A "LMX" Review
Maybe its just age speaking, but I remember Kirby Super Star on the Super Nintendo as being a glorious game. Packed to the brim with fun little half-games it really made a name for itself and among Kirby fans it is often considered to be one of the peaks of Kirby’s game career (despite the lack of attention it actually received). So when one hears of a game with such a history is being bought to the DS, one would assume it would be a great idea. And whilst it isn’t a complete failure it does feel as though the game didn’t get enough interesting new content to fully warrant the price and a shiny new word being added onto the title.
Basically Super Star Ultra allows old-school Kirby fans to reminisce about how good this game was the first time around, and to attempt to impress new gamers that this pink puffball has still got some run in him yet. In some respects the game is a success; it maintains the fun style of classic Kirby. Relieving the Kirby Super Star games was a lot of fun. But sadly I could not say the same for the new ones that were added in there. A couple of new games involve the revenge of King Dedede and even Meta Nightmare Ultra (where you finally get to play as the swift, stylish blue Kirby himself).
Dedede really needs to change where he lives, we must be frequent visitors here.
Not being known for tremendous storylines, this Kirby game is not about to set a precedent. This is mostly because it’s a lot like the original game with a couple of new games thrown in. In reality this game is not just a whole game, but more about twelve half-games put into one collection of games. Each game has its own unique little story though, which is fresh and they do not all rely upon the same sort of plot. That being said they do rely on the usual Kirby plot. You will find yourself usually just traversing a few stages until you meet the big boss of the mini-game. Whether it is King Dedede, Metaknight or Dyna Blade the game has not really changed over the years in that respect. The story isn’t exactly fresh, but with a game like Kirby you are not anticipating a great storyline. These sorts of games are your usual array of platforming fun with special abilities thrown into the mix.
Visually the game looks very pretty on the DS, seeming a lot more vibrant and colourful than what I can remember it being on the Super Nintendo. The vibrance has become something that is syndicated with a Kirby game, so you’ll find your usual sort of environments. You will notice a lot of your old favourites exist in some form inside this game and there are even some new ones which feel right at home in the Kirby universe. Whether you are traversing the hills of Green Greens or exploring the depths of Eternal Planet Half-moon. None of the locales are at all prone to feeling different or out of place with our tiny pink ball of puff running around, eating his enemy’s whole.
The game’s presentation is visually appealing, right down to the use of very brief 3D cut scenes to set the theme and mood for the start of each of the game’s main adventures. While it is not a massive feature, it was still nice to see that it was added into the game. These scenes give the game a somewhat fresher feeling than it initially would have had if you were just playing through games you’d played before.
Two of the gaming world’s biggest pigs.
What this game represents is the essence of Kirby gameplay. How so? Well, it’s pretty much your stock-standard gameplay. You can consume your foes and steal abilities from some of them. And from here you can use said abilities to create a helper friend who will make the already easy game even easier. There is not a lot to talk about here that you won’t have already experienced in past Kirby games. Level layout is either based on traditional games or the recent and incredibly frustrating Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (or the Great Maze in the Subspace Emissary if you prefer). Either way you slice it, it’s a traditional Kirby game. This should not come as a surprise, Kirby games aren’t known for shaking things up too much. However there is one element which has been missing from too many Kirby games now, where the Hell is the ability mixing mechanic that we saw in Kirby 64? That alone made the abilities a lot more interesting to use and collect. I’ve always wanted to mix abilities in a 2D Kirby game, and it seems that once again it has not been added. Sigh. Oh well, maybe next time Nintendo will put it back in there. You won’t find this game hard, even when you finish it and come back through it as Metaknight. There are no sections that you should get stuck at and as a result people will probably blow through this game in a matter of hours.
Although you’ll blow through the game in hours it works really well for short trips or quick doses of Kirby action. Very much akin to Nintendo’s pick up and play ideal that the Nintendo DS seems to embody. So it’s re-release and new coat of paint makes perfect sense when you think of it from that point of view. But unlike fellow games like New Super Mario Bros., I wouldn’t recommend sitting down in the comfort of your home to play it through unless you really want to because it won’t take long to knock it down. As well as the half-games it features a few mini-games such as Samurai Kirby and Snack Tracks. There are about five of these mini-games, and none of them hold enough depth or enough replayability to keep you coming back to them.
Incoming!!.
The controls remain virtually unchanged from past Kirby games. The ‘A’ and ‘Y’ buttons will make Kirby jump, the ‘B’ will make Kirby inhale and the ‘X’ button will cause Kirby to use his ability and turn it into a ‘helper’ character. The only possibly new feature I can think of is using the ‘L’ button to defend, but this may have also been present in Squeak Squad, I cannot really remember perfectly well. The one positive is that the game doesn’t really force the DS’ touch capabilities onto you unless you are playing the new mini-games. Otherwise you are pretty much free to use the buttons to do pretty much everything. This is a nice feature as it would have been disappointing to see Nintendo push touch functionality on us. It features a bit more in the new games than in the classic Super Star games though, so be wary of that.
Anyone who has played Kirby games in the past will not be surprised when I say that the soundtrack is pretty much same old, same old. You will be greeted by classic and new tunes alike. But they will all sound the same with their usual upbeat bleeping at you directly out of the DS speakers. I would have felt alienated hearing a different song instead of the classic King Dedede theme though, so one might say it’s welcoming to hear the classic music of Kirby still alive and well. In terms of sound effects it also remains pretty much the same. One word can sum up the music and sound of the Kirby Super Star Ultra soundscape (mostly the new stuff, as the old stuff shouldn’t change) and that would be: safe. Obviously this is always the best path to take, especially when you are adding features to a port. There would have been no sense confusing the gamer with new sounding music when they had just had their ears attuned to bleeps.
Kirby’s trying his hand at RPG’s as well… well, not really.
When you beat everything in this game once, there won’t really be much reason to come back and beat it again beyond boredom. The game attempts to add some replayability in the form of letting you play most games with a friend, but there isn’t much more fun to be found here. Kirby fans might find stuff, but really the overall gameplay experience is very shallow after you finish it once. This is a shame, because I remember going back and playing through Super Star a fair bit back on the Super Nintendo. Maybe its charm wasn’t strong enough to last a second incarnation for myself, or maybe I’m too old to enjoy playing a Kirby game through more than once. But either way, I didn’t think much of what this game offered in terms of replayability. You may differ, but even its co-op options didn’t interest me very much.
When it’s all said and done, Kirby Super Star Ultra is by no means a bad game. But it is definitely a game that feels a lot shallower than what it really could have been. Had they taken the time to expand on the extra games then maybe there could have been more hope for this game. Give it a try, but don’t get your hopes up for a Kirby classic. You will find yourself enjoying some parts of it. Heck, playing as Metaknight was awesome the first time I unlocked that section of the game. But it soon sunk in on me that I was just playing through all the Kirby sections of the game and surely enough the enjoyment wore off. It should have been more enjoyable, and would have been if it was actually a new game where I got to fight Kirby or something. But no, the only thing that slightly interested me turned out to be nothing like what it could have been. Sorry Kirby, once again you’ll have settled for the “it’s a passable game” stamp. But do not fret; you have had some amazing games in the past. We will just continue waiting for another exceptional one. As far as ports go, it is decent but nothing special.
PROS
+Classic Kirby fun.
+Large amount of abilities to utilize.
+Decent amount of games.
+You get to play as Metaknight.
+Nice little clips at the start and end of each game.
+Works well as a handheld game with segmented gameplay.
CONS
-Feels a bit stale by the end.
-When you do play as Metaknight, all you are doing is replaying the Kirby parts.
-Incredibly easy.
-Lacks something that has made past Kirby games great.
-You can blow through this game very quickly.
*LMX*
