completion since it just leads to a handful of extra lives which you really shouldn't need at that point. I'm also not entirely convinced that a regular human can fully complete the Quick Draw challenges without cheating, especially with how easy the other minigames feel in comparison.

As a closing remark, I guess one experience this run provided that I'm fairly certain I had never gotten before was being able to appreciate that the final regular level in Rainbow Resort is a throwback to Dream Land, as I had never touched that game when I first played this. Overall, going back to this game (which was very much on a whim, trying to pick from among the few hundreds of games I've put on my modded 3DS, remembering that I had gotten this one by sheer chance years ago by claiming a "first come first serve" eshop code) I'd say was a worthwhile refresher, but it also makes me fairly curious to see if I can finally move beyond this point in the Kirby series— surely newer games will feel less clunky. Right?

Just finished this (76%) and really enjoyed it! I haven't played many NES games but wow is this one pretty! It's amazing how much they stuffed into this game, it almost plays like a metroidvania.

My only gripe is the controls are a little jank. I found myself fighting with Kirby often as he wouldn't respond to my inputs as I expected.

Highly recommend this for someone looking for a cute and easy NES game.

1. Power ups and boss fights are really fun sometimes challenging
2. Final Boss fight is cool and you use a new weapon
3. Kirby in a Cowboy hat is cuter than every Pokemon that existed
4. Those framerate drops and slowdown really get annoying

First Kirby game I played definitely won't be the last. Heard the GBA version is way better can't wait to play it!

8/10

The second Kirby game ever released and we already have two of the most iconic elements of the franchise: The introduction of copying abilities by swallowing certain enemies, and the godlike final boss that in latter entries become so detailed and creepy that Nightmare is actually kind of cute in comparison.

The plot, however, is still pretty simple, and in order to read it in-game you need to defeat the final boss or watch the full intro that appears if you don't press anything in the title screen, with the problem that you first need to watch a pretty basic tutorial that I found pretty unnecessary and a little too long. However, I appreciate that it's optional, and if you don't care about the story and just want to play you can do that, which is better that having cutscenes that interrupt the flow of the game.

Talking about the gameplay, I like the multiple new abilities, but it's pretty frustrating that just one hit makes you spit it, and most of the time it isn't even worth to swallow it again, as enemies respawn every time you are in the same screen as their spawn point, which was a pretty common practice at the time, but makes backtracking annoying, especially when you have to absorb a specific enemy to get an ability that you need in order to solve a puzzle.

Another thing is that unlike the first game, that only had 5 levels, this one has 41, but most of them aren't that memorable, as they don't have anything distinct and are pretty short, so the game can get a little boring when you complete 6 nivels in a row and none of them were particularly fun. This made me appreciate the short duration of Kirby's Dream Land, which never feels dull.

But at least there are optional minigames that you can play in order to get points, lives and get something different to do between the levels. They are an obvious precursor of the multiple game modes of Kirby Super Star, and while they are pretty basic and short, I found them fun and engaging, my favorites being crane fever and egg catcher. It's a shame you can only play them once per world, but if they were unlimited you could get infinite lives easily, so I understand the choice.

In conclusion, I found this game to be more flawed than Kirby's Dream Land, but I'm glad it exists, as it introduced many elements that are staples of the franchise, while being a fun experience and a curiosity of a time where absorbing elements didn't give Kirby a cool hat and the final bosses weren't eldritch beings. I definitely recommend playing it in small doses to not get bored of the multiple levels that feel really similar, though.

Okay so i don't know if it's an issue with the game itself or the switch "port" but this game is extremely laggy ! The controls are unresponsive and it's just a plain ol' platformer.

With that said, this game is really pretty for the nes (Wich is probably why it's so laggy) and the final boss is really charming and challenging.

All in all, if you wanna experience this game, i'd say just play the remake. 2.8 out of 5.

(Ps : The box art however, is much better than the remake's... seriously, what happened ?)

History:

I wasn't introduced to Kirby until a good deal later in his career, starting with a copy of Kirby Superstar I'd play at my cousin's house. No doubt that's a good introduction to the series though! I've enjoyed every Kirby game I've played since, none of which to completion, but I've actually never spent more than a minute with the original.

Expectations:
I'm expecting a slightly longer, yet much easier platformer for the NES. This will be good for me, a reprieve before I dive into Contra, Mega Man and Mario territory...

Day 1:

For some reason, I always remembered the original Kirby game in sepia shades of brown. Imagine my surprise when I started a new game and realized that this NES entry is freaking GORGEOUS! I mean, when my wife sat down she thought I was playing a SNES game for a minute, and hell, so did I. Not only does the game look sharp, but it moves smoothly, I haven't seen a trace of sprite flickering, and it's a joy to control.

I'm only four stages in due to an unfortunately phone-dropping-on-controller-cable-yanking-cable-from-console-crashing-the-game incident, but everything is good now. I'm having a lot of fun, but that said, I already have a worry with this game. I think it may end up being too easy. I know, weird complaint, but so far your ability to float is limitless, you don't start deflating or anything. Conceivably, you can just float across entire levels! I'm hoping, and really expecting, that this will only apply to the beginning of the game. I assume future levels will require you to navigate through lower portions of the stage, or prevent you from free-floating with my anti-air enemies.

Still, so far, having fun. Hoping to have it beat over the weekend!

Day 2:

Well the game certainly found a way to shut down any fears I had about it being too easy, while still not being overly difficult. There were still some sections of the game that you could casually float over, but I also found that by doing that you tend to miss out on good power-ups and secret areas.

The game really picked up around the halfway mark for me, with bosses that actually required some amount of thought. This cloud boss in particular.

The Meta Knight sword fight was a blast, and now I even have a bit more appreciation for the character. The buildup to this fight was awesome as well, having to deal with his minions for a few levels before finally getting to fight the guy himself.

The black & white stage was great, especially with the classic track playing.

I really did think King Dedede was the last boss, and I really did celebrate a little when I beat him. It was a good fight, but far from over.

The "real" last boss took a few tries, mostly because I didn't realize his first form was timed. But, once all was said and done...

Conclusion:

What a fun game! It's really interesting to see these late-lifespan games, as Kirby came out a good two years after the SNES. When pushed to its limits, the NES could really put out some impressive titles. I managed to beat this game with an 80% completion rating, meaning a clearly missed a good few secrets. The difficulty of the game was definitely on the easy side for an NES game, but I still lost my fair share of lives getting from start to finish.

While I mostly loved the game, it wasn't without a few issues, namely in the controls. There were enough little quirks, or animations that took just a little too long, that made the game occasionally feel more difficult to handle than it should. That said, it did a LOT right, particularly little things like letting you skip out of levels you've already finished, or explaining what your currently equipped power does on the pause screen.

All in all, I really enjoyed playing Kirby's Adventure, and now am looking forward to finishing other entries in the series!

Liked:

- Fantastic graphics for an NES game, probably the best I've seen so far on the console.
- Equally great music.
- Good difficulty curve. It was able to get challenging without ever feeling "NES Hard".
- Good length, while very nearly bordering on too long, it manages to end at just the right time
- Mostly good controls and really good boss fights and level design make this game a joy to play through.
- Save system!

Disliked:

- While the graphics were very good, the limited NES pallet made several worlds feel a little samey.
- Some areas of the game could be completely skipped thanks to infinite flight, though this came at the expense of finding secrets!
- Control quirks caused a bit of frustration.

Personal Score: