NESessities of Life – Kirby’s Adventure

Genre
Action

Dominant Algorithm
Run/Jump/Fly

Style (Delivered in Pun Form)
Eat-Cute

Game play
You are the guide as Kirby goes on his titular adventure. Navigate a variety different worlds, eating enemies and absorbing their powers as you go. These worlds are each littered with mini-bosses and punctuated with a maxi-boss.

The world-map unfolds in a unique manner. As you complete levels, portions of the map will become accessible. However, gaining full access to the world-map is dependent on you finding all the secrets in each level. The system is inventive without ever feeling oppressive. It never punishes you for speeding through the game, only rewards you for exploration.

Sweetness
A plethora of powers and mountain of mini-games keep the replay value extremely high. Also, the difficulty level is right in that sweet-spot, a decided rarity considering the console.

Weakness
For how sophisticated the game play is, the backgrounds are surprisingly bland and repetitive. Despite the clever names applied to the various worlds, they all look that same.

Invaluable Life Lessons Which I Still Apply To This Day:

1. You can absorb the strength of your foes by eating them whole.
2. Rewards are granted through ambitious exploration and confident adventuring. Never back down from the mysterious or the unknown.
3. Go for the gold! Even though the small prize might be easier to catch, the big one is worth more. And, with a little bit of careful timing, you will catch it. YOU WILL ACHIEVE YOUR DREAM! KEEP DREAMING, YOU BEAUTIFUL DREAMER!

Still Fun?
Yes. Tight controls, creative game-play, a lead as cute as a button… It all adds up to a perfect storm of 8-bit entertainment. The graphics aren’t anything to write home about. But, even that axiom isn’t universally true. Step out onto the edge of a castle tower and Kirby’s world is rendered in a 3D far beyond what the hardware should be rendering.

Also, languages:

Relevance Satellite to the Paradigm Shift from my Youth:
Kirby was a late generation NES game. At the time of its release, all the major puzzles regarding the system programming had been solved. This allowed the programmers to focus on making the variety of play as diverse and responsive as possible. Furthermore, this was programmed by HAL Laboratories, no strangers to engaging game play (see also: Earthbound).

The NES allows for up to 64 sprites to be displayed at a single time. In an effort to allow more simultaneous characters on screen, the models are fairly small in this game. Hi-def gaming now standard, the experience playing feels positively quaint. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself squinting from time to time.

Kirby was way ahead of the Mario curve in terms of world naming. It wasn’t until the Super Nintendo that Miyamoto was naming the worlds after foods. As early as 1993, Kirby was exploring such needlessly cute-name arenas like the Vegetable Valley, Grape Garden, and Orange Ocean.

Also, the game starts out with a brief tutorial on how to draw Kirby. You can rest assured: There is fan art for this game. Let’s start out with the gory stuff:

Moving on to cute:

And finally, the monochromatic:

Jesse Koester is a film producer working in Tokyo. His work can be seen at www.iceblockfilms.com. Jesse’s pitch bend feature supports frequencies from 54Hz to 28kHz.