Kirby's Adventure (1993)

Beat without slowing down the speed, which is unusual for my PSP since it tends to run NES roms a little too fast. I still had to save state scum fairly often, despite the overall lack of difficulty. Some spots had enemies or hazards placed in such a way that it was almost impossible to get past without taking damage, and taking a hit lost the current power up unless you could chase it down and eat it. The hp bar and healing pick ups were very generous so my scumming was about keeping my power rather than dying. Most of the powers were good but the most difficult times I had were fighting mini bosses or bosses without a suitable power. Like the charging grabbing ninja turtle looking guy while armed with the sword. My favorite power was the laser because of long range sniping, and I used it to kill most of the mini bosses and bosses. I liked how the ending showed clips of each boss being fought with the power that was best against them. I did not go out of my way to find secrets nor to complete all the mini games. I beat the king using the laser, then easily won the shoot em up phase of the final boss, and struggled against the final form since my hp was low by that point. I was not expecting 3 back to back boss fights. All the fights in the game were very creative though I did not like this final phase because of the very tight windows for inflicting damage. It was not so much difficult as annoying. I downloaded the Canada rom not knowing that it was in French. I understood most of it but not well enough to fully understand the story. Regardless the game was a lot of fun and very impressive for the NES, even feeling more like a SNES game. The powers and mini bosses felt like Mega Man while the level design felt like cross between Mario 3 and Mario World. While I did not care for the design of Kirby himself, his flight made him the best platforming character. Though there were plenty of times when walking and jumping were safer than flying.

Very charming, fun and well made game without any major flaws that I noticed. The worst I can say about it is that it was not as good as Mario 3 and Mario World.

8.8/10

This is the first Kirby game I've played through -- and what can I say, it's damn cute. Everything in this game oozes with charm. Kirby is a sweetie-pie, and all the enemies are cute too. Your goal is to make Kirby eat them alive, and gain their abilities. In a way it's a bit like Mega Man, but better (more variety in powers, no need to fiddle with a menu, don't have to worry about using up a power bar). Kirby is gaming's #1 fatass, ready to devour anything and everything in his path, and ask questions later (or never).

The game looks amazing for an NES game, but I guess that makes sense when it released a couple years after the SNES came out. It's also a pretty easy game, but I'm fine with that since it's obviously intended for kids first and foremost. My main complaint for the game is that all the levels are pretty boring. Kirby has all these different abilities, but I rarely felt like I had a chance to be clever in picking up an ability in order to solve a puzzle or access a new route or defeat a boss more easily. The levels themselves are mostly just "hold right to finish" in general, with your only obstacles being enemies scattered about sporadically. Also the fact that Kirby can fly indefinitely kind of takes out any possibility of there ever being platforming challenges.

Best part of the game is definitely the ending, in which we discover the penguin villain was actually not up to no good after all (and thus Kirby has been killing hundreds of the penguin's goons for no reason) -- and from out of nowhere, Satan himself shows up to wreak havoc. Of course you get to take the devil down, first in a shoot-em-up, and then in an endless runner. Man, the NES days were wild.

This is the first time I've seriously played a Kirby game, I played previous ones but never for more than a few minutes.

It's pretty easy for an NES game, I was expecting them to limit continues or at least send you back a few levels, I guess the series started out intending to be easy. The game is very cute, the only NES game I can think of even close to as cute as this is Yume Penguin Monogatari. I really like the night sky backgrounds and levels, those were gorgeous, especially the last boss fight. The rest of the visuals are not nearly as interesting, but the night levels really do stand out as some of the best visuals on the system.

       *If only the whole game looked this good! *

Apart from some really nice visuals, it's a mediocre platformer that keeps you occupied with a huge amount of abilities to copy. I think this might have the most abilities of any platformer on the system and some of them really do shake up how you play (the most wild ability has Kirby turning into a UFO with improved flight and long range laser attacks); although at a certain point you've seen all of them and you become more attuned to the game's shallowness. There's nothing particularly interesting or tricky in the level design the way there is a Mega Man, Mario or Castlevania, nor is it very intense like a Contra or Ninja Gaiden. It never falls into having bad level design a though, just nothing above average outside the move-list and a few noteworthy visuals, particularly the one I have an image of. I did enjoy myself though.

It's worth adding to your list if your heavily into NES games, but not a must-play.

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!