While Kirby
has graced Nintendo's video game consoles with a game of
his own for every system, everyone grew apprehensive that
Kirby might just not get a game this time. Earlier in
1996-1997, Kirby had a game to be released called Kirby's
Air Ride, but it was cancelled.
Most fans would agree, that the marketing of Kirby has
always fallen short of his potential, with the fact that
Nintendo releases Kirby games near the end of system's
life, making some of Kirby's games not commonly buyable
today
This made
the release of Kirby 64 even more of a celebration, not
only being the first Kirby game on N64, but the first 3D
Kirby game. While it's not 3D to the point of Zelda or
Donkey Kong 64, the graphics are no doubt enhanced and
flawless, but the game play is strictly 2D. The path of
Kirby in the game is determined and the allowance to
explore the in depth and tempting surroundings is not
possible. Colorful, bright places are found in every
level, and characters match them perfectly.
The story is
simple, but broadens the horizon for future Kirby games,
because this time Kirby isn't fighting evil on his home
planet Popstar, but surrounding planets in the solar
system. Ribbon is a faerie from the planet Ripple Star,
whose prize possession is a crystal. Evil threatens to
take the crystal, but Ribbon selflessly hops on the
crystal and tries to fly with it to a safer destination.
But this strange force is too strong and Ribbon is far
outnumbered as they crash into her, sending her and pieces
of the crystal flying across the solar system.
Luckily,
Ribbon plunges right into Kirby, who is watching the
starry sky. Once Ribbon explains her predicament, the huge
hearted cosmic protector, Kirby, makes her mission and his
one, to collect the shards and rid Ripple Star and the
solar system of this strange evil. King Dedede, Adeleine,
Ribbon and Waddle Dee join forces with Kirby as well,
after Kirby frees them from their possession.
While the
game is fun and exciting with action everywhere, many felt
the game was somewhat childish. Kirby's game play has
changed in the fact that he can no longer fly unlimited -
it seems his years of eating make him tire easily, so he
can only fly short periods of time. Also, Kirby seems so
weighted down his running has been extremely impaired and
he moves rather slow. The levels are short, easy and the
abilities have been cut to the standard 8 elements.
However, the new feature is that Kirby can double up on
abilities to make combinations, for example, taking Spark
and Ice together can turn Kirby into a food spewing
refrigerator!
Setting this
game apart from the rest of Kirby's games, is the fact
that the original creator of Kirby who worked on every
Kirby game to date, didn't have any part in this one.
Maybe the game is too short and easy and aimed towards
children, but it definitely is a great treasure to Kirby
fans, easy or not. The graphics make a pleasure to view
and the game play is overall smooth.
While the
game can be beaten easily within a few hours with
persistent playing, finding the hidden shards aren't
entirely as easy, especially in some of the later levels.
Based upon how well you unlock secrets in the game, you
can win enemy cards, a boss challenge, movie theatre or
forget the secrets and play the mini games! Whatever is
said about Kirby 64, it is fresh to see Kirby in 3D and
many characters (and enemies) once more that we all
remember well.
